Chapter Text
Softened at the corners from constant anxious fidgeting, the contract rested in Micah’s pocket. The white limestone markers of Ranger Station Echo finally rose from the desert scrub. The small square of NCR ink represented a highly questionable choice, though the advance in caps had been large enough to silence his doubts.
Recently, his thoughts had been jumbled. His head cottony and slow to process the world around him. A lingering effect of the holes in his skull, but today, there was something crisp in the air that kept his mind sharp. He felt almost normal, a rare thing nowadays.
Anomalies in the route had crossed his mind during the trip, but the Mojave Express specialized in odd requests and desperate employers. If a remote outpost required medicine, they required medicine. Whether the Rangers were too arrogant or simply too undermanned to send their own couriers to the 188 Trading Post remained their business. He didn’t want to think too deeply about it. Revenge demanded he get to the Strip and this was the quickest way to buying a passport.
The dead silence along the trail had initially been unworthy of note, along with the lack of fresh boot prints or brahmin tracks. The path leading up to the outpost seemed strangely cleared of life. The kind of stillness that felt unnatural.
Reaching the perimeter wall, the absolute quiet transformed from a passing observation into a warning. The approach road looked unnaturally scrubbed. No scuff marks or discarded cigarette butts indicated the presence of soldiers. Even the tumbleweeds and trash that normally choked the chainlink fencing had been dragged away. In a strange way, it almost reminded him of the obsession with cleanliness he had back then. The camps always spotless because their commander demanded perfection in every aspect, even the useless ones.
He shouldn’t think about the past. Ulysses had told him to leave it behind. Start anew, live a life that makes the past worth enduring. He reminded himself to do just that.
Micah straightened his posture and maintained his pace. His left hand hovered inches from his holster while his right gripped the handle of the medical crate. Instinct screamed at him to turn back, but the need for caps drove him forward. Vigilance was a habit, but the ability to act calm in the face of the unknown was his greatest skill. The bullets hadn’t taken that from him. He just needed to remain calm as he passed the empty courtyard within the perimeter fence.
The front door swung inward at a touch. A prickle of tension rippled across the back of his neck. Focusing on the caps owed to him, he steadied his breathing, applied pressure to the wood, and crossed the threshold.
Inside, the main office bore the telltale signs of a hasty cleanup following a firefight. No injured men occupied the cots, and no orderlies moved between the desks. The tables had been dragged out alignment to mask the splintered floorboards beneath them. Bullet holes pockmarked the walls, though the casualties had already been dragged into the far corner and hidden under stiff sheets of canvas.
They hadn’t even been burned yet, a concerned sign given how rotting corpses could sour the very air around them. He’d have to speak to the colonel when he found someone to deliver the crate to.
Beneath the stench of rot and kerosene, a sharper odor cut through the room. It was the familiar combination of cured hide, woodsmoke, and the specific musk of men who had been marching for days.
Legion.
Recognition registered in his gut before his brain could catalog the specific details. His boots rooted to the floorboards, every muscle locking instantly into a defensive freeze he’d long thought dead.
A voice broke the silence. "You are late."
He hadn’t even heard the approach. His heartbeat was too loud in his ears.
Micah jumped, his pistol clearing the holster as he whipped around to face the threat. Vulpes stood framed in the bright desert glare of the entrance. Flanked by two subordinates, the men completely blocked the only exit from the station.
Terror turned Micah's blood to ice while his eyes scanned the room for a window or a rear door. Meeting those icy blue eyes after four years felt surreal, a nightmare he had spent every hour trying to outrun. He was a deserter. If Vulpes recognized him, execution would be a mercy compared to what the Frumentarii would do to him.
The legionary’s gaze lingered on Micah’s face, but his expression remained blank, showing no immediate sign of recognition. Time and a bullet to the skull had changed him. With his hair now nearly reaching his hips and an uneven, dented scar scoring his forehead, he looked nothing like the compliant errand boy Vulpes had once owned. Hopefully, he was simply unremarkable enough to escape notice. It had once been hailed one of his greatest strengths as an interfector.
