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ooc: I’m still around y’all! Sorry for being away and the inactivity. Please feel free to reach out to chat in discord! ;u; I’m gonna start being on there again. I’ve just been apprehensive about talking since I haven’t been posting and I felt bad about that. Been a pretty rough couple of weeks I guess emotionally mostly. Didn’t want to post up just me complaining or venting on here but I’ve been busy and I’ll be coming back to posting regularly again soon.

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There’s BLOOD on your hands, the kind you can’t wash off. Lord have MERCY do you keep trying till those SHAKING hands are raw. Still they’re yours, as much as the SIN in your HEART— oh GOD is it yours!

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FATE, noun; a silly notion of the inevitable— DESTINY. Roy didn’t believe in any of that. If such a thing existed then he’d fight it off like a mountain lion ripping through a cowboy too far out alone in the desert. With sand in his boots and overstuffed saddlebags slug over his tired horse however, fate may have believed in him a whole lot more than he believed in it. 

Wolf’s Ridge, a budding paradise, like a tall glass of water for those PARCHED for a better life. Yeah, he’d been here a few times— never for long though, never long enough to fall in love with a place like this and never too long to carve out a spot for himself like a river eroding the land. Rex lets out a SNORT of annoyance from underneath Roy, bucking up as they approach the town's strip. He pats at the horse's neck and gives way to a snort of his own. “Easy boy we’re gonna stop in a second, ya’ buck me off fore’ then though and I’ll leave ya’ back with those assholes after us.” The horse seemed to understand although it gives the sort of whinny almost as if to say ‘After YOU—’ 

They’d wandered all the way back here, well RAN all the way back here like something was nipping at their tails, mostly because something or rather someone HAD been. The packages he carried hadn’t been worth all this trouble, he thinks; but perhaps to the people here they’d meant a whole heap more. 

Roy lets out a long sigh of his own as he turns the reins on Rex and finally motions off the saddle. He moves to tie up the horse to the hitching rail nearby. Calloused hands digging around in the saddlebags for the various packages he’d had on him. “Seems like more assholes than usual are after these, wonder what that’s about—“ Roy comments to himself really, maybe Rex. “Shoulda shot em’, woulda been justified, people would probably be better off for it here.” He snorts, Rex does along with him and for a moment Roy wonders if the horse can understand him.

He shakes his head, rolling his shoulders as he hoists the packages into his hands. Figured he should stop into the town hall or something to let someone know about bandits circling like vultures (if they didn't know already) all things considered, before he finishes dropping off the packages. Steady as he was with them he nearly drops one-- "Fuck."

semi plotted starter @bldrdsh (for katrina)

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And she asked me; why does he RIDE for his money? And tell me why does he rope for short pay? He ain't a'gettin' NOWHERE, and he's losin' his share. Boy he must've gone crazy out there. Ah but they've NEVER seen the Northern Lights. They've never seen a hawk on the wing. They've never spent spring on THE GREAT DIVIDE. And they've never heard ole' camp cookie sing.

Growing up around a devout preacher as your father had it's lack of perks if you asked Roy, growing up with one that beat him even less, but in the old west blind eyes often got turned even if they could see. It's only when the man mysteriously dies and nobody questions it-- when his mother marries the local lawman soon after does Roy understand the way of the world. He would vow to have that sort of power, to never have another person lay a hand on him again even if it meant working for something bigger than himself. Personal freedoms be dammed when the lawman could write the rules anyway.

Roy is a bit of a current drifter and a former Ranger, who after being shot in the head and somehow surviving finds himself lost in the world and on a quest for revenge. He doesn't remember much of his time as a ranger and feels like it's a part-- a GOOD part of him that was stolen from him. He takes up with courier work to build up more connections to help find the sonofabitch who shot him, after he was deemed unfit to serve the government again. Along the way he finds more than he bargained for when courier work turns out to be far more DANGEROUS than he'd imagined, even given his background as a lawman.

