funkypoacher:

@charomiami prompted me with this one (yes I’m still working on them). thank-you!

Being Unable To Open Their Eyes For A Few Moments Afterward 

MacCready/OC

Jan 4, 2288

Plans had been laid, people mobilized; a date set. With what Miles had seen of the Railroad, he imagined this was the most excited they ever got.

Out of dozens, the work was done by few. Their yellow-haired leader stood behind an unhinged tech expert, attempting to contact codename: Patriot through their computer-system. A collective of agents spoke quietly amongst themselves—’the heavies’, as he’d learned: a silver-haired hot-head, their covert-missions’ specialist in sunglasses, and the sacrificial lamb who was going with Miles as backup. Miles thought her a fool; there was no nobility in suicide.

Everyone else stood around nervously, acting like a sneeze would blow their straw-built scheme to pieces.

Miles honestly couldn’t figure out why the Institute bothered being annoyed by them.

Breathing in air full of gunpowder sulfur, the man figured he should settle into his home for the next few days. Normally he did not like waiting. Passing time led to accumulating complications; a ‘shit-storm’ in Railroad parlance. But he didn’t mind today. Miles had something with which to fill the hours leading to deployment. That thing was scowling in a corner, hat-brim pulled down; rifle across lap.

Miles went to where the Railroad agents had given MacCready a wide girth. He saw the snags in the man’s clothing; the dust sprinkling his hair. Miles followed as MacCready got to his feet, and stomped down a hall.

His acerbic words rang off ceiling pipes.

“I can’t fucking believe it!” he hollered. Whipping around, MacCready glared. “Actually, you know what? I can believe it. That’s what I get for trusting someone, right? You’re a synth, you’re a—you’re not even goddamn human!”

Miles wasn’t terribly offended by the disgust. And how many times had they yelled at each other? This was par for the course. “It’s true,” he nonchalantly nodded. “Does that matter?”

“Does it—? Of course it does!” Ravaged by ire, MacCready doubled over. His sinewy, lithe hands gripped his knees. His hat tumbled off, and nothing was done about it.

Miles walked in measured steps. The suspense of what would happen when he got closer lengthened the lonely hall. “Why?” he asked. “Why does it matter?”

“Why?!”

Still doubled over, MacCready eyes drifted. Slowly, they wandered until they were wrapped up in Miles’ watchful focus. Fear; fear in his blue eyes. That hurt Miles. Abhorration he could handle, but fear?

“I would never cause you harm,” the synth said, surprised by the feeling in his own voice.

“How do I know that? You’re a machine, you don’t even—”

Apparently Miles had gotten too close. Snapping to an erect stance, MacCready’s hands raised cautiously and he backed up a step. He seemed apprehensive to give full-vent to his anger, or to completely finish a sentence, whereby explaining his reasoning. He kept cutting himself off—scared of offending Miles, he supposed.

He’d never been like that. Sometimes he’d said things for the very sake of offending. It had always made Miles smile. MacCready was a fighter. And fighters survived.

“I don’t what, Robert? Need to eat? Sleep? I require all the things a human does. Or do you mean that I don’t even care? That I can’t care?”

MacCready stopped flinching. “Can a toaster care? Did those turrets back at Med-Tek care?” He was so worked up that he spit a bit while he spoke. “Why’d you help me, anyways? I was following you. I was paid to follow you. Not like you needed to do it.”

Miles’ hand slipped into the pocket of his jacket. He felt the hard, shapely thing of wood; smoothed his thumb over the painted surface.

“We went over that,” Miles answered quietly. Pulling the soldier figurine out of his pocket, the synth presented it. “Do you want this back?”

Carefully, MacCready took the carving between a long thumb and forefinger. He examined it for nefarious alterations, or, perhaps, was reflecting on the moment of candor in which it had been given.

He looked into Miles’ eyes; forced rancor across his face after a second of gentle composure. “It was a gift. You don’t give away a gift. If you were human, you’d fu— you’d know that.”

The synth smirked. “Didn’t Lucy give you that in the first place?”

