Chapter Text
Scout has never claimed to be a responsible man.
A charming man? Sure. A fast one? Obviously. A man with an incredible understanding of baseball, women, and the art of lying through his teeth when Heavy asks where his lunch has gone? Undeniably.
But responsible? Absolutely not.
Which was precisely how he found himself leaning against the wall of a sketchy New Mexico gas station at approximately 9:47 pm, counting crumpled bills with the intensity of a Wall Street broker, while the man standing in front of him watched with visible disappointment.
“This is short.” the man grumbled, tone dripping with annoyance.
Scout squinted at the wad in his hands. “No it ain’t.”
The dealer raised an eyebrow.
Scout sighed. “Okay, It is. But listen, this ain’t even for me.”
The man stared at him harder now.
“It’s for my friend,” Scout continued quickly. “She's, like, real stressed.”
“…That does not help your case, son.”
Scout leaned in conspiratorially. “Look, she works herself into the ground, man. I’m tryna do a nice thing.”
There was a long pause of silence between them.
Then the man took the money anyway.
⸻⸻⸻
Scout returned to the base with the exaggerated and arrogant swagger of a man who had just committed a crime and gotten away with it, the marijuana stuffed away in his pocket as he sauntered around.
Chemist was exactly where he expected her to be: hunched over a table in her makeshift lab, hair pulled back, sleeves rolled up, gloves discarded somewhere in the chaos. There were papers everywhere, dozens of beakers strewn about the table or held up on tripods as they were warmed by bunsen burners, The soft hum of machinery permeated through the lab as she furiously jotted something down. Scout lingered in the doorway for a second, watching her scribble away furiously, lips moving in silence as she recalculated something under her breath. The fluorescent lights in her laboratory made her look paler than usual.
His grin softened. “…Hey, Brainiac.”
She startled slightly, then relaxed when she turned around and saw him, the crease between her eyebrows softening as she grinned “Hey Scout, You’re back early?”
“Yeah, well. I missed ya.”
She snorted. “Thats a load of horseshit. You were only gone for forty minutes.”
Scout crossed the room to stand next to her at her table, “And they were the longest forty minutes of my life. honestly I was bored to TEARS without ya.”
She shook her head and turned back to her work, but she smiled, small and tired. Scout noted it and unconsciously filed it away in his mind.
He cleared his throat and turned his head away from her, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “So uh. Hypothetically,”
She didn’t look up as she dripped iodine solution into a glass. “I don’t like where this is going.”
“Hear me out, would ya? Hypothetically, if I bought a small baggy of a certain kinda plant...”
She paused and slowly turned her head to look up at him. Scout held up the little bag like it was evidence in court.
Chemist blinked. “…Scout.”
“I know, I know, but everyone’s doin’ it! The Beatles probably fuckin’ did it.”
“Sure, but it's still illegal, Scout!”
“Oh c'mon, since when did you care about the law? Were in the middle of The Badlands for fucks sake! Medic slices us up with no license, Pyro’s leveled whole towns before, and we murder people on a daily basis.”
She stared at him for a long moment with an annoyed expression, then began rubbing her eyes with her palms.
“I have work to finish.”
Scout’s voice softened. “You’ve been workin’ for days, Chem.”
“But I’m close to a breakthrough.”
“That's what ya said six hours ago too.”
A beat passed between them as she stared at him crossly, she exhaled slowly.
Scout took a step closer. “C’mon, one night. Ya don’t always gotta be the smartest person in the room every second, y'know? Let your brain clock out for once.”
Her gaze flicked to the bag. Then back to him.
She shrugged. “What the hell, sure.”
He smiled and pulled her by the arm as they began walking out of her lab, “Hell yeah! I’ll stay with you the whole time, promise.”
⸻⸻⸻
They ended up on the roof of the base. The desert night was crisp and cool, countless stars sharp and endless above them. Scout sat cross-legged, attempting to roll a joint while Chemist watched him with obvious skepticism.