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Roy quietly nods, QUIET— something he usually wasn’t, but in the silence between them Roy thinks he finds some shred of peace, like he doesn’t have to fill the VOID with endless chatter. The Courier didn’t like to make promises, so maybe that’s why he doesn’t agree out loud; but the look in his eyes almost feels like that unspoken promise is surfacing, peeking in from brown hues to stare long and hard upwards at the other man as he gets up. 

Roy takes the offered cigarette, a filthy habit of the DEVIL his father would have told him— but he smokes them anyway. Part defiance, part addiction, but mostly because Boone offered it. He stays sitting down, holding up the cigarette to be lit up, not bothering pulling his own lighter out. He wonders if the places they’d left behind had been more stained with blood or littered with cigarettes— probably the former because as he’d learned any good sniper doesn’t leave behind evidence of them being there. He takes a long drag once the other man goes to talk. Thinks it’s already the most words he’s heard Boone say in…well, ever. If the subject matter didn’t feel so grim, the notion of that might have made him smile. 

He understood what Boone was saying probably more than the man could ever realize, when his niece had died…folks looked at him like a festering wound—averting eyes away from the shell of a person it had made him, then to only feel that way again after being shot. It was annoying, hearing Boone say he experienced that too— Six hated that for him. “Death sort of does that to people I guess.” He admits once Boone got quiet again. 

The Courier had tried not to take it to heart, how others could be, but… “life is complicated, it’s messy— scary and if ya’ can’t deal with people when they need ya’ without lookin’ down on them or not gettin’ into that uncomfortable mess with em’, well can’t say I have much respect for that way of being, even if I don’t blame em’.” Roy was never one for shying away from the uncomfortable realities that people went through, supposed that’s why he helped Boone in the first place, why he’d ended up inadvertently helping so many others and he hadn’t even had his revenge. 

“I used to think survival was the only thing left when bad things happened, when ya’ think ya’ don’t got nothin’ else to live for— maybe somedays I still think like that, it’s etched in there,” Six knocks at his head lightly, “but…mostly I think ya’ just keep goin’ cause if ya’ die maybe you lose what’s left in this world of the other people that ain’t around…that there’s gotta be somethin’ better to live for than just mullein’ about in your head or for folks to pity. The people we love are gone but doesn’t mean other people gotta lose somethin’ too if ya’ can stop it. If ya’ can actually look at folks instead of being scared…and… it doesn’t mean that the people that did give a shit about us have to have nobody to remember them, you keep livin' cause it keeps them livin'.” 

Roy didn’t like how the world turned a blind eye to him when he suffered, he refused to do the same. Was it harder? Absolutely, when he was in the thick of something to help somebody that put him in harm's way, sure but just saying, yes I’ll help— in that initial moment? There was nothing easier to him. 

“I don’t think you’d fall apart, for what it’s worth. Don't think there's anything wrong with fallin' apart anyway if ya' did. Think you're stronger than that though…hellava’ lot stronger than the people who wouldn’t even look at ya’ cause they didn't get you outta what eatin' you here.” Roy pauses, thumping at his chest. “You got you outta that and here...and If ya’ did fall apart? Well fuck em’ bunch of cowards. I’ll pick ya’ up till you got back on your feet, said yourself— we got a long road ahead.” Roy offers the softest smile he can, it wasn’t a look of pity or sadness directed towards Boone but of something genuine. Maybe the people that didn't know how to talk to Boone should have maybe just listened without fear or pity, maybe just been in the same room without feeling like he was something delicate to be SHATTERED when the glass had already been long BROKEN. Maybe they should have looked at that WRECKAGE and thought there was still something there. Because there was, there always was.

“You’re probably the toughest guy I know, and that’s sayin’ a whole lot cause I know ME.” The Courier snorts, maybe throwing in a bit of a joke to alleviate some of the seriousness, but he was serious and he was touched in some sort of way that the sniper had been so honest with him, it didn't come easy to him and he sure as shit knew it didn't come easy to Boone. "Can't promise you'll always want me lookin' at ya' but I can promise ain't no skeleton in your closet gonna make me scared to look."

