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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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He gave me a very sad smile.  "I can’t because I know you’d try even if there was no hope."
I couldn’t pretend that wasn’t true.  I hugged him, willing whatever he had to be treatable.  I don’t think he realized I could hear him when he whispered, "I still don’t understand why you care so much."
Max fell asleep right then and I’d only planned to keep him warm and read, but at some point I dozed off as well.  I always slept lightly.  Back at the Old Mormon Fort, I’d wake up every time a patient rolled over, even in the tent next door.  So I was particularly amazed when I woke and he’d already left the room.  I’d slept better and more deeply than I had in almost a year, I woke up alone, but energized and more hopeful than I’d felt in months.  Unless the courier needed me for something, I’d spend today pouring through medical texts and with any luck I would figure out what was killing Max.  Nobody else was going to die on my watch.  
I heard breakfast or maybe lunch underway in the kitchen and headed over there.  Cass and Veronica had started a poker game with Max while they ate.  Max, of course, had no food, today he didn’t even have his usual vodka.  I felt a little bad for that now that I knew the full story; if it kept him from killing himself, I’d let him drink.  
Max had that confident smirk he always wore, but he leaned forward in his seat and despite the white dress shirt he was wearing, I could see a tension to his back that suggested pain.  Cass and Veronica seemed oblivious to this, but I was looking for it.  If he hadn’t told me he was always in pain, or even if I just hadn’t expected him to be hurting right now, I’d never have suspected.  
That’s probably why he had almost all the chips in front of him right now.  
"I raise."  Max placed another chip on the pile between them and folded his arms on the table.  Cass and Veronica frowned at him suspiciously.  
I rummaged in the cabinets while Cass scowled.  "No way you’re bluffing me out of another win."  
She placed chips on the table but hadn’t quite let go when Max chuckled and mused, "I’ve been bluffing this whole game, how do you know this isn’t my first decent hand today?"
Cass hesitated and she and Veronica exchanged a glance.  "Hey, Vero, is his luck usually bad?"
Veronica shrugged.  Cass narrowed her eyes at Max, whose cocky smile never faltered.  "I think yer’ shittin’ me."  She placed the chips on the table and withdrew her hand.  
Veronica considered just as carefully and folded.  Max raised once more as I walked over with my breakfast and one of his bottles of vodka.  I handed him the vodka and sat down beside him, drawing the girl’s attention for the first time.  
"Arcade!" Cass laughed, "Did Max wear you out last night?"
Evidently, they hadn’t noticed I was in the room until now, but they’d seen us sharing a bed at some point before Max woke up.  Max frowned thoughtfully and looked to see my reaction.  Presumably, if I wanted to pretend we’d had sex to disguise what had actually happened, he’d play along, but I just planned to be vague.  I focused on my breakfast.  "Uh, no."
Veronica was less crude, but just as curious.  She set her cards down and tilted her head at me.  "I mean, you did share a bed.  Are you two okay with each other now?"
"Yes."  I glanced at Max and found him staring back, apparently leaving all talking up to me, despite the fact that he clearly had more skill lying.  
"So... that’s how you made up?" Cass asked, puzzled, "You cuddled?"
Max opened his vodka and took a long gulp, preempting any chance I had to convince him to answer this one.  "Well, cuddling wasn’t exactly the objective."
Max choked on his vodka and I realized how that sounded after I spoke.  Veronica’s eyes widened.  "Oh.  Okay, then."
Cass cackled maniacally.  "Damn!  No need to be shy about it!  Though if ya ever want a threesome..."
Regaining the ability to breathe, although his voice had suddenly become as raspy and gravelly as his rugged face suggested, Max rebuked her.  "No.  Cass, I’m really not interested."
I studied his perfect pokerface.  Was he gay?  He certainly never came on to anyone but me, but no one else had been so bothered by his advances.  The only other person he seemed interested in was Lucia.  He’d slept with her, hadn’t he?  I’d heard them— only a little, but it was clear enough that they must have done it.  Either that, or they had reason to fake it.  I could see them doing that to mess with me or maybe to get me interested, if this was Max’s idea, but I got the sense that he understood me too well to bother.  