The man sighed. “I can’t believe this.”

Miles, close enough to do so, dipped in.

MacCready gasped. Miles felt it as he just barely kissed him, testing willingness while going carefully. Seeing that the sniper didn’t flinch, Miles pressed closer, top lip pressed to top lip; bottom lip to bottom. His lips were wet. They trembled. Miles felt that new but already familiar warmth flush across his chest as MacCready whimpered so subtly its only evidence was the vibration across Miles’ mouth. It was exasperating; excruciating. Strange to feel pain in such a situation, but Miles, indeed, ached.

Guiding MacCready closer by the hips, wrapping an arm around his upper back and then the other at his waist, MacCready’s hand suddenly began to rise. Miles froze. But the man only held Miles’ cheek as his lips continued working in affectionate pecks, signalling that he didn’t want it to stop. It was a tenderness: his thumb brushing over the cheekbone, his fingers teasing Miles’ earlobe.

Miles twitched. That touch sent something silver through him: to his eyes, and to his groin. It was bright. It was different.

Miles pushed MacCready against the wall—hard.

The stitching of their jackets was tested as their hands desperately grabbed and their mouths desperately moved. Miles’ tongue stroked through the seam of the man’s lips, tangling with MacCready’s. MacCready tasted like that morning’s breakfast and the fact that nothing about humanity was inviting except him; him and his bad moods, and good moods, and nimble fingers now massaging through his shirt, rubbing circles across his skin. Miles kissed harder; pushed harder. MacCready moaned, submitting, tilting his head so as to allow the taller man better access. But Miles didn’t want one deep kiss; he wanted a dozen, or hundreds, that neither started nor ended, and he kept going at MacCready again and again, drawing his tongue out and lapping his way back in. The man beneath him shuttered every time, thrashing as much as he pulled.

Miles decided finally, in dragging his tongue over MacCready’s bottom lip, and in sucking on it ‘til it went purple, that he ought to let the man come up for air. MacCready was limp and gasping by the time Miles was done, his sweat-dampened forehead resting back against the wall, a harsh light glaring down and emphasizing the premature wrinkles. Miles supported him, his face pressed in probably too closely, as he watched the man breathe, a little smile somewhere on his face. MacCready looked at peace: mouth slackened, eye closed; lines and wrinkles smoothing for a second.

He slowly opened his heavy lids. He seemed to be returning to earth from a faraway place. “So,”—he swallowed—“you coming back for me?”

Miles’s arms, still around him, tightened fondly. “Yes.”

MacCready started to move. Miles stepped back, allowing him space.

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” MacCready went to his hat. Scooping it up, he smacked it against his leg, dislodging dirt.

“I have not changed,” Miles promised. “This isn’t about their little mission. The fact is that the Institute works hard to reclaim their property. I am that property. They will come for me, Robert. I figured getting out in front of the situation was the best thing to do. Like we did with the Gunners for you.” He walked closer. “If I thought going in meant not coming out, I wouldn’t be doing this. It’s why I’m taking that Railroad agent. She distracts them; I escape. My teleportation signature will be the least of their worries while she’s shooting-up the place.”

“Alright. So you’ve thought of everything.” MacCready ran his tongue across his teeth, nodding. “Except,” he continued testily, “that it’s my job to have your back.”

Miles smiled. Doing so still felt strange to him. But, he supposed, MacCready had made him strange. “Wait for me. It’ll take some hours afterwards to return here. But I will come back.”

MacCready glanced away. “Yeah. Alright.”

He slipped the wooden soldier into Miles’ pocket. Miles immediately took it out again, and placed it back in MacCready’s hand.

The man looked heart-broken. “Wh—?”

“I wouldn’t want to lose it,” Miles said. “It’s the most… You know, I think it’s the only important thing of mine. Everything else is disposable. But that? I can’t lose it, Robert.”

“It’s the only important thing, huh?” MacCready goaded.

“Oh, yes,” Miles nodded. “You, however, are entirely replaceable.”

MacCready rolled his eyes. “Sure, boss.”

Miles kissed him again, on the cheek.