Work Text:
“Gun, MacCready.” Odessa held her hand out expectantly, her expression stern. “Now, please.”
MacCreedy curled a lip at her disdainfully, very clearly not having it, and tucked his rifle in close to his body. “I really wish you wouldn't. You’ll make the metal warp, and then I'll be out of a gun.”
Liar.
“And then I'll buy you a new one, now give it.” She snapped her fingers impatiently, but made no move to come after him for it. She just waited for MacCready to give in.
He always gave in.
He tried to turn away from her, ignore her, but he could feel her gaze boring into the back of his head and he couldn't take it any more. “Gahhhh, alright!” he growled, turning and shoving his rifle roughly into her outstretched hand. He stalked away to pout near the campfire they’d set up for the evening, sitting roughly on the ground to drive home how obnoxious she was being. Odessa followed right behind him with a little bounce in her step, snatching his hat off his head and placing it on hers as she sat down cross-legged next to him. MacCready reclaimed it immediately, but by this point he had half a grin on his face.
Odessa had the other half.
He watched, half-interested, half-annoyed, as she pulled a combat knife from the sheath on her thigh and began to etch a little vertical line into the barrel of his gun. There were eight others just like it, all in a neat little row.
“Think of it as a resume,” she offered helpfully, scraping the tip of her knife into the still-warm metal of the gun. Her hands were smeared with blood, her face was dirty, and her pant leg was singed from where a molotov had landed at her feet. But Odessa didn't seem phased by any of it. During the gunfight they were just in, hardly thirty minutes prior, MacCready could swear that she was enjoying herself. That she was having fun that evening, the way she entered the Raider camp with a battle calm on her face, smirking as she pieced through the defenders left inside. Her aim was close to impeccable, and she was fast, spending hardly any time at all scoping her victims before she pulled the trigger and cashed in on some bastard soul’s karma. It terrified MacCready, in all honesty. She was terrible in close quarters combat, though - he had saved her more than once from a Raider attempting to lodge a machete in her neck while she fumbled with the revolver at her hip while still gripping her rifle, the panic slowing her brain to a crawl.
That’s why he got the tick marks etched into the barrel of his gun.
“What’s a resume?” he asked, picking a piece of debris out of her hair and tossing it into the campfire.
“No one does that anymore? It’s a record of all the jobs you've had - your responsibilities and achievements, how long and where. There's more to it, but that's basically it. You’d show it to people who were interested in hiring you.” Done with her scratching, she wiped the barrel with a rag and held it up to inspect her handywork.
“Sounds like a lot of work just to get some actual work,” he answered dully, snatching his gun back while she had it held out in front of her. For him, it had always been as simple as saying he was good at something, and people usually took his word for it.
“So you're saying this is my resume? You trying to drop a hint that I should start looking for employment elsewhere, Boss? What do I do, anyway? Just show ‘em my gun and say, ‘My last employer was a crazy woman who found it necessary to mark up my favorite gun after every fight we got ourselves into.’?”
“MacCready, have some pride in your work!” she admonished, slapping at his leg playfully. “You hold that gun in their face and you say, ‘See these marks? Each one of these marks represents a time that I saved Odessa Sloane’s life. The leader of the Minutemen is a bumbling idiot that would have been hugged by a Greenskin Suicider months ago if it hadn't been for me.’”
“Stop ittttttttt,” he groaned, sticking a finger in her ear and making her laugh and shy away. “I’ve never seen anyone more unafraid of death than you. You've got bigger balls than those Brotherhood meatheads clanking around in their bulletproof tin cans. And you never answered my other question....”
MacCready’s expression grew more serious and a little strained, and he stared at her until she realized with a little gasp why he suddenly looked so tense and worried.
“Oh god, no! I'm sorry. No, Mac, you don't have to be worried. I… no, you - we’re good. I'm not letting go of you unless it’s on your terms. I just meant… you know, if you ever wanna pick up extra work out there - maybe a quick job here and there - you've got some proof to show you're good for it, you know?”
She wanted to cringe at herself for tripping over her words so bad. The idea of MacCready even thinking she didn't want him around any more hurt her feelings. She liked him too much. Like liked him liked him, but she knew she was being hopeful expecting him to feel the same. He still called her ‘Boss’ too much. Still turned his back to her if they had to share a mattress. Still went off on his own sometimes after they set up camp, where he’d find a spot 100 yards or so away and burn through a cigarette or two. His eyes would be on the horizon, but Odessa could tell he was somewhere else - somewhere she wasn't quite welcome to intrude upon yet.
“What do you mean, ‘extra work’?” He was truly perplexed now. “You're saying I can take jobs while I still work for you? You'd… you'd be paying me to work for someone else, Boss.”
