Chapter Text
At 11:40 p.m., on a Friday that was relatively peaceful even for the Mojave, Arcade Gannon was bandaging machete wounds on a child who had tripped while hunting a giant rat.
At 11:50 p.m. on the same Friday, he was sitting outside one of the white linen tents in the Old Mormon Fort, staring up at the stars. Quiet moments were a rarity in the wasteland. They were few, short, and far between, and this one was no exception.
At 12:00 a.m., when the night turned over to the next day, his life was thrown into a permanent state of turmoil when with a loud crash, a young man burst through the Fort entrance.
His face was ashen, but smiling as he staggered forwards, clutching his side where a deep red stain was spreading slowly up the thin white fabric of his tank top. A curtain of bright purple hair covered the left side of his head, obscuring it, and his entire body was shaking like a leaf. His eyes were moving wildly from spot to spot, and only stopped when the man focused on Arcade, who had stood up and was staring, mouth agape.
“Hey, you're pretty cute,” he cooed, voice coming out cracked and trembling. “Also, I think I’ve been shot. That’s a good enough reason to get you to touch me, right?”
He laughed once, and then abruptly collapsed on the ground. Arcade stared for another moment before snapping out of his stunned fugue.
“Someone help me carry him inside! Get some stimpaks and bandages, he’s bleeding out!”
At 9:00 the next morning, Arcade watched as the stranger struggled his way back towards consciousness, big brown eyes blinking open slowly.
“Oh fuck,” were the first words out of his mouth.
The man was lying on a dirty mattress on the ground in one of the smaller tents, and as he tried to sit up, Arcade made his presence known.
“I wouldn't do that if I were you,” he said, watching the man’s head immediately snap to the side. “You're stable right now, but if you move too quickly you’ll rip your stitches. You should count yourself lucky that you didn't die of shock or blood loss.”
The man snorted. “Getting shot isn't that fuckin’ shocking,” he said dismissively.
“That's not-” Arcade started, then sighed. “In any case, you're alive now, but you shouldn't move for a while.”
A scowl crossed the man’s face, knitting his brow, making his plump lower lip stick out just slightly. There were birthmarks below it, Arcade noticed. He hadn't seen them before, possibly due to him focusing on the copious amounts of blood leaking from the man’s side occupying his attention.
“Well, I sure as shit can't stay here. I’ve got an appointment to keep, doc.”
“And I’m sure it's important, Mr…” Arcade trailed off.
The man grinned. “Since you've already seen me shirtless, you can call me Tex.”
“Okay… Tex.” Arcade tasted the name in his mouth, feeling it out as he said it. “I’m Arcade. And if you try to get up right now, best case scenario is you're back here within an hour and I have to stitch you up again.”
“Fuckin’ super. And what if I try to leave now?”
“I would have to restrain and possibly sedate you.”
“Normally that would be a turnon and I’d let you do whatever the hell you want, but goddamn. I don't have the time to fuckin’ lie here, doc.”
Tex turned his head to the side, purple fringe obscuring the part of his face visible to Arcade. His shoulders were stiff, with either frustration or anger or both. Arcade sighed again, rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses.
“So, Tex… what do you do?” He asked eventually, trying to ease the other man out of stony silence.
Silence persisted for another beat. Then, Tex started laughing.
“I’m a mailman,” he said, and kept laughing.
At 10:30, Julie called Arcade out of his tent to help her sedate a man who had been pulled in high on Psycho, and had been threatening the doctors.
At 11:00, Arcade returned to the tent, and found it empty of both his patient, and all of that patient’s weapons.
“God damnit,” he murmured under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.
On the plus side, Tex couldn't have gotten far. He was injured, and carrying a gigantic bag full of guns, food, and what Arcade had guessed was copious quantities of alcohol when he’d given the contents of it a once-over. With that in mind, he told Julie he needed to go get something, sorry, but she’d have to deal with the sleeping junkie on her own. Julie frowned, but the look in her eyes made it obvious that she knew exactly what was going on.
“He's probably heading towards Vegas,” she said. “Ones like him almost always are.”
Arcade nodded, and headed out of the fort.
At 11:15, he found Tex. The man was arguing with a robot in front of the entrance to the Strip.
“Look, I’m only a hundred caps short, and I’m totally fuckin’ good for it!” As Arcade approached, he could see that Tex was grabbing at his side again, and grimacing. “My boss is your boss! You know that, right?”
“You do not pass the credit check,” the Securitron droned, and Tex let out a noise of frustration. “Please return when you have at least 2,000 caps.”
