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Colt isn't smart.
No. That's not right. A dumb person doesn't hack into computer terminals left locked for two hundred years. A dumb person can't recite the intricacies of how to build a decent explosive. A dumb person doesn't calculate the proper amount of manure to water needed to make corn grow fastest.
But a smart person doesn't fumble through simple conversions. A smart person doesn't jump head first into danger that can and should kill them. A smart person doesn't accidentally gamble away lives.
When he was younger, Colt's Mama used to hold him. Would lay his head in her lap and run her fingers through his hair. 'You're such an intelligent boy,' she used to say, 'But you gotta grow some brains to use them, ya hear?'
Colt never quite got to learn what she meant by that. He's not sure if it's because she died when he was fourteen, or if he just never grew the brains needed to understand. Her words still haunt him though. Follow him around like a specter, going through every one of his decisions like a knife. He could still hear her quiet disappointment every single time he fucked up.
'Don't use energy weapons,' she hissed, 'They'll make you a target.'
So he didn't.
'Don't stick your nose into it, that'll only get you killed.'
So he didn't.
'Don't go following after some army just for some stupid idea of honor.'
So he didn't.
Still doesn't.
It's not enough. Not nearly enough.
Because in the end, Colt isn't smart, and he never will be.
Dirt crackles in his teeth, gritty and dry and miserable. His throat is scratchy, lack of use leaving it mangled. His stomach grumbles and yet he doesn't reach into his pack for any kind of food.
Instead he stays sitting in the graveyard, rolling a used cigarette butt between his fingers, and staring down at a hole.
His grave. Or nearly his grave. Doc Mitchell got the final say in that argument. An argument with a bullet.
He can hear his mama whispering at him to move, but he can't bring himself to yet. Can't stop staring down at that three feet deep hole.
Colt has had his fair share of near death experiences. Pretty much anyone in the Mojave has, at some point. Yet this was the closest he ever got, literally buried and then brought back to life.
All for a package. Of all the stupid things he's done over the years, Colt had never thought of his courier work as such. Doing it soothed Mama's voice, and his bone deep itch to wander. It made people happy too. Got news around. Saved lives, without even needing a gun. Didn't even require someone with charisma. Just two feet, at least one hand, and time.
They had taken his revolver, taken his family pocket watch, and nearly taken his life.
And Colt's anger is a spitting, hissing, clawing thing. It rakes at his chest, demanding he get retribution. Screaming at him to hunt down the bastard that did this, and return the damn favor.
Colt's fingers find their way to the bandage covering his head, to the gently throbbing pain in his skull. After asking the Doc he'd gotten some answers on how he survived. His thick, empty head saved itself for once. Bullet hit his temple, and then turned as it broke through his skull. Two inches further down and it wouldn't have made a difference.
The scar will be there for the rest of his life, as well as the staples Doc Mitchell had used to fuse his shattered bones back together. A permanent part of him now. Just like Mama.
His back pops the whole way up when Colt finally decides to rise. His fingers feel stiff, and his shirt is now scratchy with dried sweat. It's gotten dark, and he didn't even realize until now.
On the bright side, he has the heavy weight of a rifle on his back and a nine millimeter on his hip. Goodsprings is a good place, filled with good people. Generous people. Colt's Mama would have scoffed at it, called them softhearted idiots. Colt sees through it, though. They're not soft, they're harder than the rocks under his boots. But they let others in, shield them with their own strength. It's different from Mama's hardness. She didn't tolerate weakness, and she made others toughen up like her instead of nurture them. Maybe it explains a few things, but Colt supposes it's too late now to know for sure.
So instead of thinking too much of his past, Colt follows his Mama's orders and finds him a place to sleep for the night. It's a camper with a mattress tucked in the back, a cornfield right next to it. The stalks rustle in the breeze. The sound of it relaxes Colt, brings him back home and to the farm they'd cultivated there. Familiar and aching in a way that only time can produce.