He had kept doing as the sniper had taught him, only stopping to get some guidance on targets, so Boone could spot for him— silently relishing in the attention and shattered sounds that came every time he’d made contact with another bottle. It was like he was chipping away at something bigger than just broken glass and shooting practice. He felt satisfied and unlike most days it hadn’t come from his FISTS, nor was it fleeting, at least he hoped it wasn’t.

But good things didn’t last forever, Six knew that much, still when he was done and looking back over at the other man, well; he felt like he hadn’t seen that expression before. It was one he didn’t quite understand, and it was hard to tell if Boone did either. The glass may have all shattered but the sound still remained.

“Think I already have countless times, didn’t really think it mattered much.” Until now. Again words are left unsaid but there’s an expression of something soft there on tired features. He hadn’t had anyone to stop him, there had never been a voice of reason and if his body could be used to feel anything at all and for something good, he’d thrown caution to the wind. Besides, fighting like he did had been the only thing he was actually good at; if he didn’t have that what else did he have? Well he supposed in some strange turn of events he hadn’t expected, he had a FRIEND.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think ya’ were worried about me, ‘fraid I might up and die, well don’t worry— God wouldn’t be so lucky and the Devil don’t want me.” But you do, right? So maybe I’ll listen, he thinks. There’s a playful smile on his lips, like he’d been deflecting anything too serious, only it’s followed up with surprise when Boone tells him they had a long road ahead.

We, as in the two of them, together; and they did— Roy asked him all the way back in Novac to come with him for that journey; killing someone for another man tended to bond folks in one way or another, and while Boone had told him this wouldn’t end well, his words now BETRAYED that.

“I’ve been on this road for a long time I guess, alone mostly and that’s been fine.” It wasn’t. “Never thought twice about how I did things, just did em’ ya’ know? But…” there’s a pause, an unmistakable HITCH of his breath.

“I don’t want it cut short either.” Roy finally admits, a truth spilling from his mouth like if he says it out loud the glass might SHATTER again. He wouldn’t be the REASON Boone had to lose someone else again.

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“Happy birthday to my favorite asshole!! Well, it’s a day early but I didn’t think your other buds would be game for what I have planned! Good news means that you’ll get double cake and who doesn’t love cake? Anyway, here’s what I had planned but you’re free to veto whatever: there’s this guy who has some adolescent death claws and started this rodeo so basically you try and hold on as long as possible without gettin’ maimed or dyin’ but if that’s too scary I also went ahead and found this little raider camp and stole all their bullets.”

“May have also stolen and some of their pants while they were sleepin’ so they’re all shootin’ blanks and I imagine some’ll be wearin’ barrels and shit to hide their shame. I also got my hands on some fireworks so we can shoot those at a nest of cazadors and see how many we can kill or just wait till night and shoot them off like civilized humans. Again, your choice. Then cake. Then kick back, have a few drinks, and I’ll show ya some more constellations. What’d do ya say? Ya game?”

When lips grace suddenly warm skin across his cheek, Roy doesn’t push her away, instead he fumbles for the right words to say, they don’t come. He looks confused, like a disgruntled deer in the headlights; all wide eyed waiting for the crash– but the CRASH had been a mash of lips smashing against his face and it had already happened. Part of him relishes in the attention, a silent part of him. The rest of him just sits there slightly tense before the mention of cake, not only cake but DOUBLE cake. Six absolutely loved sweets. It was obvious in the way he perks up like a dog at the mention of food. He listens when she tells him of all the things she had planned, wonders if they can do everything before the day ends, “Can…can we really do it all?” He asks, like a prewar child that’s been told he’s going to Nuka-World, only what she presents to him is SO MUCH BETTER, to him at least. There’s a brief moment that if she was looking at him long enough, that she might catch the way his eyes start to water and the quick motion of his jacket sleeve coming up to wipe away at them. Mumbling something about dust getting in his eyes from ‘all her kissin’ on him’. But…it was more than that, all of this was more than anything he’d ever thought someone else would do for him…but Faye…she never stopped surprising him. His wide eyed expression eventually shifts into something softer, something happier and more EXCITED, and only for her. Roy can’t help but laugh at the idea of the raiders getting so royally fucked over like that, can’t help but to still shudder at the cazadors…but he was definitely still going to shoot fireworks at them, OF FUCKING COURSE.  “We’ve dealt with adult deathclaws, a rodeo with babies? Whatever times those other assholes have don’t stand a fuckin’ chance against us.” Six finally replies with a snort. “Of course I’m game, this is the best day before my birthday ever– you even made sure not to plan all this on my birthday so I can still hate it…” Roy fakes a tear, even though he’d had just sniffled mere seconds before.  “and...thanks, ya’ really know how to make this shmuck feel special.” He adverts his eyes again, mostly so that DUST doesn’t make it’s way back in them.