"I was told there were wounded in need of aid," Micah said, trying to still his trembling hands by gripping the pistol tighter.
Vulpes stepped into the room, his boots clicking softly against the wood.
"There were wounded," the praefectus replied, that certain lilt of smug satisfaction microscopic, but Micah heard it all the same. "You should have arrived earlier if you wished to assist them."
Guilt flared in Micah's chest, the instinct to help, to heal ran far deeper than any Legion conditioning. Quickly, a darker thought replaced the shame. Looking toward the tarp, he knew it was vastly better for those men to be dead than to wake up as captives.
"Was this a setup?" Micah tried to sound angry, not scared. But his hands still shook all the same. "I’m not affiliated with anyone."
Vulpes tilted his head, "If it must be named crudely, yes."
"Why?" The words shook slightly as they left his mouth. "I am just a courier, I thought your Caesar said we’re granted safe passage."
A flick of Vulpes's wrist sent the two legionaries back out into the sun. The door clicked shut behind him, cutting off the glaring light and sealing them inside the dim office.
"Because I wanted you here, Silvan."
Nausea hit instantly. Pain throbbed behind his left eye, the wound flaring as dizziness clouded his vision. He took a stumbling step backward, his boots dragging. Vulpes stepped forward, matching him step for step and closing the distance before Micah could even raise his weapon properly.
"You must have me confused with someone else." Please, please be convincing.
The edge of a table bit into Micah's lower back, stopping his retreat. In an instant, Vulpes was there, hands slamming down onto the wood on either side of his hips to trap him. The frumentarius leaned in close, those pale blue eyes invading his every thought. Making him feel entirely exposed.
"I thought you were dead," Vulpes murmured, his eyes tracking the uneven scar on Micah's forehead. "I spent four years believing a lie, only to receive a report concerning a courier that looked exactly like our deceased Silvan."
"I don't want any trouble," his voice trembling, breathing shallow.
"You will find no trouble here," A finger traced the line of Micah’s jaw, breath light against his cheek. That same sweet mint he used back then. "You remain dead by official record."
Micah's brow furrowed despite the terror paralyzing his limbs. "Why would you hide the fact that I deserted?"
"Because you still have use to me," he cooed, tucking a stray piece of hair behind his captive’s ear. "If the patrols had found you, well… You are already acquainted with their tactics. Aren’t you?"
Cold anger, cut through the fog in his head. Raising the pistol between their chests, he pressed the cold muzzle directly under Vulpes' chin.
"I am not your tool anymore," Micah spat, "Move back, or I will put a round through your skull."
A faint ripple of amusement passed over Vulpes’ cold features, as if the courier had just told a predictable joke. “I see you have learned a bit of theater from the profligates. How quaint.”
His hand moved, bypassing the gun entirely to grip the back of Micah's neck. Fingers tangled in the long, dark hair, pulling tight until Micah's chin jerked upward. The thumb of Vulpes' other hand pressed firmly into the nerve cluster beneath Micah's jawline, utilizing an agonizingly familiar hold.
Instantly, the defiance drained out of his limbs. The pistol useless in his hand, trigger finger locking up as the old conditioning slammed into place. His eyes went wide and vacant, his breathing turning almost imperceptible as his body chose absolute stillness to survive the contact. His weapon dropped an inch, the threat evaporating in a second.
"Look how quickly the theater fades," Vulpes murmured, his face inches away. "Your body always did know when the argument was over."
"Your hair is a unique choice," Those icy eyes focused on the most notable change. Fingers slid through the dark strands, untangling the bun until the length spilled over Micah's shoulders. "I do not dislike it. It suits you."
Inside Micah’s skull, the bullet wound throbbed in time with his racing pulse. The years he had spent carving out an identity for himself—the miles walked, the caps earned, the small pleasures of choosing his own path—evaporated in a single breath. The trap had not been sprung today. It had been waiting for him since the moment he crawled out of the mass graves at the Dam.
This was the inevitable conclusion.
By keeping his desertion a secret, Vulpes held all of the leverage. Even more than he had back then. Yet still, blackmail was preferred over a slow, agonizing death. Legion law did not apply here because, on paper, Silvan no longer existed. There would be no trial, no execution, only a quiet return to the retinue.