Max met my gaze with a curious frown.  Enigmatic as always, I couldn’t guess what he was thinking and he said nothing before turning back to the table and gesturing at the cards, "Well, I believe I was in the process of winning this game?"
Cass noticed that he’d raised and scrunched up her face, scrutinizing him.  "You’ve gotta be bluffing..."  She didn’t sound too sure about that.  With Max sitting beside me, I leaned over to see his hand.  
I raised my eyebrows.  "Oh, Veronica definitely has the right idea about this hand."
Cass turned her gaze to me.  "Yer telling us what he has?"
"I’m just making a suggestion.  I’d never tell you he has, say, a royal flush..."
Cass looked to Veronica in shock while the engineer glanced between Max and myself, thinking carefully.  "Vero, would he do that?"  Apparently, Cass didn’t know me that well and thought Veronica did.  They were both wrong.  And Max, for his part, maintained that perfect smirk, never giving away even a hint of the truth.  
Veronica shrugged.  After a long and very pained staring match, Cass swore.  "Fine.  I fold."
Max lay down a pair of fours and chuckled.  "Ladies, never gamble with a prostitute.  We’re almost as skilled at acting as we are at reading people.  Or at least we are if we’re any good at our jobs."  
Veronica scowled as he hauled in the chips and started sorting them into the growing piles in front of him.  "Max, that’s hardly a dignified—"
Cass interrupted her, flinging a cracker across the table at me.  The cracker missed, falling short and bouncing off my glass of water.  "That was a dirty trick."
"You aren’t playing for caps, are you?"  
She ignored my point, chucking another cracker my way.  I ducked and it hit the wall.  "Still a damn dirty lie."  She was drunk.  I hadn’t expected that quite this early in the morning.  
Veronica took the box of crackers before it could provide more ammo and Max tried to intervene, but he was laughing too hard for her to listen.  "Cass, it’s just a game.  Relax.  I would have won anyway."
Relieved of her crackers, Cass grabbed the next best thing: a snack cake and lobbed it at him.  The pastry projectile struck him full in the face and his reflex to catch it left him awkwardly juggling the iced loaf for a moment before he could grip it properly and fling it back at her.  
It hit Cass in the head and left a trace of icing in her hair.  She narrowed her eyes.  "Oh, now you’re gonna get it!"
Cass grabbed another snack cake and flung it at Max, missing his face but managing to slip inside the unbuttoned collar of his shirt.  Max scrambled to shed his shirt as if the pastry burned him— although it certainly must have been uncomfortable— and that gave Cass the opportunity to seek more ammo.  The courier grabbed her shoulders to stop her.  
None of us had heard Lucia arrive and no one had noticed her until now.  "Guys," Lucia pleaded, "please try not to make the carpet any more filthy than it already is."  She looked from Cass to Max and sighed.  "Who started this?"
Max stood beside me so when Cass, standing further down the table pointed in our direction I wasn’t sure who she was blaming.  Max, predictably, nodded towards her, "She’s the one who started throwing things."  Holding the snack cake in one hand, he took off his shirt and folded it over one arm.  I’m pretty sure he posed to make his musculature stand out, although he didn’t make that obvious.  
Lucia’s eyes danced over his figure and she sighed.  "Fine, just try to behave yourselves."  She waved Cass over.  "Take ED-E and bring Raul back here, you know where his shack is, right?  I need his help for something."  After what Max had mentioned yesterday and the fact that Lucia had been gone until now, I figured she must have found the reactor and wanted him to repair it.  Lucia retreated to her room when Cass nodded and the caravaner left with ED-E, presumably to do as she’d been told.  She paused only long enough to grab the snack cake out of Max’s hand and shove it into her mouth.  
He chuckled, jokingly seductive, "Enjoy?"
Cass nodded appreciatively, her mouth too full to reply.  
