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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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We both drank, in his case he was probably just thirsty but I sipped my water to pass the time while I debated how to ask what I wanted to ask.  I had to know if I had some tell or if something I’d said had given me away.  "How did you know?"
Max frowned in confusion.  "Know what?"  His side had stuck to the table, so he’d noticed the icing that practically coated his front.  I tried not to think about it especially because the sweet translucent substance strongly resembled something Max was probably much more used to being covered in.  And less likely to be allergic to.  Max trailed his fingers through the mess without breaking eye contact.  
"Can you stop that?"  He must have realized what I’d been asking and he didn’t want to answer, which was why he’d started doing this.  
Ignoring my scowl, Max slid one finger up through the icing to rub his nipple and grin seductively.  "Why?  I mean, I’m already sticky... and Vero already thinks—"
"Everyone already thinks we’re sleeping together—"
"We are," Max laughed, "and why—"
"Metaphorically, not literally—"
"Why not both?"
I stared at him, careful not to look below his neck.  Was he serious?  He probably was.  "Aren’t you already sleeping with Lucia?"
He scoffed, propping himself up a bit further and letting his stickier hand rest against his thigh.  "That shouldn’t matter."
For the first time in days, he really made me angry.  "Max, I’m not letting you just use her like that!  Granted, you hardly have a normal understanding of sex, but try to have some human decency!  She’s innocent!  She...  What the hell is so funny about this?"
He’d flopped onto his back, he was laughing so hard.  It took a few minutes until he calmed down enough to answer.  "You really don’t know her at all."
I sighed.  I wanted to believe that he was wrong, but so far he seemed like a better judge of character than I was— I’d always been terrible at reading people and that often got me in trouble.  Maybe he was right.  Maybe Lucia really didn’t care who he slept with.  But she seemed so naive and sentimental...  
Max rolled onto his side, returning quite fully to the suave audacity he’d had just a few moments ago.  He upped the ante again.  One long, perfectly muscled leg slid up, tracing a line along his inner thigh with the tip of his toe and rising to extend until his calf grazed his shoulder and his ankle stretched above his head.  He continued the display in the same captivatingly graceful motions as he spoke.  He must be double jointed or something...  
"Everyone already thinks we’re sleeping together, which means she does too.  Lucia doesn’t care about this, and I can see you’re interested.  So what will it take?  I’ve had Cass get my things from the Gomorra, which she was more than happy to do.  I’ve got dozens of outfits: sexy businessman, sexy raider— although, to be fair, that’s just normal raider gear—, sexy cowboy, sexy legionary, sexy doctor, ...sexy Brotherhood of Steel paladin?"
"Wait, what?"  That last one snapped me out of my daze.  He’d had me picturing each costume he mentioned— even the legionary: fascist slave empire aside, they did tend to be pretty hot and he wasn’t actually one of them— but paladin?  "I doubt even you can make power armor look sexy."
He chuckled.  "It’s not a full suit.  I’ve got a helmet... and the pauldrons attached to a leather harness... and the boots.  I slip some of the arm casings over my bracers.  It’s more popular than you might think, and even normal power armor does have some fans..."  He leaned forward, trying to kiss me and failed as I pushed my chair back.  
"All those outfits and you don’t have `sexy NCR trooper’?"  I expected him to assume I’d be interested in that or quip that it would be easy to make such a costume, but he didn’t.  His grin faded.  
"I don’t do NCR.  Ever."
"You do raider, legionary, and Brotherhood, but not NCR?"  
"It isn’t personal with them.  If you want `sexy trooper’ you’re out of luck."  I guess that was good.  It would have been awkward for me if he had done it.  And knowing him, he’d have shown up in costume at the most inopportune times.  
"Didn’t you have clients who were NCR?"
"Yes."  Max scoffed, "Fucking them is different from pretending to be one of them."  He added under his breath, "Or agreeing with them."
I tried to change the subject.  "How did you know I was— ...How did you know about my past?"
He blinked at me and then drank some more water and stared into his glass as he replied.  "I know what it’s like to be running from something like that.  I know it hasn’t been all your life because of how much it bothers you.  You remember being safe once, and that makes it worse.  People who’ve always been running never knew safety so they don’t seek it as desperately, some don’t even think that it’s possible.  You still do... and I used to.  I guess I’m safe enough here, but... there’s always something."  He gestured at the needle he’d left on the table beside him.  He’d probably clean and reuse it for the next time he had to inject himself with something, but that wasn’t the point he was making.  