Odessa shrugged, laying her arm across her lap to busy herself with her Pip-Boy in an attempt to hide the blush on her cheeks. “Yeah, I mean… you know, maybe those times when I have to take Preston or Nick with me - you'd just be sitting around Sanctuary twiddling your thumbs, listening to Marcy bitch all day. Might as well go make some extra caps if you can.” She eyed him without turning her head, wondering how interested (or appalled) he was by the prospect.
“Yeah, but… Dess, I still help out around the place when you have me stay,” he complained, unsure as to why it suddenly seemed like she was suggesting he find new bosses and new jobs. “I help with the garden and upkeep. I take night watch, mostly, so everyone can sleep, but I earn those caps.” He was close to being upset now, his face set with an expression bordering on anger. Looming betrayal, maybe? Displeasure, definitely.
Odessa’s hand settled on his knee, her touch so light, and for a moment he was so astonished he nearly forgot what he was getting so upset about. He looked down dumbly at her hand, then at her, and god her expression nearly tore his heart in two.
“Mac. Stop. I know, I know. And I appreciate it, I really do. I just… I would give you all the caps you need, right now, if I could. But since I can’t, I'm offering you a way to make them. I want you to come back. Like… if you take off on me, ever , I will hunt you down. You’ve seen what I'm capable of with half a lead from some of these sun-baked settlers.”
A grin broke across MacCready’s face, his scowl dissolving and his eyes brightening as he latched onto her jab. “Tell ya there's some Greenskins ‘around the corner’ and it ends up being a full day’s walk away?”
“Bingo.” She patted his leg triumphantly, then hoisted herself back up onto her feet. MacCready searched for an excuse to touch her back, even if it was just to touch her arm, but she was already dusting the dirt and dead grass from the seat of her pants, and there was no reason for him to do anything but sit there and run his thumb over the scarred barrel of his sniper rifle.
“Listen, I'm gonna get some shuteye. Wake me up in three or four hours so we can trade off, alright?”
MacCready nodded absently, eyes on the gun in his lap.
Or maybe they were on the spot where her hand had touched his knee.
“Night, Boss…”
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They had stationed at a half-obliterated shack somewhere south of Walden Pond, effectively in the middle of nowhere. If anything was going to give MacCready a problem that night, it would be the wildlife. Yao Guai, if he had to put money on it. Maybe some Stingwings. Nothing he couldn’t hear coming in time to take care of before it got too close.
He sat by the fire, mostly, gun at his side, lost in thought. He had been traveling with Odessa for five months now, but not exclusively. Sometimes she needed to take one of the others with her for a few days, even a week or two at times, but she always sought MacCready out when she came back to Sanctuary, and they’d go off again on another adventure. He enjoyed the little breaks here and there - he got to walk around barefoot if he wanted, got to sleep as much as he needed, got to eat with more regularity than he was used to.
But it was lonely. He didn’t really connect with anyone in Sanctuary the way he did with Odessa. They could crack jokes with each other as easily as they could walk an hour or more without saying a word, and there was nothing awkward about it. They just got along . The Sanctuary folks, on the other hand, always gave MacCready a wide berth. He was an outsider to them - a hired gun that the General needed for whatever reason. Preston tried to make small talk with him sometimes, but it was always comparing guns and scopes and war stories, and their conversations always ended awkwardly, as if at some point neither one of them felt like putting in the effort of being genial anymore. Piper tried the hardest to make him feel included, but his heart was never in it. He just wanted Odessa to come back so they could go shoot stuff.
The more he was with her, the closer he was to having the courage to ask her to help him deal with Winlock and Barnes. He didn’t want to put her in that danger, but the woman fought like a devil freshly-escaped from hell’s fires, and he knew that if he wanted a chance at sticking it to the Gunners once and for all, Odessa was the ticket.
He heard her make a noise in the cabin behind him, and he peered over his shoulder, half-expecting her to be stretching in the doorway, ready to take her half of the watch.
But it had only been two hours, and he could still see her curled up on the dingy mattress on the floor against the far wall.
He regarded her for a moment, wondering if she was cold and if he should fish out the old plaid blanket she insisted on carrying in her pack everywhere, when she lashed out, crying something he couldn’t quite understand.
MacCready was on his feet in an instant, picking his way through the busted-up shack and all its rubble to get to her. Her eyes were clenched shut, her mouth set in a grimace, her fists balled so tight he could see the white of her knuckles through the skin.
He dropped to his knees, hands hovering over her helplessly, unsure if he should shake her awake or leave her dream to play out and hope she didn’t remember it when she woke up.
“No,” she moaned, and his eyes darted to her face. She was breathing heavily through her nose, as if she had been running, and her fist punched weakly at the mattress. MacCready faltered, then set his hand on top of hers, trying to get her to stop, but that only made her freak out even more, her feet kicking feebly and her torso twisting as if she was trying to free herself from being pinned down.