Once the elevator closed, I went back to eating my breakfast.  Max set about washing his shirt in the sink, ignoring the icing still on his arms and chest.  Veronica watched him, glanced at me, and addressed Max.  "G-Max...  Are you...?"  She trailed off when he left his shirt soaking in the sink and dug something out of a box beside the work bench.  I hadn’t realized any of that stuff was actually his; I mean, it made perfect sense, I’d just always presumed it all belonged to Lucia.  He kept his body between us and the workbench, so I couldn’t see anything he did until he set a large dish on the hot plate at a low temperature  He seemed to do a lot before that point and I wondered what he was making.  
Veronica didn’t pay attention to Max’s hands, although she could probably see more than I could.  "Are you okay?  I know there’s... the usual, probably, and you hinted at some other stuff, but you’re alright, aren’t you?"  It was obvious she wanted to ask him more, or at least go into more detail.  It felt surreal to be on the opposite side of this situation, for once.  
"I’m fine, Vero, you’re just worrying too much."  Max answered without turning around.  He faked a laugh, but it didn’t fool either of us.  
Vero and I both narrowed our eyes.  They seemed to be related.  Even if they might not be, they clearly knew each other and if he was going to die, or kill himself, I would have appreciated if she at least knew something was wrong.  I wasn’t going to tell her, that was his choice, but Veronica knew him well enough to call him out.  "Max," she quietly insisted, "you need to tell me if there’s a problem.  We can help.  Even if I can’t, there’s Lucia, and Arcade’s a doctor..."  She looked at me as she mentioned my name and must have realized that I knew.  "Arcade, what isn’t he saying?"
I glanced at Max, finding that he’d gone back to whatever he was doing at the workbench.  I wished he could feel my disapproval and he probably knew I didn’t like his refusal to tell her, but I still tried to cover for him.  "I’m not really sure.  I just, uh, picked up some clues.  It’s not really enough to go on, probably just the same sort of hints he’s dropped to you..."
She turned to face me and settled her hands on the table very seriously.  "Arcade..."
I glanced at Max again, not sure how to deflect when she knew I knew more than I’d told her and Veronica must have realized I wasn’t going to be honest.  Looking at Max, she judged that he wouldn’t tell her either.  Veronica let out an exasperated sigh and stormed out of the room.  "Men!"
Max hadn’t turned around and he still didn’t as I got up, even when he spoke.  "Thanks."
"I’d appreciate if you told her.  Especially if this... goes badly."
He snorted.  "It’s already going badly."  He let his smile fade, again, and looked only marginally more healthy than he had yesterday.  "Veronica...  Vero and I grew up together.  She’s like my... my older sister, I guess, but we’re cousins and I’ve always felt like the older one.  When we were little and even now, to some degree, she holds me to this absurd standard like I’m something more than human and every mistake is just...  I... that’s part of why I left.  I’ve been living my own life and people don’t care if I screw up because most of them have screwed up a hundred times worse, and now I’m back around Veronica and it’s just...  When we were kids, I always pretended everything was fine even when it wasn’t and she seemed to think that I could handle anything that happened because that’s what she saw.  I got really good at hiding it really fast and she never really knew I wasn’t that strong or brave or emotionally stable.  I’d rather she hold on to the person she thought she knew than find out exactly how broken I’ve been all my life."
"`All your life’?"  Finding out about his childhood and renewing my speculation about his possible Enclave ties— and Veronica’s for that matter— took a back seat to the discovery that whatever he had had been going on that long.  Assuming he didn’t just mean childhood problems or the constant fear that came with having family in the Enclave.  
Max confirmed my suspicion as he continued concocting some mystery substance I still couldn’t see.  He nodded.  "I’ve had this all my life, at least as long as I can remember.  It’s been worse sometimes and sometimes it was better.  Right now, I’ve learned enough that I can make it so this doesn’t completely cripple me, but I can’t cure the pain."  
"So this used to be worse?"  That seemed absurd.  He was already at the point of suicide, but then again, he’d attempted the same in the past.  If he’d had this all his life, maybe he’d just reached the point where he lost hope of a cure.  
