Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Deacon
"What do you mean you can't find her? She's one girl… She couldn't have just disappeared into thin air. People talk there has to be someone who knows where she is." I hissed at the agent I had tailing Avery.

"I'm sorry sir but she got into it with a Death Claw I saw her get hurt. I returned after the death claw was taken care of and she was gone…. but there was a lot of blood." My heart dropped at those words, I had to go after her.

"Problem Deacon?" Glory said from behind me, things have gotten more awkward ever since we almost had sex.

"Not at all, I was just explaining my thoughts on how Death claws were made to fox here." She rolled her eyes at the obvious lie.

"Dez is looking for you." She said looking at me for a moment as if she was contemplating something before pulling me by my collar and pressing her lips against mine… I blink in shock as she pulls away and turns her back to me.

"I didn’t know you two were together?" I look up to see Dez holding a cigarette in her hand staring at me expectantly.

"We aren't… but I think that was a blatant display of how much she wants me." I say too shocked to come up with a lie, She looks up at Glory curiously. I turn to face her trying to look serious.

"Dez, I need that restriction lifted…. you can't just keep me here!" I huff remembering the reason I was angry with her.

"Look I know what you’ve been thinking about, I can't let you go to switchboard unless it's with a full team backing you and right now we don't have the resources for that." I force a smile on to my face and place a hand on her shoulder.

"Look Dez I'm not going to switch board I have other things to do, I need you to lift that restriction you have on me leaving." She scans my face for a moment before sighing. I hold my breath as she looks back up at me curiously.

"Fine." She says softly before taking another drag of her cigarette and I can't help but smile, I now can go look for Avery on my own.

"I gotta go hold down the fort for me Dez!" I say as I gather my things and hightail it out of there waving to Dez over my shoulder. I take out my map and look at the route I should take to go to Concord, I will look there for clues.
**
When I get to Concord I see what fox meant about the blood. There's a suit of power armor broken apart and a large dent in the bricks of the museum. I walk to the Death Claw seeing one of its claws covered in dry blood.

"Oh Avery…. where are you?" I question softly walking back to the dent in the museum I run my finger down the corner of the dent looking on the floor where the blood was spattered. I lift my glasses for a moment scanning the blood and I can see little droplets on the road. I follow them until im leaving concord and passing the Red rocket truck stop. I look around for a moment seeing a settlement in the distance. My heart is telling me that she's there, I take off running as fast as I can towards the settlement. By the time I make it I'm breathing hard, I skid to a stop in front of a man who has a laser musket aimed at my head.

"Now, I don't want to shoot you, hands up real slow now and explain to me what you are doing here." I take a deep breath raising my hands.

"Just here looking for my friend she had a brawl with a death claw back in Concord." His eyes soften and his face becomes grim.

"She's a friend of yours? I'll take you to her." He says lowering his gun and walking towards a nearby home, there's settlers around us look at me in fear.

"Her companion left with a friend of mine, Preston Garvey to get her everything she needs to survive this. She will be okay." When we entered the house he told me what room she was in before walking away. I held my breath as I walked into the room, I see Avery unconscious on the bed with stitches up to her throat. I go to her side and take her hand stroking her hair. She looks deathly pale, her mouth open in an attempt to breathe, her skin is burning almost like she's running a really high fever. Her eyelids flutter open and she stares at me curiously before a small smile sprouts on her lips.

"Hey sweetheart, how you feeling?" I question as I keep petting her hair.

"Hi Deacon." She mouths but no sound comes out, she lifts a hand to her throat as her eyes widen in alarm. I see her hands going straight for the stitches, I catch them in mine.

"Woahh there… nonononono don't do that sweetheart, please look at me it's okay." She's borderline panicking as she looks at me.

"I'm we're gonna something interesting okay, ease your mind and don't touch." I say gesturing to her throat. She looks at me with a scared expression, I lay down next to her on my side so I'm facing her.

"So what we are gonna do is I'm going to tell you something and you will tell me whether it’s the truth or a lie." She frowns at that and lifts her hand to her throat this time without touching.

"You can mouth it boss I understand you." I say a small smirk pulling at my lips when she rolls her eyes and turns her head to face me wincing slightly when she does. I think of what I could possibly tell her, she awaits hazy steel eyes staring up at me expectantly.

"This is my real hair." I blurt and lips part slightly as she looks at me in shock.

"Truth?" She mouths second guessing herself for a moment. I bite my lip as I try to stop the smile from sprouting on my face.

"Lie?" She mouths again making me nod. She lifts her hand to my hair running her fingers through it before she pulls it off my head. Her shoulders shake as she grins up at me, her fingers gently prodding at my bald head. I roll my eyes at her when she removes my shades and sets them aside.

"Next." She mouths as she attempts to scoot closer but fails. I laugh gently as she pouts up at me, I scoot closer and she smiles happily. She places a hand on my cheek pulling me even closer.

"I have single handedly taken down a DeathClaw." Her eyes narrow a moment scanning down my face and body, I can't help but feel vulnerable without my shades, my wig and well any disguise whatsoever.

"truth." She mouthed making me nod against her hand.

"I'm a synth." Her eyes widen in confusion before she shakes her head.

"Lie." She mouths almost instantly, part of me is disappointed that she can't see it.

"Hey! I could be a Synth, I could be the best damn Synth that ever…..Synthed!" I playfully nudge her making her roll her steel eyes.

"I think you're thieving companion is a good guy." She looks at my face her lips pursing slightly.

"Truth." She was right, despite how much I didn’t like MacCready, I didn’t doubt he was a good guy.

"Have I ever told you about the big three for predicting people?" She shook her head as much as she could without pulling on her stitches.

"Caps, beliefs, and ego. Get a handle on what's driving someone and you know here you stand." She looks up at me with those big steel colored eyes and my heart skips a beat.

"So where do I stand with you?" I didn’t offer her any words just a tired smile. She curled her head on my shoulder and wrapped her arm around me opting to not ask me anymore questions. Through my shirt I could feel the temp she was running. I ran my fingers through her hair and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

"I was so scared when I saw the mess you guys left back in Concord. I felt like I was losing my mind for the first time in a long time, I was really worried. I wondered what would happen to me if you really had…." I shut up my eyes trailing down to see her looking up at me.

"I'm not out of the woods yet." she mouthed.

"As soon as you fall asleep, I'm gonna go and head out to see if I can find you some things to help." She shook her head.

"Don't leave, I don't want to wake up alone again." She mouthed one last time her eyes drooping sleepily as she laid on me.

"Your wish is my ….. strong recommendation." I whispered softly as I played with her hair listening to the quiet wispy little sounds of her breathing against my ear. I slowly inch my hand down and reach in my pack finding Proust. I slipped it out as I laid my head against Avery's and started reading from where I had last.

I had a lot of prewar books I managed to steal from a library back in the Capital wasteland. Shakespeare, Proust and Edgar Allen Poe were my favorites. It wasn’t even an hour before Avery was out cold and I was trying to slip out of her grasp. I felt like a total asshole for trying to leave while she slept. I wanted her to get better but I also knew she would be hurt by this. I tried moving away from her only for her to latch on to me tighter, I sighed softly remembering that the guy who almost shot mentioned her companion and theirs went to get her something to make it better. I lay my head back against the pillow and give up on trying to leave and decide to stay here and hold her close to me.

"Fuck me…" I murmured as Avery curled more on top of me, I sighed holding her tightly as I closed my eyes and decided to give those two three days to come back with help for Avery before I go out and get it for her.