For tonight he'll rest, listen to Mama. Then tomorrow he'll repay the people here for their kindness. After that....
Well. There's only so long that Colt can hold back his anger.
The Mojave Outpost is a quiet, disheartened place. Filled with hopeless soldiers and the special brand of desperation that small caravans need in order to survive the desert. Yet amidst this, Colt tries to find some solace in another's company in bed.
And when Major Knight let him down gently, well, the bottom of a liquor glass is almost the same.
The barracks have a bar, pretty much the only good thing in this place. The bartender is nice enough, and doesn't ask too many questions about Colt's bandages or of the way his hands shake while he orders.
'Drinking in public? Didn't think I raised a scoundrel.'
Colt grimaces. Drinking itself is a habit that Colt didn't start until much later, after Mama died. Doesn't stop her voice from worming it's way through his thoughts. He can still remember her cursing out his father, saying if he had just been smart enough to get drunk at home and away from the bar that he would still be around. Wouldn't have ended up with a bullet in the mouth.
Colt didn't understand her rage over it when he was a child. Still doesn't, if he's honest with himself. There's a lot of things about Mama that he can't think too hard on. Maybe her anger, he supposes, is just another one.
Someone settling down in the bar stool next to him startles him out of his thoughts.
The woman's got a straw hat on, and her lips twist in a way that makes Colt think she's about to spit venom. Her voice matches it, too, when she speaks.
"Here to drown your sorrows away too, huh?" she asks. Her words are sharp as her eyes, despite the nearly empty whiskey bottle in her hand.
"Something like that," Colt says. His response falls flat, not quite reaching the tone that Colt wanted them to. They never do, really, despite how hard Colt tries. He knows he's stuck with the words that come out of his mouth, though.
"Well let me tell you something, shit only gets worse from here." She punctuates it with a deep drink, finishing the last few gulps in her bottle. She barely has to put more money down on the wood before the bartender is putting a new one in her hand.
She's got a bite to her. The same kind of contentment for the whole damn world that Mama had. It's different, though. Something in it is lighter, less hellish. Like his father used whisper about, the few times Colt could remember him being around. Said it was the whole reason that he'd fallen in love with Mama in the first place.
Then he up and died, and any hope and softness Mama had left dried up in the desert sun.
Still. It's comforting. Familiar. Close enough that maybe Colt can pretend Mama is out here, and not just in his head.
So he introduces himself, and Cass tells him her name. Then they shoot the shit, talking about nothing in particular for hours on end. She doesn't care how he stumbles on words, how he's smart enough to answer any science she asks and yet can't explain why the hell he's even here. Cass finds it funny, in fact. Call's him a dumbass genius. It doesn't hurt like Mama's insults did, though. Not when he can hear the laughter underneath her words, and he laughs right along with her.
They keep going until they're shooed out by the bartender. Then they come back the next day to repeat it all again. And again. And again.
And when Cass finally sends Colt away, it's to a job and not to hell. So he goes, and does the work, and comes right back. When she tells him to stop focusing on her, and instead on the revenge he'd told her about in the wee hours of the morning, all Colt does is invite her to come with him. Keep him on track to his goals.
And when she accepts, Colt finds another pair of boots walking alongside his through the Mojave.
"You know," Cass drawls from across the campfire, laying on her back to look up at the stars, "I don't think I'll ever understand you."
Colt pauses in cleaning his newly acquired brush gun. He looks up at her, hoping his face will get the question across without needing words, but Cass is still staring up at the sky.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I don't understand you, Colt. You came back to me like some lost puppy, and I damn well thought you didn't have the balls to kill Benny, but then you do it without even flinching. You can hardly stand to say more than a few words at a time, but you found a way to rewire the robots on the Strip to make them listen to you. You go around helping all sorts of people, but the moment they try and thank you, you shy away like a spooked brahman."
She twists finally, eyes finding Colt's across the flames, "Hell. You don't even make any passes at me. No one spends this long with someone without making passes at them."