Max nodded.  I stepped closer so I could see him as we talked.  He had that cold blank stare again.  I’d figured that he’d been synthesizing Lilly’s medicine, but when I could see the workbench in front of him, I saw a massive syringe filled with something much darker.  Even as a solution, Lilly’s medicine would be nearly clear; I had no idea what this was, but my first thought was poorly refined coumarin or something just as deadly and I barely realized what he was doing before Max turned the needle towards his arm.  
I dove for the needle and he scrambled backwards to keep it.  I could tell he was in pain now more than ever; only a vestige of his usual grace remained and even to finish what I took as an attempt to end his life, he moved as if every step drove nails into his gut.  Or lack thereof.  Pain made him tense and that tension accentuated the already very visible muscles of his abdomen.  I couldn’t help but notice this because, after a very short scuffle, I had Max pinned on the table.  It was a one-sided fight— he was too in pain to put up much resistance— but it left us both in an awkward position.  I’d used my height as leverage to pin him, which left me holding his wrists against the table above his head.   He still had the needle but couldn’t inject himself while I held his arms, so he’d relaxed.  He’d tried to use the table as an obstacle but hadn’t been quick enough, so he just lay mostly on top of it with his ass at the very edge, one leg dangling off the table and the other draped over a chair beside me.  On my left.  And his limp leg rested against my right thigh.  And keeping him pinned left me leaning over the table.  
I blushed when I realized that and Max noticed it a few seconds after I did.  His sly grin returned.  He struggled to lean towards me and I braced my arms against his wrists to keep him at bay, fully expecting his usual tactic of trying to distract me.  Thwarted, Max instead shoved himself towards the edge of the table, pressing his rear against my crotch.  
Veronica must have heard our scuffle or my yell when I first tried to stop him.  She stepped into the kitchen, "Is everything o...?"  
The chairs hid the needle and most of Max from her view, so she had a very different idea of what she’d walked in on.  I saw her blush probably about as brightly as I was blushing right now.  Brilliant, Max’s attempts to keep his many destructive secrets had led to yet another awkward misunderstanding.  Veronica backed towards the hallway as I opened my mouth to explain.  "Sorry, you don’t need to say anything, just at least close the door..."  She shut the door as she left and I scowled at Max.  
"I really don’t need everyone thinking that we’re sleeping together, even if it is an improvement over having them think that I want to kill you."  I stepped as far back from the table as I could manage while still keeping him pinned, wagering that I’d rather lean a little closer to him than leave his hips grinding into me like that.  At least kissing was less likely to... well, to validate those rumors.  Max knew how to seduce anyone, I wouldn’t be surprised if he could have gotten even Boone to sleep with him given enough alcohol and time.  I didn’t want to start something with him.  However hot he was, however much his intelligence and charm might attract me, however much I wanted someone who knew my past, Max was trouble.  It wasn’t just that he could probably get me to do anything he wanted, it was also that he was sick, probably dying, and had more emotional turmoil than the entirety of Freeside combined.  And I just had to keep reminding myself of that until it really seemed like a valid argument.  
As if he could read my mind, Max cocked his head confidently and asked, "Why don’t you want them thinking we’re sleeping together?"
"Because we’re not."  If he wanted to distract me from the needle in his hand, it wasn’t going to work...
"Then let’s change that."  Max lunged forward and kissed me, forcing his tongue between my lips but stopping even before I shifted my grip to keep his fingers around the needle and release his other arm so I could shove his face away from mine.  Max let his head thump back onto the table, groaning in pain because he’d misjudged the force of the impact.  "That didn’t work as well as I’d expected."
He hadn’t moved the arm I’d let go, but rather than risk him grabbing the needle, I pinned it again.  This time I held his hand rather then his wrist, mostly because I felt bad that I might have pushed him away too forcefully.  He interlocked his fingers with mine.  I knew he used some form of moisturizer, probably something he made himself and probably something that he also used as lube; it left his skin distinctly soft and smooth, especially his hands.  Except his palm wasn’t smooth right now.  I shifted my grip to see what I was feeling.  Max had a rash of tiny reddish bumps along his palm and some of his fingers.  I hadn’t seen it yesterday or even just a few minutes ago.  The polymer concealing his implanted zap glove, which normally blended indiscernibly with his skin now stood out as a conspicuously smooth patch.  I lifted the edge of it and found normal skin beneath.  
