#Nick is annoyin but in the pick me kid kinda way | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eliniei · 5 years

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Can you do (for the second list) 21 and 70? Your choice of character :)

@sixties-sodapop! This one was fun! I was giggling to myself the whole way through. I chose Tim and Dally for this one.

Masterlist: here

Prompts: 21. “I’m bulletproof…but please don’t shoot me.” and 70. “Not everyone is out to get you. Stop thinking that. It’s annoying.”

Warnings: Guns, and lots of cursing.

—-

Tim woke up to a rifling sound somewhere in the house. It took a moment to reorient himself to his surroundings. He was in his room, his bed. Tonight is…?

Friday night. Right. Okay.

He could hear Curly’s obnoxious snoring from across the hall. Good god, whoever marries that kid is gonna have one helluva time.

And Angela was…? At a friend’s house for the night.

…

So who the fuck was in his house?

Tim sighed out his nose and sat up, the sheet sliding down his bare chest. He scratched at an itch on his neck with one hand, uncovered his legs with the other. He dropped his feet on the cold wood floor and stretched his arms out.

Once he was finally, actually awake, he made for the closet and grabbed his loaded shotgun. He tried to listen over his stupid brother’s snoring- and he was pretty sure it was coming from the kitchen. Tim’s brow furrowed.

What the hell? What’s in the kitchen that’s so valuable?

Slowly, he stalked down the hall, making sure his feet didn’t make a sound. When he got to the living room, he could see a dim light shining in the kitchen. The ice box? Did some homeless guy just break into his house for food? For fuck’s sake.

Swiftly, Tim turned the corner and saw the door to the refrigerator wide open, whoever was behind it bent over, searching. He raised the shotgun and loaded the chamber.

“Hands up, motherfucker,” he called.

Dallas Fucking Winston’s head popped up from behind the door. He had a piece of sliced turkey hanging out of his mouth as he raised one hand. With the other, he stuffed the rest of the meat into his mouth and swallowed quickly.

“I think I’m pretty bulletproof, man…but uh, don’t actually shoot me,” he said, breaking out into that stupid lopsided grin that got on Tim’s last nerve.

“What the hell, man?” Tim asked, lowering his gun and shaking his head. He stole a glance at the clock on the wall behind Dally. “Its two in the fuckin’ mornin’. What are ya doin’ breakin’ into my house, eatin’ my food?”

“Okay, strictly speakin’, I didn’t break in.”

“And how’s that, exactly?”

“I got a key.” He reached into his pocket and held it up. Tim swiped at it, trying to get it bad, but Dally had always been faster.

“And how did you get that key?” He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. Fuckin’ Christ, he just wanted to sleep.

“Kinda nicked it off your brother a few weeks ago.”

“Jesus Christ, Dally.” The kid stuffed another piece of turkey in his mouth. He was gonna slam the door closed on Winston’s head if he wasn’t careful. “Just make a god damn sandwich and stop wastin’ all the electricity.”

“Fine, fine.”

Tim went back into the front room, flipped the lightswitch, and set the shotgun down against the coffee table, then dropped into the couch cushions, laying across all three. He put a hand over his eyes and waited for his stupid hood friend to join him.

When he heard Dally set himself up in the armchair next to the television, Tim removed his hand and stared up at the ceiling. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“You gonna tell me why you’re here?”

His answer was unintelligible, his mouth full of meat and bread and cheese.

“English, please?” An audible swallow.

“Was on this side of town. Saw a cop tailin’ me. Figured your place would be the best hideout ‘round this area.”

“What’d you do this time?”

“Well, I ain’t done nothin’, yet.”

Tim sighed heavily.

“So let me get this straight, Winston.” He turned his head to see Dally take a long drink out of a beer bottle- again, taken from his fridge. “You broke into my house and woke me up at two in the mornin’ just because you thought a cop was after you when you done nothin’ to get picked up for?”

He saw the cogs turn in his friend’s head, trying to process everything that had just been said.

“Uh-yeah, I guess so.” Another sip of beer. Tim rolled his eyes.