Heat rises to Colt's face, embarrassment through and through. Clearing his throat, Colt looks back down at the dismantled gun in his lap.
"The last one," he stumbles over his words, fumbling for the right thing to say, "I uh.... I don't.... You don't ever have to worry about that."
He dares to glance up and gets front row seats to the moment his meaning dawns to Cass. He can't tell if she blushes, but the slightly stuttering surprise is new for her. If the whole situation wasn't so awkward, then he'd find it funny. Unflappable Cass being struck speechless.
"Well my other points still stand, Colt," she grumbles, lowering herself down onto the makeshift bed she made for herself. Hiding her face.
Colt just shrugs, despite knowing she can't see it.
"I like helping. Mama used to rail at me for it, but I never grew enough to stop, I suppose. Guess I still expect her to screech at me for it."
Cass looks back up. She's got that look on her face she only gets when she's trying to figure out some kind of puzzle. Last time Colt had seen it was right before they went and killed everyone at Silver Rush, and crippled the Crimson Caravan. After that, Colt decided it isn't a good expression to see.
"Every time you talk about her, you say something she did when she was pissed at you. Yet you say it with that lost little puppy look on your face, cause for some goddamned reason you still love the bitch," she says, "Another thing I can't figure out."
Colt doesn't give a response to that. He learned months earlier what Cass thinks of his Mama, but doesn't find it to be a hill he's willing to die on. It's not like he can take Cass to meet her. Can't show her the several different things that were good about living at home. Even Cass in all her spiteful, angry ways can't bring someone back from the dead.
So instead Colt cleans his gun and finally comes up with the courage to say something he's been stewing on for weeks now.
"Cass. I'm going somewhere. Following a signal I heard. Will you be around, when I get back?" he asks, because he has to be sure. Has to know that his only real friend won't abandon him the moment he's gone.
And Cass sighs, knowing exactly why he's asking, "Ain't got nothing better to do. Might as well see what shape you drag yourself back in."
ED-E is nice company. Quiet, unquestioning, and decidedly better than most humans. That's exactly why Colt fixed him up. Exactly why he got him all cleaned up by the Followers.
Exactly why he went to get ED-E before he got Cass.
Nearly a year and a half. That's how long Colt was gone, because he lied. Well. Half lied. He wasn't following just one signal, he was following three. Two possibly dangerous things that needed to be fixed before someone else got hurt, and one that was supposed to clear his mind but ended up being nearly as disastrous as the others.
'Idiot. Should have left well enough alone. Stuck your neck out too far, and got bit for it.'
Colt winces. It's not the first time he's heard his Mama's voice, in the seventeen months he's been gone, but it doesn't stop the truth from ringing through his ears. He is an idiot. An idiot who got a bomb collar strapped around his neck, his organs ripped out, and failed at stopping a massacre.
And for it he has a hunting revolver at his hip, a home filled with robots to go back to, and a book of scripture in his bag.
He can't find it in himself to regret it, but that just makes his Mama louder, so he doesn't dwell on it too much. Instead he walks with ED-E into the bar at Mojave Outpost, slides into a bar stool next to Cass, and orders some whiskey.
He pointedly doesn't look at Cass until he's sliding a glass over to her. Only then does he dare to look up at her face.
Colt expects the rage there. He barely flinches as she punches him in the shoulder.
"You didn't tell me you'd be gone for this long, damn it!"
And then she's drags him into a hug so tight Colt can barely think to be worried. Wrapping his arms around her, he squeezes as much as he dares. Cass lets out a laugh, a slightly grating noise that means she's holding back emotions that she doesn't want to show.
"I hadn't planned on being gone so long," Colt says. It's a hollow excuse, he knows, and Cass does too. Still, she takes it. Knows he's too bad at words to properly explain himself.
"Next time," she hisses, "You tell me."
It reminds him of his Mama. Angry and demanding. But it's Cass, so it's better. Feels better.