"Sorry," I realized aloud, "That’s why you hate the NCR, isn’t it?"  And he’d specified that his mother had died of a gunshot.  The NCR must have shot her in front of him, probably when he was still a child.  That explained why he despised them so much.  
"Yeah."  I figured he’d leave it at that, but he felt the need to elaborate.  "They’re after me due to... due to an accident of birth.  They killed my mother.  Evidently the NCR thinks allegiance is genetic."  
"And nothing will ever convince them otherwise."  I sighed and leaned the chair back against the wall.  "I’ve been dealing with the same problem for most of my life."
He chuckled.  "I thought you’d understand."
I returned to my breakfast when he seemed content with the silence.  I’d nearly forgotten the icing on his chest and so had he.  "You might want to shower; if I’m right about what you have, that could give you a nasty rash."
Max glanced down in surprise.  "Right."  Rather than tax his sore abdomen, Max rolled sideways off the table and awkwardly clambered to his feet from the floor.  
"That looked painful."
"Not as bad as sitting up," Max countered.  He grabbed a towel to wipe the icing off the table and I waved him away.  
"I can do it."  
Max took over an hour in the shower and by the time he emerged, I’d relocated to the living room. Veronica had gone out sometime while we were talking.  He’d changed into a pair or ridiculously tight leather shorts that looked like part of his raider costume.  Admittedly, his usual shorts had been ruined and the slacks I’d brought him were currently covered in wheat-tainted icing, but still.  "You don’t have any ordinary non-sexy outfits?"
Max chuckled, "Anything’s sexy depending on who you ask."
"I think those shorts would get a majority vote."  
"Flatterer."  He grinned and leaned on the arm of the couch.  "It was these shorts or a leather skirt.  Without underwear."
"Didn’t you mention a dozen outfits?  Not just Legion or raider?"  
"Yeah, but most of those are ass-less or otherwise more revealing.  I figured this was preferable and I’d rather not have Cass any more interested than usual."
"Fair point."  I marked the page of the novel I’d been reading and gestured to the glass of water I’d brought with me from the kitchen.  "That’s yours.  Water will at least help you feel less hungry."
"Thanks."  He sat beside me and sipped his water.  I went back to reading when it seemed like he didn’t plan to talk.  
*       *       *
I wasn’t sure what to do right then.  Often, more often lately, I just felt completely disinterested in everything but sex.  I couldn’t really remember if I’d ever enjoyed most of what I did, working with computers, robots, chemicals, reading books, even dancing.  I still enjoyed dancing, to some degree, but more for what usually followed.  That might be my own fault.  Keeping the build I had when I lived off vodka and a nutrient formula wasn’t easy, even with exercise; I dosed myself with small amounts of Buffout, carefully measured for my body weight, but that had a tendency to increase libido.  Although pain did the opposite.  If Arcade was right, maybe my body could go back to some state of normalcy I’d never known.  I wondered if I’d still be this horny.  
The whole thing was probably a pipe dream, as much as I wanted it to work.  I still expected that I’d lose the will to keep trying once this failed, so whether or not it succeeded, this was the last try.  I wasn’t going to let even Arcade dash my hopes a second time.  I was going to be miserable and in pain my entire life, so I’d make it a short one.  
Really, I’d had two reasons for asking him to sleep with me— aside from the fact that he was reasonably cute and I liked sex.  If I slept with him, whether or not it led to anything more meaningful— which it hopefully wouldn’t— that might give me enough solace to keep trying long enough to be sure he’d been wrong.  I also liked him.  Not love, or anything like that, but I considered him a friend, and I had markedly few of those.  Maybe five, counting Veronica, Cass, and Troike, none of whom I’d trusted with anything meaningful.  My fifth friend probably wasn’t my friend at all, but if I had no one else, I’d fall back to him in a last ditch effort at human connection.  He’d probably kill me for disturbing him.  I wanted to make this up to Arcade, to really thank him for even trying to help me, and sex was about the only way I knew of to do that.  He was a better doctor than me and even ED-E raised his hackles, probably because robots risked his cover, so building him one was out of the question.  And he was interested, but he’d still refused.  Why?
Better yet, why had he shown such interest in me in the first place?  And not just sexually; the man went out of his way to keep me alive.  Why?  
"Yes?"  He glanced up and set his book down when he noticed how serious I looked.  