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ooc: not me forgetting i share a birthday with house and then making roy’s birthday the same day as mine. anyway the house/courier vibes stay winning. also it got confirmed that we get more house in season two of the show, so house/courier ending stays the vibe for my birthday bless, what a good gift on this day. yes, this has been a house propaganda post, so glad u can see my unintentional VISION of them sharing a birthday thank u.

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ooc:Happy Birthday to this fucker!!! (and to me!) He hates his birthday and refuses to celebrate, but I’ll celebrate enough for the both of us! Feel free to send ANY asks and I’ll answer them IC today!

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♠️🃏Take a CHANCE and roll the DICE. 🎲🎰

Happy early Birthday @ruinouss !

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“The dying thief rejoiced to see…probably some fuckin’ bullshit in this wasteland, cause that looks like a fountain pourin’ from that leg of yours.” Unfortunately for Roy he remembers all the hymns he used to have to sing, the familiar words slip off his tongue like a poison he wanted to get out. His father used to sing hymns like that all the time too, wonders if the man is still HOWLING them from HELL, god willing, that’s where he was. Roy stars down at THE GHOUL before him as blood pools into sand— melting it away into a coagulated mess of the earth.

“You need like uh Stimpak or sumthin’ might have some gauze in my bag, suppose if your ass is out here yowlin’ hymns it would be the godly thing to do and I ain’t much for god though so if ya’ try anything funny I’m gonna make that leg hole a whole lot bigger” Sure, maybe it was foolish to offer help to a stranger in a world like this— but Roy never claimed to be a wise man.

OPEN.

"There is a fountain filled with blood... Drawn from Immanuel's veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains..."

The Ghoul's voice drifted along, a quiet rasp of baritone in the dry desert heat.

He was picking a bullet out of his leg with a serrated blade. The jet coursing through his veins was certainly helping with the startling amount of blood he was sitting in. Pain was an old friend at this point.

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Anyone ever tell you that you have a Hobbit face?

“What the ever lovin’ fuck is a HOBBIT? That some kinda way to say my ass is HOBBLE’IN around? Cause if it is my boots goin’ so far up your ass pal that you’ll be hobblin’ around or fuckin— hobbit whatever for weeks. What’s wrong with my face anyway… fuckers never know when to shut the fuck up, guess that’s why fuck is part of fuckers.” Roy seems annoyed, unsure of what the stranger means he doesn’t think he had the most attractive face or anything but to call him NAMES over it, with words he didn’t understand no less. He’s practically seething like a fussy child.

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Affiliate Call—!

ooc: If you’d like to become affiliated with Roy feel free to LIKE this so I know you’d be comfortable with me coming to you to talk about it.

If we’re affiliated you can expect my undying love and chatter about our characters! Prioritized replies and ask memes, along with more focus on dynamics AND things like duel promos, more aesthetic graphics made and me getting art and graphic commissions of our characters/threads!

Also nothing will change for people not affiliated with Roy, I just wanted to give an option for those looking to work on dynamics/writing together more, etc.

