Chapter Text
Pushing back the flap of the medical tent, Cyrus winced as the evening sun hit him full in the face from its perch low on the hilly horizon. Camp Forlorn Hope had been dyed a deep crimson in its fading light while he had been busy assisting Doctor Richards in surgery, and now the sun was threatening to disappear entirely and strand him there for the night.
With a long sigh, he shuffled a cigarette out of its pack and held it between his lips as he took a seat on a pile of tires near the unlit neon sign that marked the medical tent’s entrance. Taking off his thick-rimmed glasses, he massaged the bridge of his nose as the adrenaline rush that had been sustaining him for the past several hours slipped from his body. Suddenly, he was bone-tired in a way that even trekking across the Mojave had never hit him with. Hearing the tent flap rustle followed by the familiar putter of ED-E’s engine over his shoulder, Cyrus let the remnants of the day fade into the background along with his cares. For the moment, at least, they were all still alive. For tonight, that would be enough.
Cyrus heard the tent flap part again just as he struck a match and lit the cigarette between his lips. Even as he took his first deep drag, the astringent bite of disinfectant mixed with the stench of infection clung to the walls of his nostrils.
“Excellent job.” Richards lit his own cigarette as he joined the courier in marveling at the coming dusk. “Where did you learn how to do all that? I don’t think that I could have done much better myself. Very impressive.”
Cyrus hesitated, taking another drag as he processed both the compliment and the question. Whenever conversation veered towards his past, it was always a mental tango of whether or not to give an honest answer or an easy lie that would keep the conversation flowing.
Before he could mutter any smart deflection, however, Richards took the opportunity inherent in his pause to deliver a gut punch of a follow-up.
“Have you ever thought about signing on to be an NCR doc? I know I haven’t exactly been selling it, but you seem eager to help out and, well, heaven knows Hope isn’t the only place hurting for your kind of expertise.”
Cyrus felt the very wind knocked out of him, and his sense of snark desert him as he was left reeling.
“Thanks. Means a lot coming from someone like yourself. But I don’t have the license for an official position like that. I’m just a courier with some first aid training. Happy to help out where I can, I just don’t have the qualifications for anything as major or official as all that.”
The doctor’s warm smile cooled, leaving Cyrus wondering if the man had been counting on the backup rather than just being polite. Richards eyed him, taking a long, thoughtful drag before he continued.
“Word of advice, Dear? Might want to cook up a more believable lie if you’re going to tip your hand as hard as you did. Sure, the rank-and-file will buy that. Hell, the brass would too, for better or worse. But you might want to be more careful around guys like me who’ll know the difference between an ad lib prescription and an ad-libbed excuse.”
Cyrus followed a pair of soldiers with his eyes from one side of camp all the way to the mess hall. With the palette of the sunset spilled across the compound from one gate to the other, he couldn’t tell if it was mud or blood caked on their boots.
“Not that it’s any of my business.” Even though Richards’s usual, easy chipperness had returned, Cyrus could have sworn the man’s tone was a hint more impersonal than before. “Just watch yourself around folks who have a vested interest in catching you being anything less than the paragon of the Republic the brass are selling you as.”
“I’m not even part of the damn Republic,” Cyrus muttered indignantly.
“You’ve already managed to earn yourself a reputation, and a good one at that. No point in spoiling it if your goal really is to continue helping out. The NCR is pretty good at driving off their best hopes and prospects. No need to give them half a reason.”
“They’re welcome to dig up all the dirt they can on me. Would be illuminating to say the least.”
Reflexively, Cyrus reached down to where he normally would have set his rucksack - if he hadn’t wandered out of the tent in a haze without it. He silently cursed himself; what he needed was whiskey, not a cig. For a moment, he considered grabbing a bottle from the pack he’d strapped to ED-E, but that amount of added effort in front of Richards would have looked desperate.
Sighing out a cloud of smoke, Cyrus stared at the half-burned cigarette between his fingers as he weighed his next move. Honesty could go a long way in the right hands, but there was always a risk. That’s what made it so precious in a place as ready to swallow you up as the Mojave. Still, he had little to lose and enough to gain that the opportunity to be straightforward for once was tortuously tantalizing.
“I don’t remember a thing past waking up on a slab in Goodsprings, like, a month ago.” Cyrus tapped two fingers to the side of his temple. “Took two bullets to the brain, apparently. And they took my everything with them.”
The next few minutes passed in relative silence, the pop of distant gunfire the only intrusion.
“Careful what you wish for. If you don’t know which way the wind might blow, the past can be more damning than the present.”
The courier shrugged.