And Colt isn't quite sure how to feel about that. Finding someone better than Mama.
A few years back Colt had tried to go back to the Divide. To see the budding community that he'd helped fuel. All he'd found was ruin. He ran away, trying to get as far away from the stink of death in the air as possible. He hasn't returned since.
So when a signal, addressed to him, comes in through his pip-boy, Colt flinches upon seeing the source. The entrance to the Divide. A message, that seems very familiar.
Shakily Colt loads up the holotapes he'd gotten months ago. Listens through them all. Finds the answer.
An ending to things.
When he had first gotten the recordings, Colt had hoped that the man on them wasn't referring to him. Wasn't planning on calling him back to that hell. His voice had become a specter, along with Mama's. Didn't even have a face, nothing to attach to the sounds he was hearing.
But now, Colt has a name. Ulysses. It prickles uneasily at Colt's skin. A Legion name, Latin. Colt purposely avoided angering Legionaries. Tried hard to keep his head down. Still remembers the terror deep in his bones as Caesar called him across the river. It's a call he still hasn't answered, the mark hidden deep within a dresser in the Lucky 38.
Colt doesn't tell Cass anything when she comes back from the bar. Doesn't mention the holotapes now scattered at his feet, or the shaking of his hands. Just smiles and takes the glass she offers him. Tries to drown the truth for a night.
In the morning he tells her goodbye. Says it'll be the last time, that he won't leave her a fifth time. She frowns at him, conflict in her eyes. Unlike Mama, though, all Cass does is tell him to be careful. Doesn't get angry. Doesn't blow up. Colt appreciates it more than he can express with words, so he just gives her a hug.
He takes ED-E further. Moves on from the rickety hotel the three of them were staying at in Novac, and on through the shadow of Nipton. Only once he gets to the crossroads does he reach up for the eyebot.
ED-E beeps happily, used to him showing affection this way. Buzzes softly under Colt's hands as the courier pets him softly. Colt is almost tempted to take ED-E with him. Considers having at least something guarding his back.
Then he dismisses the thought, and sends ED-E back down to Primm. Johnson Nash will take care of him, in Colt's absence. It's the best that Colt can hope for, right now.
'Turn back. You'll get yourself killed following a stupid voice calling for retribution.'
Instinct tells him to listen. Keeps Colt rooted in place, staring up at the curving path back into the Divide. The swing sets of the nearby park squeak softly, rusted out chains worthless without children there to use them. The sound of it is what gets Colt's feet moving. It's a stuttering sort of walk, legs hardly wanting to work. Dirt kicks up under his boots.
Courier Six is spray painted on the bus, different from all those years ago. Absently Colt brushes his hands against it, dark skin a contrast to the bright white of the paint. It doesn't come off on his fingers, dry as the desert rocks around it. How long has this been here? How many times did Colt pass this, so close and yet so far? He doesn't know.
'Idiot. He'll kill you. You'll die for answers and a chance to put your nightmares to rest. Pathetic,' Mama hisses.
And suddenly Colt knows. He won't be able to do this. Not with Mama hanging over his shoulder. She keeps him from doing stupid things, from taking the plunge and destroying himself in the process. None of this will get resolved with her here.
So he doesn't take her. He leaves Mama angry and spitting among the canyon wreckage, and pushes past the door. For the first time in over a decade he allows himself to be completely alone.
It's both liberating, and disquieting.
Colt presses himself tightly against the back wall, listening to the deathclaws off in the distance. The wind screams at him, tearing at the riot gear he'd donned in hopes of protecting himself. His hat is gone, and his boots are stowed away in his bag. There's no room for the simple comforts of home.
He clutches at the holotape he found up here. Listens to the gravely voice drifting out of his pip-boy. Tries to lose himself, just for a moment, in memories of Big MT. Brings up the images in his head as Ulysses describes him.
So much. So much of what went wrong in the Mojave was Ulysses' fault. So many people killed, purposely or not, by his hand. Colt should be disgusted. Angry.
