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I went back to Goodneighbor after my long 'vacation'. And there was John again. I hold my breath. Tall, skinny, skinless, black eyed. Still wearing a mile long grin and that tricorn hat. He waved me over to him, greeting me as a friend. A slap on the back and an invitation back to his place. Typical.
I met John almost a year ago, I was fresh from my ice box with Kellogg's brain bits sloshing around in my pocket.
"No love for your mayor, Finn?" Hancock, I called him before we got familiar. He stabbed that fuck at the gates, three times in the chest. Something in me buzzed. A deep hum behind my sternum. Hot and tingling. Fate, I might have said if I were of that sort. But I'm not. So I don't.
We fucked later, me on the sink in a bar bathroom. Bottle of whiskey each. Jet for him. Psycho for me. I drunkenly rubbed our cocks together. Twisted, desperate, soaked in our sweat and other peoples blood. John held the long parts of my hair in his fist when I came, a yelping pathetic orgasm. And when he finished soon after he leaned his forehead on mine. How unnaturally warm he was, and that he smelled like menthol and campfire.
I had errands to run after, so naturally I fucked off and came back around a few weeks later for business. My dumb ass got fooled by Bobbi and I almost swindled him. I killed her, of course. I don't suffer cons. When I returned I expected him to be cross. Yet still that gangly fool wanted to run around with me. So we did.
'Tears' he'd call them. We'd get word of some shit happening. We'd check it out. John'd smooth talk his way around folks, and when that wouldn't work I'd come through with my sledge. Whenever possible, we'd find some nook and go at each other.
I realized I loved him in the glowing sea. We had made camp in a church we found overrun by ferals, and found a patch with few enough rads not to kill me in my sleep while out of my power armor.
We didn't talk, which was rare for the two of us. Always a jab, a bar fly story, or a suggestive joke to fill the silence. But it was quiet this time. Comfortable, familiar quiet.
I layed on my bedroll working on my ritual, unwrapping and re-wrapping the support gauze on my bad knee. Trying to get an ounce of comfort out of it but not quite getting it right.
"Give me that," Playfully annoyed, Hancock took the gauze from my hand and picked up where I left off. Deftly he wrapped my knee the way I usually get it after several trials. "Saves us an hour." He gave my thigh a swat and that wicked toothy grin.
Something clicked. I looked at him, looking at me. And I saw how we'd been moving more as a unit and less like individuals. I'd stoke the fire, he'd prep the food. We had our routine. The beginnings of domesticity. Right under my nose though I didn't let myself turn my head down.
I kissed him. Slow and sweet. Not to turn him on. Just to kiss him. To be close to him. For him to be close to me. Tenderness was an unspoken out of bounds. Didn't even call each other by first names if it wasn't between moans. But he kissed back, returning the intention. Not eager, we had all the time in the world. When we broke, he cupped my cheek in his hand. I leaned on it and fit my fingers between his.
That night he was my little spoon. The church we slept in was like an alternate dimension for. Where we were gooey and domestic and soft. All the shit we said we were running away from. I held on so tight I worried I'd wake him. Traced the lines of scarred skin, wrote cursive love notes I hoped he would translate.
I had that conversation I never want to have a while later. The one I had with the men I loved when deployed, who later went home to their wives and girlfriends. Who never wrote back, never visited, never called. No matter how much they promised during pillow talk.
"Is that what we are, Just friends?" Always tongue in cheek, the chance to brush it off as homoerotic humor.
"I don't toss that word around lightly." A water well built in my stomach. I knew it was coming. It was inevitable. Even the future has it's limits. Always a wife, a girlfriend, a life outside to return to. I'm fun, for now. A chew toy.
I learned to swallow my tongue. To fill the well with cement till it doesn't feel so hollow. But every time I see John the well gets deeper.
"Oh wait, You gotta meet Tatum, You'll love her." John says, calling someone from the bar. A red-head looks up, mid-chug a pint of beer. She's pretty.
Sometimes a well can be filled, and sometimes the well leads to a massive subterranean lake.