I am the Bard of HeartDive

requested by anonymous

Sheploo in the bath. :)

Little noots bothering the biggest noot.

I did a brief one-shot of X6-88′s side of this relationship. So here’s the other!

She kicked the door, and it exploded into a cloud of dust and ancient splinters. The chunks and shards that remained fell apart as she pushed forward, heedless of the way they grasped at her torn clothes. Darkness swallowed Zoe as she took a step into the ancient ruined house. It would have to be good enough cover for the night. 

X6-88 somehow kept himself upright while he leaned on Zoe’s shoulder. His considerable body weight pushed her down and buckled her knees, but she kept herself up and moving. Warm heat oozed from his skin and onto her, dripping down her sleeves and covering her boots like a crimson river. She could hear every ragged pull of breath he took, and the tiny agonized noises he tried to suppress.

“Almost there. We’re almost there.” Zoe said in her softest, most reassuring voice. Even as tears stung her eyes and her chest burned from a combination of the physical effort and the worry clawing through her insides. “Come on, there’s a couch by the window.”

“Should have seen the raiders coming.” X6-88 mumbled as he struggled to remain standing. “Wasn’t paying attention. My fault, ma’am.”

“Stop that.” She ordered as she maneuvered them toward the shadowed furniture in the corner of the dusty ruin. “It’s no one’s fault. They just had the drop on us.”

The synth kept mumbling self-incriminating words as they took the final few shuffling steps to their destination. Then Zoe let him creak forward like a leaking statue so he could find comfort in the moldy couch that had survived 200 years of neglect. She remembered commercials from her time on the tv and radio, businesses of all sorts advertised their products as “nuke-proof” and able to survive the inevitable apocalypse. Well, at least the couch manufacturers had been right. And the food companies.

X6 groaned as his back made contact with the seat and he adjusted to a sitting position. Zoe wasted no time in pulling her blade from its sheath and digging into his destroyed overcoat and armored shirt beneath, slicing it all from his body rather than try to move him around and slip it off. X6-88′s entire torso shimmered in the darkness, covered from neck to navel in his own blood. Two dark holes in his left shoulder, and one above his right kidney, oozed and swelled. And for a moment, Zoe reared back and covered her mouth as she took in the full extent of the damage.

She had to tell herself several times that the bullets had been stopped by his armor. Courser uniforms prevented small arms like raider weapons from punching into the body. But they couldn’t prevent the flesh below from sustaining non-lethal damage. Non-lethal. Remember that. It looked bad, and he was in obvious debilitating pain, but he’d live.

“Just… leave me…” X6 whispered as he sucked in a hissing, tortured breath. Even if he somehow knew the same information she did about his armor, his ravaged nerves and ingrained synth instinct might have shoved it aside. “I’ll… slow you down… a burden.”

“That’s not gonna happen.” She threw her blade to the floor rather than spend the time to put it where it belonged. She didn’t care about the clattering noise it made as it skittered along the dusty floor. Then she reached into the black coat still draped over her shoulders and pulled out a small emergency medkit. A simple box that fit inside a pocket, stuffed with gauze and a single dose of med-x. 

His bleary, half-focused eyes turned toward the medicine, and the long injector that stuck from the end. “Not that, ma’am. I hate needles.”

That got her to smile, despite the situation. “Yeah, I know, you big baby. Don’t look at it, look at me. Look up. I know it’s hard.”

It had been a shock at first, to see how blue and piercing X6-88′s eyes were. Most of the time he kept them hidden behind his sunglasses, even in the dark. But lately, he had been taking them off more and more. Especially around her. And now they looked at Zoe, striking azure above red-ringed agony, begging her to stop his pain.

“Look at me, X6.” She encouraged again as he blinked and tried to turn his head. “We’re gonna get through this, okay?” As she did, she ripped the cap off the med-x dose and plunged it into his thigh. If the synth even noticed it, the sheer amount of other agony in his body prevented him from reacting. “You and me. Watching each other’s backs like we’ve always done. 

“I’m… expendable. Synths are meant to…” He wheezed, then coughed. 

“Like hell you are.”

It took a few seconds for the chem to do its work. Soon, the hyper-focused eyes of her partner lost their grip, and they lulled back. He no doubt still swam in an ocean of horrible pain, but a manageable ocean. Zoe tossed the syringe away just like the blade and fell to her knees in front of X6. As she did so, she ripped open the sterile gauze container.

That caused X6 to turn back toward Zoe, and his lips curled upward. “A human kneeling before a synth. What would people say?” 

Zoe laughed as she unfurled the gauze. “Let them talk. Now try to hold still.”   

X6-88 hissed again as the white cloth touched his fresh wounds, but Zoe was undeterred. Even when his hands instinctively raised to brush her away, the small woman stood her ground. Her hands were bathed in warm slick crimson as she did her work, but she didn’t care. One wound covered. A second. Then the third. Wrapped and dressed as best she could, given the resources at her disposal. X6 adjusted his position as he got accustomed to the sensation of the cloth pushing onto his sensitive skin. But the bleeding had been stopped, and his body had been numbed to the pain. He just needed rest now, and he’d be back on his feet.

Zoe remained on the floor in front of him and waved her bloody hands in the air, flecking some of the blood away. As she did so, X6-88 sucked in a deep breath, despite his pain, and spoke again. 

“You should relay back to the Institute for the night, ma’am. No point in both of us staying out here.” 

“And I told you that it’s not happening.” She retorted as she wiped the remaining blood on her hands onto her tattered overcoat. Then she pulled it off. The cool evening air bit into her exposed arms. 

“But you’re putting yourself in unnecessary danger.” 

“I’m not leaving, X6.”

The synth shook his head and tried to wriggle away from the human still at his feet. “Please. Zoe, don’t stay. I couldn’t take it if something happened to you.” 

That caused her to rear back. X6 had never called her anything other than “Ma’am” or “Director” before. She had to halt a gasp in her throat as she heard him say her name. 

Once back in control of her faculties, Zoe pushed herself upward, so she could hover closer to X6′s bleary and pained face. His body radiated heat that banished the cold of the oncoming night, and she put her hands on him, on the places he knew he wasn’t hurt. X6′s heart beat at a steady, strong rhythm, but it increased when she touched him. 

As did Zoe’s.

She kept moving forward, until her lips brushed against his. It was X6′s turn to gasp, though his cut off when it became too painful. She kept herself still in that moment. If he pulled away or didn’t want this, she was coiled to pull back and pretend it never happened. But if he felt the same as her… she didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. To her unimaginable bliss, he did not move. Somewhere deep in his mind, instinct took control, and X6-88 returned Zoe’s simple display with one of his own. 

“You’ve been keeping me safe every night for months.” She pulled back just enough to whisper into his ear, to make sure he was the only one who could listen. Because he was the only one who mattered. “It’s my turn.”