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The way the grass smells at NIGHT, and you've got FLAMES all in your eyes;;

As they reflect the sparkler , and you say we'll never die.

Grab me by the hands— just as callused as I am, say you're proud.

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By the 23rd century, the settlement flourished thanks to a single courier who was willing to brave the seasons and storms to deliver packages to the community. Whatever the reason, that lone courier trekked the hard road repeatedly, giving them hope and a connection to civilization.

okay so a little more insight into what the divide was to roy! i think in a lot of ways this time period before the bombs went off there, had been VERY integral to him growing as a person. which makes it all the more tragic that he inadvertently destroyed it. this timeframe is the time period he can’t remember and it’s also the time period where he had his life and self really together. roy only takes a job as a courier to escape his grief and anger, because it gives him the caps he needs to facilitate his chem and alcohol addiction. he doesn’t take the job with some altruistic intentions. he isn’t some hero, he’s an angry young man with a lot of violence and grief in him that wants to run away from people and his problems. HOWEVER, when he gets a job delivering his first package, out where nobody else wants to go, on this perilous journey he learns so much about himself as a person. wonders if all this work is worth the trouble to get a hit of jet, or a bottle of booze. and after it’s all said and done and he finally gets to the divide? for the first time in his life he kind of wants to stay somewhere. it’s not even that the place is anywhere special, but it’s the fact he manages to get there alive and he sees the people there fighting to survive in spite of the odds.

i think this is the first instance of roy finding what he considers that sort of mojave spirit he embodies. so he keeps going back there, makes that long arduous road trek there for a number of years, until what he does actually makes the place prosper and in the process gives him a reason to live and overcome his addictions. i feel like he really grows to love the divide, the people there and they grow to love him too in a way that is probably healthier than new vegas views him eventually. in the divide he isn’t it’s protector or it’s boogeyman he’s just a man and a GOOD man. the more tragic part of all this is when he gets shot in the head the memories he loses are the ones there, the ones that matter MOST to him, the ones that if he could remember he’d know that he could be more than the violence inside him, he could be more than his past and how that doesn’t have to define him. i also think this is why he’s particularly hateful and cruel towards benny on a subconscious level and he doesn’t even realize it, benny inadvertently takes away the best part of him, much like the courier inadvertently takes away the divide.

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Roy couldn’t help but be passionate, he just didn’t know how to do anything in half measures. Be it love or anger, it's what made him an awful gambler if he was being honest– he was always all in. Which proved itself a double edged sword that he’d fallen on, when the HOUSE always WINS in the end. It was also however what made him for a steadfast friend, unwavering even when others might.

“Well I imagine I wouldn’t be here talkin’ to ya’ today if he didn’t, so I’d say so. Glad that’s the case on account of I actually like talkin’ to ya’. People here are nice enough, part of why I’m here– but I know I’m about as far removed from the usual type of guy people are probably used to here.” Well atleast on the side of the GOOD GUYS. Penelope had been one of the nicer folks around there and while some folks in the Commonwealth required more thawing of the ice and colder weather off, that wasn’t really a problem for Roy; he’d always been warmer in his own way after all. “I’ll have to take your word for it then, and maybe get a few pointers on the slippin’ through the shadows part.” He laughs, Roy could be stealthy when he wanted to be, but it was usually when he was so angry that being loud didn’t work anymore, or if he had to be for someone else. He really was enjoying his time here though, which both surprised and didn’t, surprised him because he had been worried about being welcomed back and now into the fold officially no less— and wasn’t surprised because he liked The Commonwealth. Liked it in the way he might even say that this was his home now, yeah HOME.

“What’s not to dig, definitely dig not having sand in my boots for starters, shit gets everywhere.” Roy jokes, but he continues, more earnestly. “What I REALLY dig though is all of…this.” He gestures around them, as if even the MUNDANE had been a welcome notion to him; and it was. “The Commonwealth is gonna get there, I don’t know a lot about much but I know enough and I’ve been enough places to know when a place is gonna make it— and thanks to the Minutemen, well…I’d imagine those guys that did that are gonna be gone before long, ain’t a gamblin’ man but I’d BET on it.” And if not? Well…THE COURIER was used to STACKING A DECK.