"Why are you so determined to help me?  And don’t say you’d do this for anyone because I know it’s more than that."  
He looked awkward, or at least somewhat more awkward than usual.  "Uh... What makes you think it’s more than that?"
"I understand people and I know you have some other reason for this."  He didn’t want to answer and for once I accepted that.  I offered an easy explanation, "Is this just because I know your past?"
He nodded.  "Yeah."  Maybe that was part of the truth.  For once, I didn’t quite understand him.  Maybe he was just glad to have found someone else with a past similar to his own.  Maybe he was just desperate not to lose that.  
Nobody came back until the next morning.  Presumably, we’d scared off Veronica, Lucia must still be sorting out the generator and may have grabbed Raul to help, Lily had vanished, and nobody had seen Boone in weeks.  Max had crawled into my bed sometime during the night and once again that let me sleep more peacefully than usual.  I hadn’t heard anyone arrive, so I headed into the kitchen expecting to find it empty.  I found Cass, drinking whiskey and eating a squirrel kabob.  She sat notably far towards the more distant end of the table and when she noticed me, she waved the kabob towards the dim gleam of the icing I’d forgotten to wipe up.  "I see you two had fun yesterday."  
I blushed and grabbed a towel to clean it up.  "I suppose there’s nothing I can do to convince you that it isn’t, in fact, what it looks like?"
Her grin widened.  "So things got kinky?"
"Not what I meant."  
Max didn’t get up.  When I didn’t hear him after five hours, I went to check on him.  He was alive.  He scared me because he didn’t look it.  He lay exactly as I had left him, on his side, arms curled against his chest, clutching the blanket that draped him.  He’d opened his eyes, but hadn’t moved and I found him staring blankly ahead.  I started to run towards him and stopped when his cold gaze flicked towards me.  "Max!  Don’t do that!  I thought—"
I stopped myself.  He didn’t move except to speak and watch me, and he sounded chillingly indifferent.  "What?"
I appreciated the fact that Cass hadn’t followed me.  Max went back to staring at the wall rather than move his head.  I sat beside him on the bed and ran a hand through his hair.  It really was as soft as it looked, even when he’d just woken up and hadn’t bothered to wash it.  The more I thought about it, I wondered why he still tried to keep up appearances, given his state of mind.  I sighed.  I was probably the only one who saw how he really felt because he hid it so well.  "Are you okay?"
"Not really."  
"Are you feeling sick?"
"No more than usual."  He didn’t elaborate and I gave him a moment, idly running my fingers through his silky hair.  It had grown out enough that I could just manage to hide my hand beneath the bronze locks.  
When he didn’t seem like he planned to say more, I asked very softly, "Do you think you will get out of bed today?"
"No."  I stood to leave and he caught my arm.  He let me go before I could turn back towards him and didn’t look up while I waited for an explanation.  
"I can stay here, if you want, just let me get a book."  Max didn’t move.  "Do you want that?"  He nodded.  The bed was in shadow, but when he moved I realized he was crying.  "Okay.  I’ll be right back."  
Cass found me lying on the bed reading with Max snuggled against me.  He slept occasionally, but mostly he just lay very still and quiet.  I ignored her and I think by some divine mercy she realized this wasn’t a good time to joke or ask for a threesome.  She drank until she passed out on the couch and for once I didn’t bother to stop her.  
*       *       *
I’m not sure exactly why I broke down that day.  Sometimes it just happened, but that day I had so many thoughts that I might have had cause, for a change.  Mostly, I was afraid.  I had hope, and I hadn’t hoped for a long while, but I didn’t want it.  This wasn’t going to work and I was more afraid of being let down than of death.  And I didn’t want Arcade to blame himself, which he would.  He always would.  Whether I killed myself or died because he was wrong, he was going to blame himself and I saw too much of myself in him not to worry about that.  And he cared about me so much.  Too much.  I had to stop it before he got hurt.  He was so invested in me and he’d already done so much to help me, but I wasn’t worth this.  I was just going to let him down, the way I let down everyone who had faith in me.  Veronica was the only one who hadn’t realized that yet.  
I wondered about this late that night and when I opened my eyes, I found Arcade asleep beside me, his book lying open on his chest.  
*       *       *
I jolted awake some time near morning and realized Max had set the playing card back into my book and placed it on the table behind him.  He must have only just done so because he adjusted his position against me and I realized he looked thoughtful.  