All he feels is empty. Not even halfway there, and the Divide is already tearing at his soul. Colt doesn't know how to survive it. No one is here to tell him what to do, not even Ulysses himself. His two options are clear. Keep moving forwards, or go back. Ulysses claims to not truly care what he does. Says Colt is free to do what he pleases.
Colt knows it's a lie. Knows that Ulysses is just as desperate for this to end as him. That's what keeps Colt's feet under him. The desperation. The drive for answers.
That, and the softly buzzing robot floating next to him.
ED-E beeps softly, urging him to move. He's right, too. Colt knows exactly how much ammo is left in his bag. Knows that it may be enough to take down a couple deathclaws, but not if he stays here too long. Not if he lets the marked men regroup and try to kill him once again.
Slowly he pushes himself to his feet, not caring much about the crumbling building around him. The wind hardly budges him as he makes his way down, back to the overpass. Ruins, all of it, and Colt can't even bring up the emotion needed to properly contemplate it.
Maybe once he's back with Cass, when Mama is once again hovering over him, he'll break. That everything will come at him at once, and Colt will finally collapse from the weight of it.
If he makes it back, of course. He told Cass that he would. Told himself it too. The promises feel hollow in the depths of the Divide. Meaningless when compared to the hell he's walking through.
Mind oh so blank, Colt pulls out his brush gun and moves on.
Before he can stop himself, Colt pulls ED-E in close. Drags the little eyebot close to his chest, clinging. ED-E beeps, but Colt can't bring himself to try and interpret the sounds right now. Instead he shudders, holding his only friend down here close.
The last stretch had destroyed anything left of Colt. There was nothing to keep him going, no soft beeping to urge him to his feet. No crackling of electricity as the eyebot fought alongside him. Colt doesn't even know he made it back to him. How he kept his head screwed on enough to shoot, never mind to walk.
But he did make it. He made it, and in the quiet before the end, he holds ED-E close.
Ulysses is close. Colt knows this. Knows that the other man is waiting. He probably already knows that Colt is in the building, to be honest. Yet Colt isn't afraid. He isn't anything.
He just wants a face to finally put to the name, the voice. To look him in the eyes and face his death. Because Colt knows he's supposed to die here. There's no other reason that Ulysses would set everything so perfectly. No meaning beyond that, really, aside from forcing Colt to see the ghosts he created.
He's not eager for it. Not dreading it either. Feeling is gone now. Just a numbness as he runs his hands over the smooth metal of ED-E's surface. He'll walk to his death, answers in hand, and friend at his side. It's enough to keep him breathing, to keep him from thinking.
Colt doesn't say anything to ED-E when he finally lets go. Nothing that could come out of his mouth right now would be what he deserves. No. All the words he has left are reserved for Ulysses alone.
The last door opens, and there Ulysses stands, back to Colt, alongside a missile. Eyebots buzz through the air, old world flag hanging above it all. Ready. Ready for an end to things.
Colt listens to him. Listens to his speech, to the conviction in it. Accepts everything that's thrown at him. When Ulysses pauses, waiting for Colt's response, Colt meets him.
"If you want to kill me, do it. I deserve it."
Obviously it's not the answer that Ulysses expects. He's struck silent, eyebrows furrowed just slightly enough that Colt can see it. Hard to see much else, with the gas mask over Ulysses' face.
"Has the Divide left you this empty? Ripped you this far apart, just to dump you at my feet?" he asks.
"Not the Divide," Colt answers, "You."
His chest feels hollow. Fingers numb. Head clear, no ghosts itching at the back of it. The freest Colt has ever been of himself, of his sins.
"It's been you all along. You sent Elijah to the Sierra Madre. You woke up the Think Tank. You taught the White Legs and sent them after New Canaan. Caused so much death. Sent me in to fix it. It was all you."
The words don't sound like anything. Flat and empty floating through the air. Facts spewed at someone who already knows them, useless in the end.