Roy hadn’t been the brightest bulb in the bunch, it wasn’t in his nature to think too much on most things, well until he had to in the moment anyway, yet he feels a little silly he hadn’t put two and two together sooner. Roy didn’t know all of the bigger picture of the Minutemen, at least when it came to their past, outside of what he’d learned from Jamie, or elsewise on the fly of just being around its people, he got enough of the jist to, well– know enough. That enough consisted of just how bad the Quincy Massacre must have been and how Preston saved the people that he could, it was commendable, the sort of thing that Roy respected; but… Penelope wasn’t her brother, maybe she’d surpass what people thought of him and maybe she already did for all Roy knew, or maybe she wouldn’t.

That was her life to live and her decisions to make, not his to judge or mull over. Roy wasn’t going to hold her to some standard that wasn’t hers to live. Much less assume she didn’t earn her way in the world, it was HER hands which toiled over training and HER determination that got her this far, otherwise he wouldn’t be talking to her now. His own mother used to always ask why he couldn’t be more like his brother, Victor– didn’t really think much about the man anymore, was probably long dead by now for all he knew…but he knew he hated that feeling, especially when he was the one who didn’t run away.

“Ya’ out in the Commonwealth all on your own then, after that? That’s impressive.” Leading people was one thing, being alone was another and he’d had a taste of both worlds– suffice to say both outcomes could eat away at the soul, being alone was just a different sort of GNAWING hunger, than say, having to hold people together. “Sounds like your story might be pretty crazy too, followin’ a radio across the wastes to find him. Last time I followed a radio anywhere– I got my hand lopped off.” Roy lets out a laugh, he doesn’t really find it that funny, but he sorta does and it’s the truth.

“Still the fact you found him, that you found each other…s’nice. Glad you got that, somethin’ good outta come outta the bad now and again, and findin’ each other in the wasteland, alive? Yeah, that’s the real crazy story.” Roy smiles, he liked happy endings, which may have come as a surprise to his often brash nature; maybe he was just a sap, a sucker for them, but it was better than the all too common alternative.

He laughs at the mention of thawing out Colonel Lawson, even snorting before his laughter subsides, “Yeah he’s definitely a good man, real warm personality to do that, that’s for sure, s’hard work but thankfully someone is doing it.” He shakes his head laughing a little again, while a fond soft sort of smile splays itself on his face, it doesn't really match his usual features. Maybe it was just because he didn’t think the Colonel was as icy as he liked to lead everyone to believe, or maybe it was because he liked to think he sort of saw the man under the ice, chipped away at it even. Roy had a funny way of doing that whether people liked him or not; he’d always try to bring out the actual person– for better or worse.

“I think ya’ll have had a whole lot of willpower, enough for the whole commonwealth, maybe even enough for s’lot more places to come. Sure had enough unbreakable spirit to make me travel all this way back, it’s infectious I guess.” Roy nods, the future here looked brighter than ever, with the people they had at the helm. “Terminally infectious, in fact I’m afraid, so there’s no returning.” Roy mocks as if he’s dying, clutching his heart, or at least where it should be before overexaggerating a dumb expression to relay that before he lets out an equally dumb little laugh.

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He had kept doing as the sniper had taught him, only stopping to get some guidance on targets, so Boone could spot for him— silently relishing in the attention and shattered sounds that came every time he’d made contact with another bottle. It was like he was chipping away at something bigger than just broken glass and shooting practice. He felt satisfied and unlike most days it hadn’t come from his FISTS, nor was it fleeting, at least he hoped it wasn’t.

But good things didn’t last forever, Six knew that much, still when he was done and looking back over at the other man, well; he felt like he hadn’t seen that expression before. It was one he didn’t quite understand, and it was hard to tell if Boone did either. The glass may have all shattered but the sound still remained.