"Why do you care about me so much?"
"I answered this earlier."
"I know."  He sighed, "Don’t deflect, I gave you an easy answer and even if that’s part of the reason, I know there’s more to it."  
I stared at the ceiling to avoid his gaze.  He was right.  And I couldn’t really avoid the question.  He’d know if I was lying and he’d know if I tried to deflect and, from the sound of his breathing, he wasn’t just going to fall asleep if I waited.  "I like you," I admitted.  "Probably more than I should."
Max propped himself up on his elbows and frowned at me.  "Why?"  He sounded so incredulous, like he couldn’t even conceive of any possible reason anyone would like him.  
I propped myself up as well and rolled onto my side to face him.  "Max, you’re not a bad person.  You’re hurting and you’re guarded, and you probably feel like you’ve lost all hope, but you still risked your life to tell us what Nero was planning, and you still told Lucia about the generator—"
He made a sound and I couldn’t tell if he scoffed or sobbed.  His intelligence was another part of the reason I liked him, and his looks helped, but I didn’t mention either because the latter made me sound shallow and the former... the former just wasn’t as important as the choices he made.  Besides, I mostly saw his intelligence in the insane risks he took with implanting what amounted to a zap glove in his own body and injecting himself with who knows what.  I pulled him into a hug and he didn’t resist.  
For the next two days, Max barely left his bed.  His mood ranged from worried to dismal and he slept almost constantly.  I made sure he drank water and it was obvious enough that he’d followed my advice about not eating.  Lucia still hadn’t come back, which left me free to monitor Max pretty much all day.  Veronica returned after Cass woke up.  I’d eaten as soon as I got up, probably before dawn, mostly so Max wouldn’t be tormented by watching me eat, if he chose to get out of bed, so I’d left the kitchen before either of the girls went in there.  Veronica headed for  the kitchen once she arrived.  Presumably, she joined Cass for breakfast and I heard their conversation as they ate.  
Cass spoke loudly.  "’S Max okay?"
I could hear Veronica’s confusion in her tone.  "Yeah, why?"
"I think he’s sick `r something," Cass explained, "Hardly left bed in two days and didn’t even have a single shot of vodka."  
Veronica left Cass and walked into the guest bedroom.  I think she’d planned to check on Max, but he was still asleep and with me lying beside him, she asked me instead.  
I glanced at him, wondering if I should be honest or if I should lie.  I opted for a compromise.  "Yeah, but he should be fine soon."  I didn’t really believe that.  This was only my best guess and if Usanagi couldn’t figure it out he probably had some kind of new and terrible disease that no one had discovered yet.  Even if I was right, I didn’t trust that my supervision and his minimal desire to keep living could prevent him from killing himself.  
She narrowed her eyes.  I think she thought I was generally trustworthy and honest, but she’d seen me lie for him once before, so she might be reconsidering.  "...Okay."  Veronica turned and walked back to the kitchen.  I guess she believed me.  
After two days of sleeping and starving himself, I brought Max into the kitchen.  We’d waited until Veronica and Cass both left and nobody else had showed up in that time.  Max leaned on the back of a chair.  He still hid it very well, but he was exhausted and probably in pain from hunger alone.  I couldn’t tell if he often felt this way or if he usually used vodka and the nutrient injections to stave off starvation.  Whatever the reason, only his relative patience with me kept him from returning to bed.  He’d made that much clear twice already in two very grumbled protests.  He’d been sleeping for three days and still was grumpy when he woke up.  He watched as I took a locked box out of the fridge and opened it up to reveal the sixteen apples I’d managed to scrounge up.  He couldn’t eat bread, and with rice and bananas virtually impossible to come by, apples were about the easiest thing I could get for him to digest.  They were rare.  I’d bought most of this batch off a trader who usually dealt with tourists and NCR officers, it cost more than I normally spent in three months, but I hardly spent anything, so I’d managed to afford it.  
Max stepped back and raised his hands.  "I can’t.  How much did those cost?"
Was this his self-esteem talking or was he just afraid to test my theory because he might be let down?  I sighed and picked up an apple.  I cut a very small slice off of it and held it out to him.  "It’s fine, I can afford this, and there’s very little you can eat that wouldn’t be difficult even for a healthy digestive tract.  If I’m right, your diet will have to be mostly meat and vegetables; you’ll still need some vitamins to stay healthy."