“Seriously, man? You didn’t think for a minute that maybe- just maybe that cop was just doin’ his rounds and he wasn’t really after you?” Dally paused, sandwich halfway up to his face.

“Nah, I guess I didn’t think about it.”

“Ya know, not everyone is out to get ya. You gotta stop thinkin’ that. It’s annoyin’ the hell outta me.”

“Chill out, man,” Dally said, mouth full again.

“I outta just fuckin’ shoot ya.”

“So, can I stay here tonight?”

Tim sat up again and grabbed the shotgun by the barrell and stood to go back to his bedroom. Another sigh.

“I guess. You know where the pillows and blankets are.”

Dally stood up as well, heading to put his plate in the sink and take up the couch for the night. Tim paused at the mouth of the hallway and turned back. He pointed a finger at his friend.

“But you better be gone by the time I wake up.”

“Yeah, yeah, man. Whatever.”

He went back to his bedroom and shut the door. He put the gun back in the closet and fell back onto his mattress. As he covered up and turned over onto his side, he played back the entire conversation in his head and vowed to kill that stupid hood in the morning for ruining his sleep.

“Fuckin’ Winston.”

#The Outsiders #the outsiders fanfiction #Dallas Winston #Tim Shepard #elinieiwrites #christinasasks #thecelestetag #outsiders

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katrinajg · 6 years

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So, the AO3 editor and I have been at odds these last few days because for some reason it wouldn’t accept the changes I was trying to make to a section of my latest chapter since it totally kiboshed like 10+ paragraphs with no rhyme or reason.

I finally got it fixed by, so the missing paragraphs are present, but if anyone doesn’t feel like searching the chapter for the bits you missed, I present that scene here for your convenience.

- - - -

...Nick goes back to surprised in the blink of an eye. He stares at Deacon, uncertain. “Are you…serious, kid?”

“As a deathclaw attack.”

Nick still stares at him, wavering

“See, I realized something when I was talkin’ with JH. He knows everything about me and because of that, when he tells me shit that I don’t wanna hear, I end up listening to him (after a fight) because…he’s got all the pieces, ya know? He sees it all. Even though the things that he says to me are almost exactly the kind of things you’ve already said me, but I don’t take you seriously because I’ve, like, withheld the last pieces, and it… shouldn’t be like that. With us.”

Deacon closes the distance between them and lays a hand on Nick’s arm. “I know that this isn’t gonna be happy fun times because the past is like my least favourite topic, but we’re partners, Nick. In every sense of the word, and you deserve to be let in that last little bit, more importantly, I want you in.”

“Jack…” Nick breaths, overwhelmed.

“Took me long enough, right?”

Nick huff a breath of laughter. “Yeah, as annoyin’ as it was, but I woulda waited forever for you.”

“Surprise! You don’t have to. For just five easy payments of $19.99 you can have it all!”

“Jokes on you then, ‘cause I already had it all. I have you.”

Deacon considers continuing to make light of the situation, but he’d rather bask in the saccharine sentimentality of that last statement. So, he does.

They end up on the couch that used to occupy the spot that Nick’s bed used to back when Ellie still lived in the agency. He sits close to Nick, but not close enough to touch. It’ll be easier to talk if he can just power through it rather than having Nick try to comfort him. He appreciates where that comes from, but its better for him if he gets it out first before the comfort comes. It’s easier to feel worthy of it then.

And Nick being Nick, goes for the jugular first question out. “The Outcasts, kid. What did they do to you to warrant…that.”

Deacon sighs and wishes they could have built up to this, but he supposes that by now, Nick has most of the picture figured out. He wouldn’t be much of a detective if he didn’t, so the questions he’s going to ask are things that either aren't clear or there’s too much of a variation in versions for him to believe anything but the source.

So he starts back a bit and explains that after the Brotherhood and the people he had gathered to the cause defeated the Enclave forces at the Purifier and then again at Raven Rock (here Nick nods, indicating that he’s heard this part of the tale from someone already), glossing over the part where he almost died at the Purifier because that’ll just veer the whole conversation off, that he returned to Raven Rock, while the Brotherhood were busy preparing for their strike on Adams Air Force Base.