“Think I already have countless times, didn’t really think it mattered much.” Until now. Again words are left unsaid but there’s an expression of something soft there on tired features. He hadn’t had anyone to stop him, there had never been a voice of reason and if his body could be used to feel anything at all and for something good, he’d thrown caution to the wind. Besides, fighting like he did had been the only thing he was actually good at; if he didn’t have that what else did he have? Well he supposed in some strange turn of events he hadn’t expected, he had a FRIEND.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think ya’ were worried about me, ‘fraid I might up and die, well don’t worry— God wouldn’t be so lucky and the Devil don’t want me.” But you do, right? So maybe I’ll listen, he thinks. There’s a playful smile on his lips, like he’d been deflecting anything too serious, only it’s followed up with surprise when Boone tells him they had a long road ahead.

We, as in the two of them, together; and they did— Roy asked him all the way back in Novac to come with him for that journey; killing someone for another man tended to bond folks in one way or another, and while Boone had told him this wouldn’t end well, his words now BETRAYED that.

“I’ve been on this road for a long time I guess, alone mostly and that’s been fine.” It wasn’t. “Never thought twice about how I did things, just did em’ ya’ know? But…” there’s a pause, an unmistakable HITCH of his breath.

“I don’t want it cut short either.” Roy finally admits, a truth spilling from his mouth like if he says it out loud the glass might SHATTER again. He wouldn’t be the REASON Boone had to lose someone else again.

Part of him had maybe been waiting for the DROP of the hat, the part of the conversation that happened so often in his life where he’d get yelled at or told how he couldn’t do anything right. He knew Boone wasn’t like that, but knowing and experiencing had been two very different things for The Courier. Instead he is pleasantly surprised greeted to the other man telling him two words he wasn’t sure if he’d heard right, mostly because he never heard them at all; ‘It’s okay,’. There was that lump in his throat again. Nothing bad could happen from his efforts now, this wasn’t life or death and maybe someday it would be, but for now? It was okay. He hadn’t done anything WRONG.

He has to practically restrain his face muscles to keep himself from grinning wilder than he ever had before, and when Boone squats next to him, closer to him moving Six once more, he’s more comfortable about it after the words still ringing in his ears. ‘Good Job’ ‘It’s okay’ If he had a tail it would have been wagging as they both peered through the scope, normally too close for his comfort outside of a fight. The only fight he had was with himself after all, yeah— ‘You got this’ he repeats it to himself internally like a mantra.

“Thanks.” Six replies taking into what the other man told him to consideration as he looks ahead, letting himself take a breath. The empty his head part was harder, he thinks if the bullet to the head didn’t do that before, well— Roy zones out of his thoughts as he lines up the shot again. Another breath, this one STEADY and he holds it in when he FIRES, the gun kicks back, the scope bucks up but the glass SHATTERS and rings out again. He did it, Boone was right.

The Courier finally can’t contain his grin, giving way to a thump of the other mans back with his hand “You were right! I fuckin’ did it! Didn’t miss that time!” He barks with excitement exuding from every part of him. Roy moves to take the next shot like he can’t wait again, like he hadn’t missed before at all; like with Boone at his side he’d never miss again— and if he did? It was okay because the sniper had his back and he could always try again.

The next shot is easier this time and harder all the same, tucked away in a corner of a rocky crevice as he peers into the scope— he wonders if Boone is looking with him, the thought makes him take his time, even if he’s excited to make the shot. He lines it up like the last two, breathes in then breathes out again, he take a little longer just to make sure he gets it right, Boone did say to have PATIENCE after all, a word he had hardly understood until the wait of getting his revenge and until now. Then he holds his breath and fires again, that familiar shatter of the glass and he looks to Boone with a smile that rivals the sun; BEAMING- “Thanks again, for uh— showin’ me how to do this.” Nobody has ever taken the time to, he wants to add but it lingers on his lips like a drag from a cigarette that he inhales instead of letting the words out.

[renoxvated]