"And I," Emotion cracks through, breaking both his voice and the nothing in his chest, "I fucking deserve it."
Ulysses doesn't move, doesn't react as Colt falls apart. A judge waiting to give his verdict. Colt should just tell him to do it. Get everything over with. Instead he waits for Ulysses to speak.
"Do you wish for your death? Is that why you walked the Divide, for me to be your executioner?"
"No," And it's the truth. He can tell now that the numbness is gone. Is able to register his ever present need to survive, "But I won't stop you, if that's what you want."
"I do."
"Then do it."
He watches as Ulysses unholsters his weapon, a sub-machine gun. Fast, and messy. Absently Colt wonders if Ulysses will make it hurt. Force him to suffer more before finally ending it all. He looks Ulysses in the eyes as he centers the barrel to aim at Colt's head. Colt closes his eyes.
He hopes that this time the bullet will work.
Except it doesn't come. Colt can hear Ulysses breathing, can hear the gentle buzzing of ED-E behind him, can even hear the howling of the wind outside. Yet the trigger isn't pulled.
When Colt opens his eyes again, Ulysses' gun is back by his side, clutched tightly. His hands are shaking. Colt doesn't know why.
"The man you were is already dead. There is no retribution in killing a shadow."
They both jump as a broken laugh rips its way through Colt's throat. It echoes through the silo. The sound of it is grating. Dead. Colt shakes, lifting a hand up to cover his face as tears start to fall.
"Pathetic, isn't it?" he asks Ulysses, "Not good enough to save the helpless, not good enough to stop a massacre, not even good enough to be put down, in the end."
His knees hit the floor, and Colt weeps. Cries for all the things he couldn't control, and all the things he could, uncaring of who's watching. And when a hand touches his shoulder, Colt doesn't pull away.
"You may yet meet your death, Courier. Will you stand in fight with me, or accept it?"
The answer is obvious enough. On shaky legs, Colt rises. ED-E beeps, bumping against Colt's back. Caring for him in the only way he can.
When Colt look at Ulysses, properly looks into the other man's eyes, he doesn't find pity. He doesn't find anger. He finds the will to keep on, despite the broken state the both of them are in.
That's what gives Colt enough strength to pull out his revolver and kill the marked men breaking through the doors.
That's what gives Colt enough strength to let ED-E go, making it the one genocide Colt had the power to stop.
That's what gives Colt enough strength to follow Ulysses out of the missile silo, and not to die in the explosion. To stumble through the emptiness of the Divide, someone new at his side. All the way back. Returning to where it all began.
And if Colt once again breaks once they make it to Hopeville, well. Ulysses once again stands next to him, waiting for Colt to find the ability to move on.
Colt isn't smart. He knows this. Has known this since he was a child. Heard it every single day from his Mama.
Doesn't hear it anymore, though. When he'd emerged from the Divide, he'd found no ghosts waiting for him. No voice to ring through his head. Nothing. After all, Colt is dead, and a new man walks in his place.
It is easy enough, though, to return to old habits. To pull his boots back on, and gather his family of three back together. Yet when Cass speaks with that bitterness in her voice, his chest no longer tightens from the memories. No. It's better, easier, without Mama there.
Finally, finally, Colt finds the conviction to end it all. Sides with Yes Man, takes the Dam, and sets the Mojave free. Finds Ulysses was right. There was no real future in either the NCR, or the Legion. No point in trying to emulate the past, either. So Colt tore it all down, and started anew.
It took him seven months to convince someone to take his place up top, a scientist he'd gotten to know from the Followers. He said he wasn't any good with people. Colt had laughed and said he wasn't either. That was that. Soon the Followers were running New Vegas with Yes Man, for the better if anyone asked Colt.
The four months after that were spent checking on things outside of the Mojave. On Zion, and the Sierra Madre, and Big MT. Seeing the familiar faces there, and delivering news to and from all three. The paths soon became worn, comfortable in the same way that the roads around Vegas feel.
