[Locked to MacCready] On the Having of Nice Things

[st_abby]

Though the sun had only sunk for the day by the time that Vax'ildan got it in his head to have supper, there was still lingering heat that proved the summer months had begun. Vex had been making eyes at Percy earlier, so her brother let them be and saw to his own feeding. The buildings here had cooling devices (no, really, cooled air), but it was pleasant enough yet, even in full black leather armor, to eat outdoors once the worst glare of the day had passed. Or if you were a rogue with a whole bird motif going on, you could take your meal up onto the rooftops.

That's how it was that Vax had come to be sitting perched at the edge of the rooftop on the main building, dangling a leg off the side with another tucked under him, working his way thoughtfully through half of a sandwich Ignis had put out of the kitchen for the usual hopeless scavengers. He washed down his first bites with a swallow of cold bottled ale, watching as the daylight waned, the shine visibly coming off of the brightness of the world stretched out around him. The blue and purple and first blacks of the evening began to fold widely around the Inn and its people, gathering them gently into its cloak, and Vax found himself sighing quietly. Not at anything. It was just... This was nice.

Comments

[st_rontium]

Once the sun started setting, MacCready went to the roof. It'd become routine for him now, a habit he knew he wasn't ever going to break. It wasn't always the same roof, but a roof. He'd stay there most of the night until people more prone to mornings started getting up.

Nothing had attacked them yet. Nothing was likely to attack them.

Still, it felt right to be there.

He stretched as he walked onto it, catching the familiar silhouette of his half elven friend. No danger there. Just Vax.

Well, alright. Some danger. A lot of danger. He'd seen the man fight. No danger towards him. Far as he knew they were friends and Vax was one of the few people in the world who wasn't going to sink those daggers into his back.

"You bein' all romantic up here on your lonesome?" Mac teased, pulling out a bottle and setting it and Lucy aside as he dropped down next to the man.

[st_abby]

"It's not exactly romantic if you're alone, is it?" Vax gave a bit of a smile at the familiar voice, almost helping himself to another bite of his sandwich before picking up the other half and offering it over to MacCready. "Some sort of salad made with eggs," he explained.

[st_rontium]

"If you can't be romantic with yourself who can you be romantic with?" he replied dryly. He took the sandwich and sniffed it a little. "Yum Yum Deviled Eggs." He took a bite and made a small sound of approval. "Not bad, thanks."

[st_abby]

"So that's what this is called." Vax tried another bite, trying to decide what made the eggs in the sandwich 'deviled.'

Vax could certainly think of one particular someone he wished he was able to be romantic with (other than himself), but even he could only brood so much in a single day. He'd rather put that energy to enjoying the evening and catching up with a friend. "Are you up here for the ambiance, then, or looking for something to shoot?"

[st_rontium]

"Maybe," he said, rolling his shoulders. "Yum Yum Deviled Eggs was just the brand we had back home. Kinda tastes like that. Just with bread. And a little bit of crunch." He didn't know what the crunch was or if the boxes back home originally had a crunch and it just got soggy over the years.

He adjusted his seat. "Can't it be a bit of both? 'S quiet up here. I don't have to think too much."

[st_abby]

"Sure. It's whatever we make of it," Vax suggested easily as he had another sip of beer.

After a long beat of looking out at all the nothing-in-particular, Vax glanced over at MacCready quietly. "Are you okay? Just checking if that's you not wanting to think overmuch in the relaxed way, or in the worrisome way."

[st_rontium]

Questions like that always caught Mac for a loop. He wasn't used to anyone caring enough to check in on him like that and he almost wanted to shove the big bird off the roof to stop it. Almost. He didn't want to risk the idiot having spread his wings already that day.

He took a swig of his own drink. "It's only a matter of time. You get that, right?" he said quietly. "I've got moments where it's alright, y'know, but they never last long." He pulled his hat off and rested it on his thigh so he could run his hand through his hair, gaze flicking to the bullet of gratitude Percy'd made for him that he kept in the band.

[st_abby]

It was Vax's turn to be surprised a bit, but he didn't shrink from the subject. "Nothing lasts forever," he agreed. "But that means you need all of the good moments you can get. As many as you can. Not less of them, through fear and worry."

He thought again on what Mac had said. "It sounds as if something seems alright for you." To hear MacCready tell it, this world had untold luxuries compared to his wastes. Maybe he was starting to relax, and that was the off-putting part.

[st_rontium]

"It's not fear and worry," he said, pretty sure that no matter what he said, Vax wasn't gonna get it. He sighed heavily. "It's- Never mind."

He put his hat back on, fighting the impulse to just go find another rooftop so he could be alone with his melancholy.

"There's too damn many gorgeous, good people here. You notice that? It's like every time I turn around there's another person whose face should be painted on a damn billboard or something."

[st_abby]

Vax raised an eyebrow at him. No, he'd clearly missed what MacCready was trying to get at. He'd probably made the mistake of thinking Mac wanted advice, when maybe he'd rather just have someone listen, or sort out his feelings in his own time.

"You know, you're not exactly a poxy hunchback either, Mac," he had to point out at that. "But yes, whosoever is picking the guests seems to like pretty faces."

[st_rontium]

"Compared to you lot, I am," he said, painfully reminded of the state of his mouth as he took another swig of his drink. He should've let it sit a while longer. It wasn't room temperature enough.