“FUCK your fuckdamn credit check you wheely piece of shit!”
“Move along, please,” the Securitron replied, ignoring Tex’s petulant fuming and threats to push it over.
Arcade stepped up, placing a hand on Tex’s shoulder, and felt the man bristle under his touch, entire body immediately stiffening. “He was just leaving.”
“Fuck.”
Despite the aura of murderous rage seeping out of him like water from a leaky tap, Tex allowed himself to be escorted back to the Fort, limping slightly as he went. Towards the end of the walk, every step made him wince and gasp in pain, and blood leaked out from between the fingers clutching at his side. Once he was safely seated, Arcade peeled off his bandages and looked disapprovingly at him.
“See, I told you this would happen. You tore your stitches.” He reached for the rubbing alcohol and a needle. “I’m going to have to redo them. It's a good thing you didn't get past the gate, though- if you had kept going, you would definitely have passed out from blood loss. The Securitrons are good at a lot of things, but first aid isn’t one of them.”
Tex snorted. “Yeah, you're a regular fuckin’ genius, doc,” he grumbled. “Why did you come after me anyway? Can't pay you- I need the money I have- and clearly if you want to fuck me instead you'll have to wait a while. Unless you have a thing for sticking it in people’s gaping gunshot wounds. You don’t, do you?”
Setting his mouth, Arcade ignored the other man waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Instead, he dug his needle into Tex’s side.
“I’m helping you because it’s the right thing to do, and because of Hippocrates,” he replied, hands moving nimbly, thin thread pulling skin shut.
“Hippocrates? Is he one of those Legion guys?” Arcade suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.
“No. He was Greek, not Roman, and he lived almost 2,500 years ago.” Tex seemed to have relaxed a great deal, and was staring up at Arcade with big, curious eyes.
It's like he's a child, Arcade thought, biting his lip. A child with an overactive libido and some very unhealthy habits.
“So, how did you get shot?” He asked, trying to make conversation.
“First time, or second time?” Arcade paused, eyes moving from his work to Tex’s face, which appeared to be mildly amused by his stunned silence.
“How are you alive right now?” Tex laughed, then winced as the needle inside him jiggled slightly.
“Well, that’s, uh. That’s kinda complicated.”
At 12:30, Arcade had long finished his stitches, and Tex was just finishing his story. The question of “how are you alive” hadn’t been answered yet, and with every passing minute, Arcade grew more and more concerned for the safety and longevity of the man he now knew as the courier.
“So anyways, I’m heading to Vegas now. I’m short a coupla caps but I don’t know, there’s never a shortage of people who want stuff dead or want some ass.” He shrugged. Arcade looked vaguely mortified. “I figure I find Benny, fuck him up, and get paid. Then maybe I find a new job.”
“And you have a plan to get your weapons past the security check, avoid or kill all of Benny’s goons, and take him down quickly enough that he won’t flee the scene?” Arcade asked, rubbing his temples.
Another shrug. “Uh. I don’t know. They do weapons security checks?” Tex scratched at the shaved part of his head, rubbing a hand over the brown fuzz there. “Fuck. I don’t know, I’ll fuckin’... Tear his throat out with my teeth or something. His people’ll respect me as the new alpha.”
“And how exactly were you going to ‘tear his throat out’ when you couldn’t even stand up straight?”
“Uh…”
It was a miracle the courier had managed to get this far, and it would be a miracle if he managed to get any farther without being shot to pieces again. And Arcade Gannon had lived in the wasteland too long to believe in miracles.
He cleared his throat. “Would you like to hear a counteroffer to you entering the Tops and immediately being gunned down by twenty SMG carrying Chairmen?”
“Sure, doc. Shoot.”
“I would really appreciate if you stopped calling me that,” Arcade muttered under his breath. A little louder, he continued: “Let me come with you. I want to help people in other parts of the wasteland, and I can back you up, and stitch you up again if you need it. I can even help with the credit check, if you would prefer to not prostitute yourself.” And hopefully, I can prevent you from pursuing any more self-destructive behavior.
Tex stared at him for a moment, something unreadable in his eyes. Subconsciously, Arcade felt himself fidget.
“Sure, what the hell. Like I said, you’re cute, and you seem like you’re a lot more smart than me.”
“Smarter,” Arcade corrected, pointedly ignoring the complement, wondering already if he would regret this decision.
“Yeah, yeah, no need to brag.”
At 1:30, there was no going back.