He didn’t move.  He eyed the apple warily.  When Max hadn’t taken it after a minute, I stepped a little closer and waved it towards him.  "Max, it’s this or squirrel kabobs, I thought this might go over better."  
I’d expected him to take it with his hands.  I should have realized who I was dealing with.  Max leaned towards my outstretched hand and slid his tongue under the slice of apple, lifting it slightly out of my grip.  He brought his lips forward, kissing my fingertips around the apple and then pulling it into his mouth using mostly his tongue.  It left me speechless for a moment and during that moment, he smirked.  
"Did you just do that to screw with me?"
Max chuckled, "Interesting choice of words."  He’d cheeked the apple.  
I sighed, making my exasperation just a little more obvious.  "I’d think you’d be a little more willing to eat that.  I can go back to the squirrel plan, if you’d prefer."
"No."  Max shifted his weight and stared at the door.  Eventually, he grumbled, "I really hope you’re right about this."  He’d gone from despair to doubt, or at least something a little more animated, which I hoped was a good sign.  I watched him chew and swallow the apple.  He leaned against the wall and I saw him tense.  
"Are you feeling alright?"  I was probably wrong.  If he had a reaction to food this quickly, I probably was.  Either his stomach just wasn’t used to any food after he’d gone however long without eating, or he had something much more acute— and probably more serious— than celiac disease.  Most likely stomach cancer or a really, really bad ulcer; in either case, if it had gone on for this long, he’d be dead whatever I did for him.  This was the wasteland, where incurable genetic condition was the optimistic theory.  
Max nodded.  He kept watching the door, as if he was afraid he’d need to run to the bathroom at any second.  "I feel a little better than usual, I guess.  I just...  It’s nothing personal..."  He was afraid I’d been wrong.  I was afraid I was wrong.  
"It’s fine."  I gathered up the apples, including the one I’d cut a slice from, and replaced them in the box, which I put back in the fridge.  I would have joined Max against the wall, but he made me a little uncomfortable right now.  It wasn’t just that he’d eaten the apple out of my hand, it was that the way he was standing on the balls of his feet, ready to run down the hall, left his muscles tense.  After having seen him dance, I wondered offhand how long he could hold that pose.  It was certainly less taxing than hanging upside-down from a pole.  
The body had trouble digesting anything when a person hadn’t eaten for a long time; I expected Max to be sick at least once in the first day, but he wasn’t.  When I asked him, he said he’d gotten very good at forcing himself not to be sick and he was doing that now.  He used a combination of breathing exercises and sheer force of will to keep himself from being sick.  I hadn’t thought about it before, but the symptoms of celiac disease could explain his physique.  He knew the nutrients he needed and if he wasn’t having a reaction, he could have sought any means available to feel in control of his body.  He must have felt helpless; he seemed absolutely terrified of being helpless, and it made sense when I really considered what he’d been through if I was right.  Psychologically, some people who lost control over their lives, or just felt helpless, would go out of their way to control others, and different people— possibly Max— would just do anything they could to control the other aspects of their lives.  He’d left something, maybe even a different life, and come here to Vegas to be a stripper.  Even now, he kept his body in ridiculously great shape to the point that he could balance on his toes.  I’d seen him working out, when he wasn’t this depressed or hungry.  I hadn’t considered how often he did it, but it might be an obsession.  Mostly, I just tried to ignore him when he did that.  I’d thought he was trying to show off, but it would make more sense if this was his way of maintaining control over a body that did things he couldn’t control or explain.  I’d also expected him to eat at most half an apple.  He ate one whole apple on the first day and wasn’t actually sick at all.  
He got sick the second day, but only once.  He had one slice of apple and refused to eat any more for the rest of the day.  I heard him crying through the bathroom door and worried that he might give up.  I thought he had when he finally emerged, walked into the bedroom, crawled into bed and curled up, still sobbing despite his efforts to stop.  He left his lip bloody from how hard he’d been biting it to keep himself quiet.  He wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the night, and after an hour of trying to calm him down, I went into the kitchen.  This was my fault, I’d gotten his hopes up and I felt miserable about it.  I should have thought of something else, I should have tried anything else, maybe things would have been different.  I ended up drinking most of a bottle of wine, which was a lot for me, and slept on the couch in the rec room because I couldn’t face Max right now even when he was sleeping.  Luckily nobody returned to the Lucky 38 until the next morning.  
*        *        *