“You look like you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I totally know what I’m doing.”
“I think you just used the wrong side of the paper.”
“…Shut up.”
Eventually, they figured it out. Scout handed the freshly wrapped joint to Chemist, her fingers brushed against his for a split second. He tried not to think about that too hard. He studied her face, illuminated by the warm orange glow of the lighter in her hands, her lips wrapped around the joint as she began to light it.
Chemist coughed exactly once, eyes watering, then waved him off indignantly as she handed the joint back. “Ugh. That’s vile.”
Scout laughed, watching her expression of disgust. “Okay, yeah, don’t do that.”
She tried again, slower this time. Her eyes fluttered closed as she languidly inhaled the smoke.
Minutes passed with the two of them passing the joint back and forth in comfortable silence.
“…Scout.”
“Yeah?”
“I feel… warm.”
He grinned slowly. “There it is.”
She leaned back onto the concrete, staring at the sky. “Mm. So many stars out tonight. They're all so pretty.”
Scout hummed in agreement and nodded slowly like it was the most profound thing he had ever heard. A beat of silence passed between them before Chemist spoke again, her head turning to the side as she stared up at Scout who was still sitting up.
“Y’know.. I heard this theory that when the big bang happened, all the matter that flew out into space is all the matter that has ever existed and will ever exist… Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded, isn't that cool? We're made of stardust, Scout.”
“Ya think we came from the same stars, Chem?” Scout asked her jokingly.
“Oh absofuckinglutely.” she giggled. “We're too in sync when we fight to not be.”
Scout smiled at that, and laid down beside her, careful to leave an arms length apart between them. At some point though, Chemist unconsciously drifts closer to Scout, he can smell the scent of her perfume and the faint bite of hydrogen peroxide clinging to her lab coat. They laid there in silence, shoulders almost touching as they watched the stars slowly crawl across the desert sky.
“...Scout?” Chemist tentatively asks, quieter than before this time.
“Yeah?” he replied, just as softly.
She hesitated, fiddling with the hem of her coat sleeve. “Do you ever wonder if… like-” she let out a small and breathy laugh. “God, sorry. This is such a stupid thought.”
Scout studied her expression as she poured over the idea in her head, she then turned to face him, their faces inches apart.
“Do you think we'd still be friends if we met before all this? Before we were… mercenaries and fuckups and… whatever we are now.”
Scout didn't answer immediately, he stared past her at nothing in particular as he thought. Then he smiled and his eyes found hers again,
“Yeah. I do” he breathed out.
“Really?”
“Yeah. You’d probably be one of the nerdy broads in my classes, and I'd copy off your work in class, and you'd catch me so you'd make me carry your books to your locker or something. You'd still be annoying, I’d still bicker with you, seems pretty damn inevitable.”
She giggled at his response, relief washing over the sound. “Guess the cosmos really wanted us to be friends, huh?”
“Stardust.” Scout murmured.
She shifted again, and without really thinking about it, her hand brushed over his.
Neither of them pulled away.
After a heartbeat, Scout let his hands curl around hers, the bandages on his hands tickling against Chemists palm. They stayed like that for a moment, hands interlinked, faces nearly touching.
Close enough to feel each other’s warmth, far enough to pretend it didn’t mean anything more than two friends hanging out, high on a rooftop. Eventually, reality crept back in.
“…We should probably get some sleep.” Chemist said reluctantly.
Scout nodded. “Yeah. Big day tomorrow.”
Their hands slipped apart, casual and unceremonious, like it never happened, like it didn’t matter, even though they both felt the absence immediately.
Chemist sat up first, stretching, already slipping back into herself. Scout followed a moment later, brushing concrete dust from his clothes.
Neither of them mentioned it.
But as they headed back inside the base, bidding each other goodnight as they walked to their separate rooms, the night felt quieter than before, and somehow, different.