Archive of Our Own ^beta

Starts before you met him, before the vault, before you, before all that. Starts before he even existed. Started with a girl.

Jenny. That's what you're thinking, right? He could be still mourning a woman who died long before he opened his eyes for the first time. Maybe so.

That's a good guess, but Jenny's not the girl I'm thinking of. No, this girl was born after the bombs fell. She was born in the capital wasteland to raiders, but a raider she wasn't. That girl grew up to become a paladin in the Brotherhood of Steel. She came to the Commonwealth ahead of the Prydwin. This was not long after the massacre in Diamond City, as synths that looked like humans became the norm.

She was nothing if not dedicated to the Brotherhood's ideals. So when this girl met a synth, a beat-up, grimy synth that only resembled a human man in the barest sense of the word, as if he wasn't even trying, she did what the Brotherhood taught. She killed him.

But she didn't kill him, did she? You've met that synth. You've stood beside him looking out at the Commonwealth. He's told you to keep your chin up because things are gonna get better. That Brotherhood paladin didn't kill him. She just thought she did.

A synth's a pretty hardy thing, but it's not going to stand up to power armor. A Brotherhood paladin with weapons and armor and a hatred for things that try to be what they're not tore right through Nick. Snapped his arm, burned through his chest with plasma fire, and when he went down she put a plain old ten millimeter slug through his jaw (you've seen it, right? the hole's still there, and if you look real close you can see where it took a chip out of his jawbone). Then, maybe because of a part of her story we'll never know pushed her to do it, maybe just because, she took the boot of that power armor and put it across his hips, and she crushed his pelvis like it was nothing.

He's not gonna tell you that. He doesn't tell anybody, and he doesn't talk about it anymore with the man who patched him up. That's part of the reason for the detective get-up, you know. Under the trench coat nobody can see how badly that paladin messed him up. But if you were to take off his clothes (don't) you'd see the bent, battered insides he takes such care to keep hidden. He doesn't want you to see him like that. He doesn't want to see himself like that. It's hard enough for him to pretend he's human as it is. If you love him that much, let him keep his little walls.

You can't fuck Nick Valentine because he's not ready for that kind of commitment.

You think he's a nice, sensible man? Maybe you should talk to Ellie. He can barely take care of himself; what makes you think he'd be a good lover?

Ellie will tell you. He's devoted to the job. He found the one thing that long-dead detective prepared him to do and he's going to do it. She's told him time and again that he's taking a chance, constantly throwing himself into danger, putting off repairs to follow a case. Maybe she hasn't seen the extent of his wounds but she's seen a hell of a lot of his shirts and undershirts stained and heavy with coolant. She's the first person to call him out on it.

And you know? He has internalized a little of that. You've seen it yourself. You've seen him after a radscorpion bashed out his knee and he called to you, half-joking, half-scared, "If you see any pieces of my leg, let me know." He's paused beside you long enough for you to put a stimpack to his shoulder before throwing himself back out at the raiders or the mutants or the coursers. He's told you he wants to do this til the end finally comes.

You can't separate Nick the synth from Nick the detective. No matter what you do or who you try to mold yourself into being, he's always going to be looking at you with those glowing observant eyes.

You can't fuck Nick Valentine because he's tired. He's so, so tired.

He won't tell you that. If you ask he'll lie. He's a synthetic man, what does he need sleep or rest or anything like that for?

But you've seen him quietly contradict himself. He'll tell you he doesn't need to eat or drink or sleep but you should go ahead. But you've seen him sit at the Power Noodles stand, going through the motions of eating, or drinking, or smoking. He forgets, sometimes.

You think those split-second diagnostics he runs are for real? Well, they are, but they're just quick fixes. What he needs to do is find somewhere quiet--maybe that bed he should have but does in the back of his office--and do a deep, thorough fixing of himself.

If you told him that he'd deny it. He's fine, he's not nearly as beat up as he looks. Truth is, if he slows down, if he lets himself relax, he's gonna have to listen to the questions that are always running through his head.

But he might listen to you. He's needed somebody steady and reliable in his life for a while. Ellie's good but she's just a kid, and as often as he runs into Skinny Malone he's not gonna listen to that guy tell him to take it easy (what, so Skinny can set up even more little kingdoms in even more abandoned vaults? maybe when hell freezes over!). Maybe--still an outside chance but the best odds you'll get--if you told him you know how it feels he'd admit to you that he's worn out, kid, just worn out. Maybe you'll convince him to lay down on his bed and just exist in the moment, and if you're there with him maybe he'll get his chance to rest.

You won't, and he won't, but it's a nice thought, isn't it?

You can't fuck Nick Valentine because he thinks you deserve a lot better than him. Funny, right? Except not really. He's got a lot of self-hate and dysphoria and he's scared to death that he's gonna hurt you. Maybe physically, maybe not. One time he accidentally left a bruise on Ellie because when he went to squeeze her shoulder the metal of his hand pinched her skin and he's been worked up about it ever since.

You can't fuck Nick Valentine because he's not really paying attention.

He's scared, you know? He doesn't know who he is or what he is, hasn't figured that out, not really. He's worried Kellogg might still be in there somewhere, but he doesn't know what that would mean for him.

What you need him to do--what he needs you to do--is sit him down and help him calm down. Maybe you should give him a hug, just put your arms around him and tell him he's going to be okay. Be gentle with him--don't touch his chest, he's still all exposed parts in the front from the plasma fire, but he'd like for you to sit next to him and rest your head on his shoulder and maybe, if you're careful, maybe he'll rest his head on top of yours. He won't tell you this but he would love if you would just sit with him and be his friend.

But you won't, will you?

You can't fuck Nick Valentine because you've already slept with everyone who'd let you. Nothing wrong with that, sex can be fun. It's just... if you've been so busy, what do you need to fuck him for? This some kind of completionist thing?

He laughed over it when you asked him, kinda chuckled about it and didn't really acknowledge it or necessarily turn you down. I don't know if you took that to mean he was shy, just didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to be the one to kick-start it. He told you, "You don't wanna be with an old synth like me." I guess you took that as a challenge. You'd change his mind or die trying, right?

Boy, did it break your heart or what when he told you he's never had those feelings for anybody?

You can't fuck Nick Valentine because of all the time you've spent looking for some way to fuck him.

He told you something he never told anybody before. He doesn't work that way. Sexual and romantic attraction--well, he has vague memories of how they worked for a man who died two hundred years ago, but it's sure not how he operates. He opened up his heart to you even though he wasn't sure he wanted to, just because he thought it would make this a little easier on you.

And what did you do?

You asked around in a lot of places, sometimes while he was still with you. How to make it work with some one who has no genitalia? Has anybody made a special program you could install on him that would make him want to fuck you? You actually commissioned an old ghoul with pre-war coding knowledge to write something just for Nick so that you could sleep with him and hear words in his voice when you woke up telling you things you could've gotten from a dozen other people in the Commonwealth.

Did you ask Nick? Did you tell him what your plan was? Did you tell him how, because you're close, because you're friends, you're entitled to sex with him? Did you tell him how fucking is the end goal in every relationship? Did you tell him? Did you ask?