Max grimaced.  "You have no idea how much that itches.  I’d really appreciate if you let me go."
I barely heard him.  "Are you allergic to something?"
He sighed and squirmed, failing to even adjust my grip.  "I don’t know, I’m allergic to everything.  You think this rash is some kind of allergy?"
"It might be."  I hadn’t wanted to ask him outright, but we were alone, and his heritage might be very relevant.  "It might also tell me what’s making you sick.  You grew up in a... an isolationist community, didn’t you?"  
Max’s smile vanished in an instant.  He looked very serious.  Once again, I caught a glimpse of the man he might have been.  He eyed me suspiciously, taking several minutes to choose his words before he replied.  "You mean genetically?  Yes.  We... did not intermarry with wastelanders."  I took that statement as confirmation that he had Enclave ties.  I still don’t know if I felt more overjoyed about that or the fact that Old World genetics could be the cause of his illness, in which case I could treat it.  I beamed at him and Max raised an eyebrow.  
"I guess I could see how you might appreciate that news more than most, but I wasn’t expecting this level of joy.  It’s not something I like to admit."
I managed to stop grinning idiotically but couldn’t contain a relieved laugh.  "No, it’s not that... or not just that.  If you have what I think you have, it’s treatable, sort of, but bleeding isn’t a symptom—"
He cut me off with his own, more humorless laugh, "Sort of treatable isn’t too comforting, but it is better than untreatable.  And the bleeding isn’t a symptom, at least I never thought that it was; my bleeding has... er... other causes, and I haven’t even had a nosebleed in my entire life."  
"Really?"  Considering the climate and his allergies, as well as the bleeding I now thought must have been connected to his alcoholism, that seemed unlikely, but he was getting me distracted.  "Do you know if anyone else in your family was sick?  Their symptoms might have been more mild—"
"My mother was also very sick, but it may not be the same thing.  She died.  Her symptoms didn’t start until... until things happened.  What she had seemed to be triggered by stress, but I’ve had this since birth."
"How did she die?"  I asked because I hoped it might support my diagnosis and I quickly regretted the question.  
Max sighed and focused his gaze blankly on the ceiling.  "Gunshot."  
He’d been there.  He’d seen it happen.  He must have.  He got that hollow look and I held his arms tighter lest he go for the needle again.  "Max—"
I’d wanted to console him but he scoffed, realizing what had me so frightened for him right now.  "You think this is poison, don’t you?"  He waved the needle between two fingers, holding it like a pen.  He didn’t wait for my answer, he knew he was right.  "It’s not.  If I’d planned to kill myself, I’m certainly not dumb enough to do it in front of you.  I’d wait until you left or fell asleep."  
It terrified me that he could be so brutally honest about his intentions.  I tried to change the subject but didn’t ease my hold on his arms in case he had lied.  "Then what is that?"
Max avoided my gaze.  For a long time he hesitated, clearly reluctant to admit the truth.  He paused so long that a chill settled in my gut telling me that it really was poison and he had planned to commit suicide right in front of me.  He’d already tried to provoke me into murder; either he’d hoped I would stop him both times or he truly wanted an audience for his death.  Some people did.  Some people felt that they needed a witness so their death would leave some impact on the world, grisly as it was.  
He proved me wrong.  "It’s a nutrient formula," Max admitted.  "I’ve been synthesizing it for myself for the past few years.  You were right when you asked earlier.  I don’t eat.  The pain’s worse if I eat anything, and I’ve studied enough about nutrition that I can just inject what I need to stay alive."  I’m not sure I would have believed or trusted him if what he’d just said hadn’t fit my theory so perfectly.  
"Max, I think I know what you have, are you willing to try something to find out if I’m right?"
