Chapter Text
“Do you ever think of what you could’ve done differently?”
Brown and green eyes stared at him intensely, almost through him, as if looking for the answer before he could say it.
“Just in general. In life.”
Boone inhaled, mouth as dry as the air around them as the trudged forward through the sand, no discernible path to follow, just faith in his companion’s skill and PipBoy. There was a deeper meaning in her question that was indiscernible to him; María didn’t often stop randomly once they were on a mission, she barely liked setting up camp when they were exhausted, but she’d turned so suddenly to ask him a question that he’d almost walked right into her.
“Are you looking for a real answer, or advice?” He asked after a moment, never letting his eyes rest on her for too long; perhaps part of an irrational idea that if he couldn’t see what was bothering him, it couldn’t see him either.
His palms were sweaty, making his grip on his rifle slide slightly, and he wasn’t sure it was from the heat.
María ran a hand through her hair, the once-buzzed style having grown out enough in the time they’d been traveling together for her to get bedhead and cowlicks.
She was almost pretty, if you were into the ‘feral wastelander’ thing she had going on; she was dark-skinned and sharp-featured, a scowl almost permanently etched across her face, almost as permanent as the dust that was ever present on the both of them. Her mismatched eyes unnerved him whenever they landed on him. She almost reminded him of a Larkspur flower; interesting to look at, deadly to touch. Even when she wasn’t slaughtering raiders or legionnaires, she was unapproachable.
He’d seen many people in many settlements try to get to know her, perhaps attracted to her somewhat unusual appearance, perhaps the air she carried herself with- and he’d seen her brush them off without so much as a second glance. He didn’t have any room to talk, of course; it had been a long time since he’d smiled, and an even longer time since he’d entertained the idea of entertaining someone else. He wasn’t as mysterious as María, he didn’t tend to attract attention- and that’s how he liked it.
Boone was brought out from his thoughts by a- slightly exasperated, -sigh..
“Would it matter?” María asked, turning and trudging on, the march of her feet lopsided by the constant drag of her left foot.
“We both know you wouldn’t have any advice I’d wanna hear, so whatever answer you have don’t mean nothin’, anyway.”
For a moment, they walked in silence again, with Boone left to decide what she really wanted from him- and whether his answer was one he actually knew.
“No,” Boone finally said, eyeing a pack of geckos that had slowly edged themselves into view.
“I don’t. I don’t have time to get philosophical— or the capacity, if i’m honest. I just focus on shooting the next Legionnaire. Nothin’ else matters anymore.”
He watched her pull her rifle from her back and aim at the nearest gecko, still quite a distance away; he didn’t hear María say anything over the sound of her rifle firing, the body of a gecko dropping almost immediately, and the heads of the rest of the overgrown lizards turned to the culprit.
It was Boone’s turn now, and he picked off one in the back with his usual efficiency- that’s how it went between them, taking turns picking off the geckos as they charged until none were left standing, not a sweat broken between him or María.
She slung her gun over her should and fixed him with a glare that could’ve melted metal.
“You’re an idiot if you think that,” she drawled, something Boone had quickly learned meant she was more annoyed than she was letting on, “and I never had you figured for an idiot. If you get yourself killed chasing some sort of imaginary redemption, or salvation, or whatever other big word you think you’ll find by shootin’ every red uniform you see, I won’t hesitate to bring you back and knock some sense into you, myself, got it?”
María didn’t wait for a response, turning around sharply and stomping as best she could.
Boone didn’t fight the downturn tug that held the corners of his mouth, grasping for some sort of rebuttal he could spit out before it was no longer a discussion, but her surprisingly quick stride stole any hopes of that from his brain, and he was forced to simply simmer as he followed along. He didn’t want to even try to think about what she said past a surface skim, but with the mojave spread out before him and the sun still high in the sky, there was little else to think about as they made their way across the desert.