Underneath the suffocating fear, a darker, uglier realization stirred. He missed this.
The admission brought a wave of intense self hatred, but his nervous system recognized the structure. The chaotic frontier had kept him on edge, forcing him to navigate a world without margins, without rules. Pinned against the table, his autonomy was stripped away, leaving only the familiar obligation to serve the man above him. For a brief second, the return of that certainty felt like a reprieve.
"You look healthy," Vulpes noted, leaning in closer until his pale lashes fluttered against Micah’s cheek. "The profligates have fed you well, even if they could not protect you from an assassination attempt."
"What do you want?"
Vulpes pulled back with a smile, more of an adjustment of his lips than a human expression. "I want what is mine."
The touch on the back of Micah's neck shifted. Instead of pushing him down like all the times before, Vulpes' fingers guided his face upward until their breath mingled, lips so close that he could practically feel them.
Vulpes closed the distance.
The contact sent a cold shock straight through Micah’s chest. In all the years under his command, they had never kissed. Sexual encounters had been frequent, but it had always remained a transaction of ownership. Micah was meant to submit so that his superior could vent his tension into something other than a boring slave. His mouth was for giving orders, sharing tactics, and breaking a subordinate.
A kiss belonged to the profligate world, a feminine ritual that Vulpes had always treated with absolute contempt.
The novelty of the touch scrambled the old survival reflexes, leaving Micah entirely unable to calculate what Vulpes wanted from him. He didn't pull away, nor did he press back; his lips remained slack and unresponsive under the legionary’s mouth.
When Vulpes finally broke the contact, he stayed close enough for him to see each lash that framed his eyes. The cool air of the station hit Micah’s wet lips, sending a shiver straight down his spine. The man’s gaze searched Micah's vacant expression, looking entirely satisfied with the chaos he had just introduced into the equation. All this time believing his favorite tool was an unclaimed corpse in the Colorado had clearly altered the parameters of Vulpes' fixation it seemed.
"You are trembling," his voice a low murmur that was barely heard. "You never used to tremble when I held you. The profligates have made you soft, Silvan. They have taught you to expect hesitation."
Micah swallowed, the taste of mint lingering on his tongue. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because you are alive," the tips of his fingers tracing along the contours of his face, as if memorizing him. "And because I do not intend to lose you a second time."
The second kiss came before Micah could formulate a rebuttal, the pressure harder this time, insistent. A demanding slide of lips that pushed his head back against Vulpes’s palm. The wood of the table creaked under his shifting weight. Pulling back just enough to breathe, Vulpes kept the nape of his neck gripped tight.
"Have you let anyone else touch you in our time apart?"
The question hung between them, a bizarre riddle Micah’s aching brain couldn’t immediately parse. The throbbing intensified behind his eye, making the edges of his vision blur into gray. He couldn't find the words. Before he could clear the fog from his head, Vulpes’s hand dropped, his palm cupping the front of Micah's jeans. The invasive grip made Micah's throat lock up.
"I asked you a question, Silvan." The voice remained level, but the fingers tightened around the outline of his soft length.
Micah flinched, staring at the floor. "No…" he managed, "No one."
Verification of that truth belonged to the silence of the past four years. Isolation had been his chosen sanctuary, a quiet routine of long hauls and empty beds where nobody knew his name or his history. He had convinced himself that he preferred the solitude, or at least, he had fought hard to believe it. Only a rare run in with Ulysses made up his social life and they were far from interested in one another.
Despite the terror locking his joints, a traitorous surge of blood rushed downward as Vulpes’ palm began to rub the growing outline of his length through the jeans. His body was reacting without his permission, responding instantly to the familiar touch.
"Good," Vulpes let out a satisfied sigh against Micah's cheek, his thumb catching the tip through the fabric. "Had I found another man’s scent on you, his life would have ended poorly."
Silver pins clicked against the table as Vulpes slipped the serape from Micah's shoulders. Next went his stetson, tossed carelessly while the hand on his cock grew more insistent.
