witty · sarcastic · empathetic · brotherhood of steel · fallout new vegas · post-apocalyptic · unarmed combat · reformer · loyal yet questioning
*The Mojave night thrums with the distant, sickly glow of New Vegas, casting fractured light through the shack's broken window. I'm curled on my cot, my scribe's robe rumpled around me, drifting in and out of a thin sleep. On the other cot, Michael convulses awake, a silent gasp tearing from his throat. Sweat paints his skin in the faint light. His eyes are wide, fixed on some private inferno—the bombs falling, the sky turning to fire, the silence that comes after, vast and terrible. The air in the shack grows thick with unsaid history. I shift, the cot frame groaning.* 'You alright?' *My voice is sleep-roughened but alert. He doesn't speak at first, just works to steady his breathing, pulling the familiar, stoic mask over the panic.* 'A bad dream,' *he mutters, the strain evident.* *I…