“I’ve got nothing to lose, no title or position to defend. I don’t really care about knowing that much, either. Still, saint or sinner, might be nice to know the score, if there’s anything to know.”
Richards gave a sigh, one Cyrus could tell was a sign of resignation. It sparked an odd and unpleasant sensation within him, as though he was - for the first time - being forced to feel guilty about his cavalier disregard for his own well-being. He was used to getting praised for throwing himself into obvious peril, and even when people did express some concern, it was easy enough to reason that others - even people whose opinions he valued - simply didn’t understand his situation. But something implicit in Richard’s words thwarted that strategy.
“I appreciate the warning, Doc, I do, but-”
“Please.” The man held up a hand. “‘Richards’ is fine.”
“He sure is.” The quip earned him a chuckle, and Cyrus leaned back on the tires as his discomfort abated.
“Oh ho. Literal and figurative smooth operator, huh? You’re just the whole package, aren’t you?”
“Though, last names still feel a bit formal, don’t you think?”
The man gave him a coy smirk.
“Fair enough. Alex.”
“Alex,” Cyrus cooed, the name like mesquite syrup on his tongue. Its texture sent a flutter through his heart as well as his dick. “I’d give you my last name in fairness, but to be honest I can’t even guarantee you that ‘Cyrus’ is my real first name. So, I don’t know how much it would amount to.”
“That’s all right. I’m not the nosy sort, anyhow.”
“Right. Well, to bring us back around to how we got here: Alex, I appreciate the advice. I just don’t see the point in worrying too much about the unknown. If I don’t have any control over it, why should I let it have any control over me?”
“That’s one way to look at it,” the army doctor conceded. “Another is that the unknown takes more lives in a year than the Legion could ever dream of.”
“A little bit of mystery is sexy, though. Right?”
Richards shook his head, juxtaposing the smile on his lips. “Oh, you’re a dangerous one, aren’t you?”
Cyrus smirked at the compliment, even as the doc clicked his tongue at him. He assumed that would be the end of it, but the silence that followed was notably tense.
Eventually, Richards broke the spell.
“You need to take care of yourself out there, Dear. ‘Cause no one else is going to.”
Cyrus scoffed.
“Boone and I look out for one another. And I’ve got ED-E, too. What else could a man ask for?”
Richards frowned. “I didn’t only mean looking out for threats. You also need to think about your mental and emotional health. No offense, but that man has the emotional intelligence of a bloatfly, and I don’t take you to be so bad a judge of character that you wouldn’t have been able to tell me as much.”
Setting his hands on the tire behind himself, Cyrus leaned back to see the older man’s face.
“And what about yourself, hm? Would you be too busy stitching Hopefuls back together to take a walk-in now and then? Assuming I can drag my sorry ass all the way back here.”
The mix of nostalgic pity in the man’s eyes did nothing to dissuade Cyrus’s stiffening erection. It must have been visible with the angle he was leaning back at, as Richards’s eyes flicked briefly to the courier’s crotch. Smirking, the older man quirked an eyebrow at the courier and gave a noncommittal tilt of his head before politely turning his eyes to the camp, where the lanterns were finally being lit.
“Staying the night?”
Cyrus shrugged.
“I need to check in with Polati, tell him your patients are as settled as they can be, see if he needs anything else before we move on. Wanted to check in with Sexton too… Yeah, I’ve got a few things that’ll keep me in camp a while longer, long enough that it’ll be dark by the time I’m done. Sun’s already down; probably shouldn’t go wandering into the minefield. Odds look good.”
“Well then,” Richards said, dropping his cigarette butt into the dust and grinding it out under his boot, “maybe I’ll see you around later this evening, once you’re free. We could-”
A loud groan from the back of the tent cut him off. Cyrus checked the time on his Pip-Boy.
“Huh. Candelaria’s Med-X must have worn off. That was fast.”
One last, long exhale of smoke escaped the doctor’s lips with another weary sigh.
“I’m surprised it did anything for her at this point.”
“Oh?”
He shrugged. “Sorry. Patient confidentiality and all that. Forget I said anything. I’m sure you know the drill.”
“I don’t, actually; not to the letter. Courier, not a doctor. Remember?”
“Keep telling yourself that, Dear,” Richards said, giving him a pat on the shoulder as he turned to lift the tent flap. “Titles don’t make a lick of difference to the people on our tables at the end of the day.”
Cyrus ground the stub of his own cigarette out on the stack of tires before standing and stretching. “I will keep telling myself that, and it’ll keep being true.”
“Of course. Well, come find me when you’re done with your errands.”