“I had this idea of what kinda person Eden was after listening to him talk on the radio for months, and I just couldn’t reconcile that…naïve vision with reality. I wanted Eden to be the person I thought he was, but I also knew that he wasn’t and that I couldn’t let the Brotherhood get a hold of him.”

“Is Henry that person now?” Nick asks, voice carefully neutral. Huh. Deacon can’t remember actually making that connection out loud, but again, he is dealing with a detective.

“Yes and no? I mean, that idea was based on a public image that was carefully crafted to appear human, but Eden wasn’t human, and neither is JH, so he’ll always be…different in some ways than a human, but I do trust him. He’s not the same person he was.”

Deacon continues with his story, giving a synopsis of that conversation in the wreck of Raven Rock, that he’d meant to destroy Eden before the Brotherhood arrived to pick through the crumbling ruin, he how he learned that it was Eden that rescued him from Braun’s clutches and that the Enclave had kept his father’s body as a peace offering.

“Before telling me all that, Eden asked that I spare his life. Take a copy of his core programming on a holotape.”

“The one you used to keep in your pocket all the time,” Nick says, putting the pieces together rapidly, and Deacon nods. “I had wondered what happened to it.”

“I plugged it in.”

“So, have you decided if its gonna save the Wasteland or destroy it?”

Deacon shrugs. “I won’t really know until it happens, will I? But I’m optimistic.”

After he had the modified holotape in his hands and the remaining programming was purged from the ZAX computer, Deacon knew he had to hide the tape. He might fool the Brotherhood for a while, under the assumption that an Enclave soldier wiped the system before the Brotherhood scribes could get there, but he knew that eventually, they would come to the conclusion that he might have had something to do with it.

He did consider for a time about hiding it in the deactivated bomb in Megaton, but after seeing the town again with all its people, Deacon couldn't risk the Brotherhood tampering with the bomb and causing it to go off in their efforts to find the tape. So, in the end, he decided to give it to Amata to hide. After all, no one could get into a vault if the residents didn’t want them in; that’s what he thought anyway. Deacon hadn’t counted on the Outcasts ability to get into places they weren’t welcome, nor had he considered that after Sarah Lyons confronted him about the missing data that she would go so far as to sick the Outcasts on his vault.

“I thought after everything we’d been through together, that Sarah would trust me about the data,” Deacon says, anger dampened somewhat by time. “But, she was more concerned with bringing the two halves of the Brotherhood together rather than a few vault dwellers.

“I hated her for it. Still do. I thought I meant more than just a bed warmer. But to be fair, she was my pathetic attempt at a replacement for Amata, so I suppose she was just as cut by me as I was by her.”

Funny how now that he talks about it, he sees her side of the story somewhat. Not that he’s any less angry about it, but he can understand how she must have felt when she realized that Deacon didn’t care for her the same way she cared for him.

“So…these Outcasts killed Amata?”

“They killed everyone in my vault, Amata included.” He takes a moment swallow through the grief that brings up. “Probably first since she was Overseer.”

Nick touches his arm for a moment as he says, “I’m sorry, Jack.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Then, Deacon curls in on himself as he says, “Ya know, I’m angry at her too. For not giving it up. I coulda done something about that, but I couldn’t keep them from killing her. Mostly, I’m angry at me for giving it to her in the first place.”

“You couldn’t’ve foreseen that, kid. It’s not your fault. Hindsight is always 20/20.”

“Maybe, but what came after was totally in my hands to control.”

And so here they are. At the crux of it all. The reason he left. The reason he couldn’t stand to look at his face in the mirror anymore. The reason why it was easier to spin a few dozen lies in place of one terrible truth.

He tells Nick about finding the vault, about having to see his whole family dead, shot in the back while running, a few with discarded 10mm pistols by their sides and holes burnt in their chests from laser fire, and about finding Amata and holding her cold body and crying. Even Andy, their Mr. Handy, was dead, so he had to haul all their bodies to the incinerator himself.