"Bout the only thing I've got going for me is being a decent shot and that I can eat anything and not worry about revisiting it later." That wasn't the point. He didn't know why he said it. Probably a lifetime of rads had just fucked up his head. That'd explain a lot.

"There's this guy..." Not Vax. Well...okay, for a short while, Vax, but only 'cause Mac knew damn well how touch starved he was and hated Lucy just a little bit that that was a phrase he knew.

[st_abby]

There came no argument beyond what had been said already - for now, anyway. Not that Vax especially liked to hear people cut themselves down, but what seemed altogether more important was where Mac was steering the conversation towards, not how he'd got them there.

Now Vax raised both eyebrows at him, and then started to smile. "Do I get to know which guy?" He wouldn't exactly blame Mac if he didn't want to share that yet. They were boxed in together in such close quarters, and he wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable if they were only just easing into something. But there was a guy and Vax's dark eyes danced to hear it.

[st_rontium]

Fuckin' shit, that look was more dangerous than the sky going green at the first edges of a radstorm rollin' through. "Piotr," he said, no reason to hide any of that. Vax was a sneaky bastard. If there was something to find out, he'd find it out eventually. May as well be open about it than waste the ammo spooking him out of the shadows if he managed to catch him out on it in the first place.

"Big fuckin' guy. Huge." He almost said Super Mutant before stopping himself. None of that would make sense to Vax. "He's got like a foot on me. Not what I usually go for."

[st_abby]

"The big man," Vax remarked with a note of excited amusement. And there could be little doubt which man that was. Not the type Vax might've guessed for Mac, either. "He's built like a castle," he considered, then reconsidered, "but he's a great big teddy bear, isn't he? An artist, if I remember correctly."

Come to think of it, gentle and attentive was exactly what he'd hope for MacCready - no matter the size.

[st_rontium]

"Geez, you're worse than Daisy," Mac said, rolling his eyes fondly at that little bit of gossipy glee. He couldn't help the little quirk of a smile that pulled at the corner of his mouth.

"Smells better'n a teddy bear, but yeah. Makes me feel like a kitten." He wasn't going to go with baby bird. He wasn't the one with wings here.

[st_abby]

He couldn't help but laugh. "Makes you feel like a kitten? Oh, that's fucking adorable," Vax insisted, with nothing but warmth.

"Honestly, that's... Good for you," he sobered enough to say with a straight face, thinking of how resigned Mac had looked only moments ago. He reached to give Mac's shoulder a soft squeeze. "That's good, if 'there's a guy.' Yes? Can we agree on that?"

[st_rontium]

"Only thing I could think of without wings that still goes up," Mac defended. He wanted desperately to light up. Not yet. The situation didn't call for it yet and he needed to ration things in hopes of someone else's fuckin' room opening up.

"Is it? Fuck, man, I don't know." He barely knew Piotr. His gut said the guy was decent. His gut didn't say that about a lot of people. "For now, I guess. I like him, but I sure as shit don't deserve him, and he's gonna figure that out eventually."

[st_abby]

"Not that I know him so very well," Vax said slowly - admittedly, he'd only vaguely remembered his name as something like 'Pete' until MacCready had confirmed what the right name was - thank you, alcohol. "But I get the sense that maybe being so big and buff taught him a thing or two about being careful not to break things out of hand. And if he... Makes you feel like a kitten," he repeated, but more earnestly now, "then yeah, that's a beautiful thing to have."

Vax shifted his bottle-hand to wipe off some of the leftover crumbs of his sandwich caught in his feather ruff, but then he looked back up at Mac with a serious expression. "If you could do... Just one thing for me. A favor. Do it for yourself, really. But the one thing would be: Don't tell him what he wants or doesn't want. You decide for yourself, and then let him decide for himself. Trust him to listen to the beat of his own heart."

[st_rontium]

"Not gonna tell him what he should or shouldn't do about anything unless he asks me to." He picked a little at the label on his bottle. "I'm not good at doing things for myself. Doesn't matter, I guess. How've you been?"

[st_abby]

"It matters," Vax pushed back quietly, but only that far. He swallowed from his beer, took a long breath, and smiled wide as he exhaled.

"If you have to ask, you haven't met her yet," he suggested more brightly, clearly enjoying being a touch cryptic.

[st_rontium]

"What, Steph?" Mac asked, arching a brow. "You know me, man. I don't talk to people that much. I keep an eye on things and keep my mouth shut."

[st_abby]

"Steph?" The mysterious sort of look he'd had on his face vanished, replaced with a slightly self-conscious sort of humor. "No, I didn't mean - Not that she isn't..."

"I wasn't talking about her," Vax started all over again. "I meant my sister. She's here."

[st_rontium]

Completely unselfconscious for once in his time here, Mac grinned brightly at him and nudged his friend's shoulder with his own. "Yeah? That's great news, man!"

[st_abby]

"I don't know that it's great news for her, but for me..." Vax'ildan smiled gently, eyes softening. "It's everything."

[st_rontium]

Mac made a mental note to get Darryl to tell him where Vex's room was so he could make sure she got a welcome gift. "I'm glad," he said again. "You've earned some happiness."

[st_abby]

"I've lived my entire life up to now with Vex beside me," he tried to explain. "I didn't know what to do with myself, without her."

But that was bordering maudlin, maybe, and it wasn't the case now anyway. "You should accept all of her stories about how awesome I am as completely true, and anything embarrassing... Also true," he quipped. "And if you want to make a good impression, start with telling her how wonderful Trinket is."