After that he spends days and nights with his family. Drinking with Cass, listening to old recordings with ED-E, and killing whatever pests they find along the way. He finally kills off the deathclaws in the quarry, once again connecting Goodsprings with the rest of the Mojave.
It's nice. Relaxing. Holds him together enough to not think too hard on the Divide. On the man still sitting there, letting the wind tear through him.
Eventually, though, Colt feels tired. The need to wander is gone, probably left around the same time Mama did. He didn't pay it any mind at first, but now it's obvious. He doesn't want to keep bouncing from place to place. Yes, there's many places that he could stay, but none of them feel right. None feel like home.
So that's how Colt once again finds himself walking up the dusty path near Primm, and entering the Divide.
Ulysses is sitting on the edge of the cliff, as if he's daring the wind and rock to finally push him off the edge. It's nearly the same spot that Colt had left him in, over a year ago. Now though the dirt is packed down, feet having made a proper path. If he strains a bit, Colt can see Ulysses' camp hidden among the rubble.
The sight settles something in Colt's soul, though he's not sure what exactly. Ulysses tilts his head as Colt settles down next to him, legs dangling off the edge. Their eyes don't meet, but they don't have to. They both know what's missing.
"You know," Colt starts, "I just learned how to fix nuclear engines."
Ulysses hums. It's a game they'd started, when they'd made their way back to Hopeville. As if their roles were reversed, Colt was the one that spoke the most while Ulysses listened. It was how both of them processed it. How they moved on. Colt babbled, and Ulysses listened. Opposite to how they'd started.
"Was thinking about hunting down an old tractor, and settling down with a couple brahman off on a farm in the middle of nowhere."
Ulysses leans back, finally turning to look at Colt, "You came all this way to tell me this?"
No. No he didn't. It was just the first thing his brain had jumped to, hoping not to hurt Ulysses. Not to deliver bad news.
"New Vegas is independent, the NCR is out of the Mojave, and Caesar is dead," He says it fast, wanting to spit it out and not dwell on it. Not to think too hard on what Ulysses' reaction may be before the words properly formed.
All Ulysses does is close his eyes for a long moment, mourning something for the briefest of periods. In the end, Colt had never met the man, but Ulysses had admired him. It's the only part of Caesar that Colt could respect, the part that caught Ulysses' attention like that. That had given him purpose, despite destroying the person Ulysses had been before Dry Wells.
The same thing that Ulysses had done for Colt.
"Do you want to go? With me, I mean. To the farm."
His mouth dries as soon as the words leave his lips. Stupid. Why the hell would Ulysses want that. Sure, he'd decided not to kill Colt in the end, but that just left them even. Standing with a broken man isn't the same as living with them. Building a life with them.
Ulysses interrupts his panic.
"I've read all about the past. Seen the history left there, watched as it repeated itself, and learned the nature of human kind. Yet I don't think I'll ever be able to understand you, Colt."
A jolt jumps through Colt's chest. Colt, not courier. The first time that Ulysses had used his name. It felt good. Better than Colt was willing to admit.
"I'm fonder of bighorners, than of brahman," Ulysses says. And that's enough. That's more than enough.
Before he can think better of it, Colt leans to the side and carefully pulls the mask off of Ulysses' face. Reveals his lips. It's stupid. So absolutely dumb that his Mama would be screeching if she knew.
But she doesn't know, and she doesn't control him anymore. So when he meets Ulysses in between, when their lips mesh together in a hesitant testing of the waters, Colt doesn't shy away. Doesn't try to shield himself. He plunges in.
Colt isn't smart, and never will be, but when Ulysses tugs him closer, he thinks he can live with it. As long as he's not alone. As long as someone is at his side, someone who taught Colt how to let go.
They break away with a small puff of air. Colt licks his lips, leaning his forehead against Ulysses'.
"So. We head out in the morning?"