That gave him a lot of time to think and stew in his rage.

When he realized that they hadn’t even got what they wanted he was furious, beyond even rage. He both cold and calculating with it, and on fire with the need to destroy everything, it was like no other emotions existed in the world, had existed, or would exist.

“I scared Sarah that day I went to see her, demanding justice. Hell, I scared the whole damn Citadel and it was full of Brotherhood soldiers in power armour with Gatling lasers and me in crappy leather armour with only a cloak of righteous fury to protect me.”

“I believe it.”

“I wish you didn’t.”

Nick doesn’t respond to that, just touches Deacon’s arm again to reassure him that it doesn’t matter. Not to him. Deacon wishes he could feel like that. Even after everything that JH said to him and made him acknowledge. Knowing that he was in the right and feeling that are so very different.

“I didn’t get what I wanted from her, what I thought I should’ve gotten. Sarah said she’d punish the Outcasts responsible for the slaughter ifI gave her the data—the holotape. I refused. I could only imagine what sort of fresh hell they would bring on the Capital if they got a hold of Eden’s program. If Eden’s program got a hold of them.”

When he left the Citadel, he was already planning how to lure the Outcasts to him to kill them. It’s hard to say that aloud, that he could be so calculatingly cruel, but it’s the truth. He couldn’t assault their base in the Capital, Fort Independence, without dying in a spectacular fashion (at this time, the Outcasts still hadn’t decided to rejoin the Brotherhood, even though the two were tentatively working together on a few projects, most notably, Adams Air Force Base), so he had to lay a trap and ambush them.

That’s how they ended up in Megaton.

“I just had to send out a few rumours about the data being stashed in a lockbox in Megaton, and make sure that few people saw me out of town. The Outcasts couldn’t resist the opportunity. The rest you saw.”

Nick is quiet for a moment after the story and Deacon is certain that more than an hour has passed. He wonders if Leslie is supposed to be back sometime this afternoon.

“So, were they all responsible? The ones you…went after.”

“Some were, but if you want numbers, I don’t have them. If they had the Outcast orange on their armour, I killed them. It didn’t matter then if they were responsible or not.”

Nick sighs. “Well, I can’t say I’m glad that you did that, kid. ‘Specially seein’ as how you’re still dealin’ with the effects of it.”

“Ya, well, join the club.”

Nick gives him a look before he shifts closer. “Jack, I don’t mean it like that. I don't want people to have to do things like that to get justice. I hate that you had to do it.”

“It’s kinda funny, but JH almost said the exact same thing about this subject. And he actually agreed with you about the destroyin’ random shit thing because of basically the same reasons.”

“Go figure.”

“So, what else do you want to know?”

Nick asks some more questions about Braun; he seems incapable of letting that particular dog lie. Deacon would be annoyed if he wasn’t certain that something horrible was going to eventually happen on that front, but he does hate having to think about Vault 112. Then he asks, much to Deacon’s amusement/amazement that he remembered the offhand comment, about how Lincoln got his head back.

And somehow because of that story, which among the stories Deacon has is a good one and one he doesn’t mind sharing, Deacon starts remembering funny things that happened or things that were interesting and don't have that cloud of Brotherhood or Enclave hanging over them. Like Canterbury Commons, Oasis, Sierra and her Nuka Cola museum, or that med-x trip of an adventure at Point Lookout.

Just talking about a story, begets another story, and they all rush to come out.

It isn’t until his stomach is grumbling that Deacon realizes how long he’s been talking. Uninterrupted. Leslie hasn’t returned and Nick still grinning about the talking vault boy bobbleheads that Deacon hallucinated while on that swamp drug. He won’t be grinning when Deacon tells him that the riverboat operator took out a chunk of his brain.

Maybe he’ll just leave that part out.

#fallout 4 #deacon/nick valentine #ISSH #ao3 editor totally ate my homework #er...i mean my chapter #deacon is the lone wanderer

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