"Exactly what odds are we talking here and what do you want to try?  Is this still the somewhat treatable hereditary disease or did I prove you wrong?"  He was cynical and I didn’t blame him.  If he’d been to Usanagi after growing up with Enclave resources, he must have already asked dozens of doctors; he’d only turned to suicide once he believed he could never be diagnosed, let alone cured.  He’d probably undergone dozens of treatments that never worked, or never worked for long.  He didn’t trust me, but he couldn’t trust anyone.  After what he’d been through he’d come to assume any attempt would always fail, and he’d continue to believe that unless I proved him wrong.  I didn’t feel offended that he didn’t trust me, I wasn’t sure I really expected to be right either and even if I’d been willing to stake my life on this, I wouldn’t have been angry.  I was just sad that he’d given up hope for anything but death.  
"There isn’t a cure," I admitted and watched his already dour expression return to the hollow stare he didn’t seem willing to let anyone else see, "but there’s a way to make the pain stop, if I’m right.  I think you have a hereditary autoimmune disease that causes your body to react adversely to a compound in most grains.  Basically, your body attacks itself.  If you’re willing to stop drinking anything but water for a few days, your digestive tract should start to heal.  After that, you can start eating as long as you don’t eat anything containing that compound.  Your body won’t be used to it, so you’ll have to start slow, with rice or apples, or something—"
Max didn’t move, or even look away from the ceiling.  "How sure are you that this is what I have?"
I grimaced.  "I’m not."  Really, the only reason I suspected celiac disease was because it was genetic.  Almost anyone in the wasteland with a genetic condition like this would have died long ago.  The only places where such individuals survived— let alone reproduced— were technologically advanced isolationist communities like the Enclave and maybe the Brotherhood of Steel.  The average wasteland doctor, or even Usanagi, would never consider genetic conditions unless he admitted his history, and I doubted that he ever would have.  In his situation, I don’t think I would have either.  
Max crossed his arms and jabbed the needle into his vein, but this time I didn’t stop him.  He looked thoughtful, so I hoped he was considering what I’d said, but I really wasn’t sure if I had the heart to force him to keep living if I was wrong.  "I can’t say I have much choice but to try that," Max admitted, "I mean, a slim chance to even reduce the pain is better than death, I guess."
He was joking, I think, or at least I hope he was joking.  "Yes, death or a less painful life, what a difficult choice."  
He narrowed his eyes and paused to inject the serum.  He did so slowly, which was a good sign.  Injecting that much of almost anything risked stopping his heart if he did it too quickly; I don’t think he would have bothered slowing down if it had been poison.  
"Sorry."  Max looked away from the ceiling and lifted his head when he realized I’d walked over to the sink to get him a glass of water.  "I know you’re trying to help and it’s nothing personal, I’ve just... I’ve learned not to get my hopes up.  Almost eighteen years of—"
"I understand."  
Max fell silent.  He took the water I offered him and risked one very hesitant sip.  "Thanks."  I didn’t know if he meant for the water or for being so understanding; I found out when he clarified.  "Some doctors get insulted when I act like their treatment won’t work."  
"Some doctors are better at what they do," I grumbled before I could stop myself.  
Max sat up completely.  "You’re a good doctor."
I scoffed as I sat back down where I’d been sitting before.  My cereal had gotten very soggy.  It was rice cereal— luckily, I suppose— or Max might have really regretted that kiss.  Assuming I was even right about this.  "I’m a decent doctor.  There are better."
He narrowed his eyes and rolled to face me, still lying rather seductively on the table.  "Arcade, you work with the Followers, you’d be hard pressed to find better doctors except in—"  He stopped himself and stared at the glass of water.  "...in other places."  He sipped the water so hesitantly that the level didn’t seem to move, but he spoke again before I could comment.  "You’re a great doctor, Arcade.  If you’re right, I’d say you’re the best doctor in the world."
I snorted into my own water.  "I just know... I know relevant things about you."
He laughed, one of the first genuine laughs I’d heard from him.  His laugh was bittersweet even when it had no reason to be.  Or at least no reason aside from his pain.  "I’ve been more open with you than with most.  I trust that you’ll keep those secrets."