“Hey, Boss.” MacCready’s hands were hovering again, not sure how best to wake her up, afraid that if he touched her again it would make something worse happen in her dream.
“Boss, wake up, come on.” He saw her eyebrows furrow, but she was still squirming, still breathing hard. He patted her shoulder, and she twitched away from him, sucking in air through her teeth like she had been stung.
“Declan!” she cried. “Deck, no! NO!”
“Odessa! DESS!” He took her by the shoulders and shook, and her eyes flew open, white and wild, and found his face in the darkness. MacCready’s eyes mirrored her confusion and fear, and the second he took his hands off her she flew into a sitting position and flung her arms around his torso and hid her face in his chest, her body shaking with silent sobs.
Again, MacCready’s hands hovered in the air, still slightly terrified of what he had just brought her out of, but slowly they settled into place around her, one hand wrapping all the way around her waist and the other rubbing her back gently. He wanted to ask what happened, what she had dreamed of, who Declan was.
But he could make a damn good guess.
“Hey hey hey, it’s okay now,” he rumbled, voice low and quiet. “It’s just you and me here, alright? No one else. You’re safe.” He was vaguely aware that he was swaying back and forth with her ever so slightly, a remnant from the days when he had to rock Duncan back to sleep after the boy woke up terrified in the middle of the night. His heart broke to remember that, and he hugged Odessa a little tighter and placed a chaste kiss to the top of her head, for which he was immediately embarrassed to have done.
“Thank you,” he heard her say, her grip loosening around him. She drew in a shaky breath and pulled away from him, wiping the tears from her face. She looked at him, almost embarrassed, but still too stressed out to care that this was the first time she had actively sought out comfort from him. From anyone, really.
“Bad dream,” she confirmed. “About… the vault.”
MacCready simply nodded. He knew about the vault. He knew she was the only one to make it out. He knew she had left a husband and baby behind, but that was all.
“You wanna talk about it?” he ventured. He had never really told anyone about what happened with Lucy and Duncan, and he had suffered from it. He still suffered from it.
Odessa shook her head, silently apologizing, and MacCready couldn’t blame her.
“Alright then. Go back to sleep if you can, alright? You’ve still got a few more hours.” He made a move to get up, but her hand darted to his wrist, holding him down on her level.
“Please don’t.” Her voice was quiet. Meek, even, and that wasn’t a word MacCready thought he’d ever need to use to describe her. “Just… stay here for a bit longer. Please.”
The corner of MacCready’s mouth pulled up in a little grin, and he settled himself into a more comfortable sitting position on the mattress next to her. Odessa released her grasp on his wrist, and he caught her hand as it fell away from him. When she didn’t retaliate or pull away, he began to sweep his thumb over her knuckles, his eyes hazy and unfocused as his mind wandered back to Lucy.
“I had a wife,” he admitted quietly. “Lucy. You remind me of her sometimes. She was the nicest person I’d ever met.” He fell silent, his smile fading, his thumb no longer moving against Odessa’s skin. She didn’t pull her hand away though. She just looked at him, waiting to see if he’d tell her more. She didn’t want to press the subject, but she desperately wanted to know more about his life.
“I think I would have liked her a lot,” she said quietly, an encouraging smile creeping along her face. MacCready nodded, and even in the dark she could see his eyes starting to redden and glisten with repressed tears. Odessa, of all people, could sympathize with MacCready in that moment, and she squeezed his hand gently.
“Let’s get some sleep, Mac. We’ll be safe tonight.”
He nodded again. He wasn’t tired, but he didn’t want to be alone just then, either. Odessa settled back down on the mattress and scooted to the far side, and MacCready followed suite in the space left for him, taking off his hat and laying it at the head of the mattress. Their hands never disconnected, and when he laid down, he did so facing her. Her eyes closed before he was even settled, and he watched her for a while, trying to let Lucy fade away and Odessa take over. He wondered if Declan, the name she had called out in her nightmare, was her husband, and if she still loved him. He wondered if the way he felt about her would ever go away, or if she would despise him if she knew, considering they had both recently lost spouses, she much more recently than him.
MacCready felt her hand squeeze his, and his focus snapped back to her face, but she was already dead asleep, her mouth open just the tiniest bit. He held his breath and edged closer to her, so that their bent knees touched, and his face was only a hand’s length away from hers. Her breath was soft and even, her face serene. He raised his head, faltered for a moment, then leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her cheek before retreating back to his spot.
He wasn’t sure how long he stared at her before his eyes finally closed, but the terrors that had plagued Odessa’s sleep left them both alone for the remainder of the night, and when he woke up that morning, he smiled to find her fingers laced with his.
‘This,’ MacCready thought to himself, ‘Is the start to something good.’