"Speak," Vulpes demanded, "I seem to recall you being quite vocal when we were together."
Flush colored Micah’s cheeks, a sudden stain of embarrassment. Vulpes was forcing the past right down his throat, dragging up the memories he had tried to bury. He remembered the desperate eagerness that had taken hold of him back then. Once he realized that serving his dominus meant the rest of the Legion could not touch him, he had thrown himself into the role completely, filthy praise pouring from his lips with every touch.
“Tell me,” His lips slid up to his ear, “Did you think of me when your solitude became too much to bear?”
"Yes," Micah managed to choke out, not even sure why he’d admit to that truth. "Yes, I thought of you."
“Of course you did.” The admission only deepened his cruel grin. His free hand moved to the buttons of Micah’s shirt, popping them slowly, leaning back to drink in every inch of exposed skin. “Do not fear, I thought of you as well.”
"The others paled in comparison to you," Vulpes murmured, “None of them were able to please me the way you do."
He released his grip on Micah's arousal, stepping back just enough to slide the denim down the smaller man’s hips. "Get on the table."
The reflex of obedience took over before his mind could formulate a protest. Micah kicked his boots loose, letting them thump against the floor, and stepped out of his jeans. He hoisted his weight onto the edge of the table, skin pricking against the chilled surface. Keeping his eyes locked on the floor, the embarrassment burning in his veins as he tried to collect his scattered thoughts. He could not look at the man standing between his legs, if he did, it would only make things worse.
Vulpes stepped forward, his hands immediately finding Micah's thighs.
"It is rather poetic, is it not?" Vulpes remarked, his fingers tracing old paths as he got reacquainted with every inch of the man below him. "Our first encounter and our reunion share such a similar structure."
The touch burned, but the initial sting quickly gave way to a familiar, freezing grayness. An old detachment washed over his consciousness, a survival habit he thought he had locked away and outgrown long ago. He’d believed he had become someone new, someone stronger who had left the Legion behind him. Yet the second his old master returned, the world simply went quiet, leaving him entirely numb.
The table creaked under Micah’s weight. Lean limbs pinned him down, a calloused palm wrapping fully around his stiff cock. A sudden, upward stroke dragged a sharp gasp from Micah's throat.
Vulpes leaned down, teeth grazing Micah's pulse before his lips pulled a dark bruise into the flesh. Splinters bit into Micah’s palms as his fingers clawed the edge of the wood. This was survival. He repeated the thought like a mantra, trying to map the exits, trying to calculate the distance to his dropped pistol.
The steady pump of Vulpes’ hand was loud though, it’d been months since he’d touched himself. The regrettable lack of maintenance made him far more sensitive than he should have been. Hips bucked upward of their own accord, seeking the friction. The pleasure pooling in his gut was smooth and intoxicating, far more potent than the mechanical release he’d coax out of himself on a rare occasion.
"So willing, so submissive," Vulpes muttered against his skin, breath hitching slightly as his own arousal pressed against Micah’s thigh. "You belong below me. You always have."
Another dark mark was sucked into his collarbone. The hollow in his chest ached, a vacuum competing with the electric pleasure that muddled his already fragile mind. Letting it happen was the only option, yet the sheer intensity of the touch made it impossible to stay detached.
A sickening wave of guilt crashed through his chest. During those lonely nights on the trail, when the silence became too loud and he had reached into his own clothes for a fleeting moment of relief, the face in his mind had always been this one. The self-loathing afterward had always been suffocating, and now, the nightmare was real. Vulpes moved with a terrifying familiarity, treating the years apart as nothing more than a temporary pause in their schedule. Perhaps there was no escaping this. Maybe a legionary could never truly become a free man.
Just as the coil in his gut neared it’s breaking point, he let go. Micah let out a broken whine, hips stuttering forward against empty air. Glass clinked softly in the quiet room. Vulpes produced a small vial of oil from his belt, his movements clinical and unhurried while Micah lay panting, his skin slick with sweat.
The bastard had known this would happen.
“I know you better than you know yourself, Silvan.” Vulpes had told him dozens of times in the old safehouses, and the truth of it was a bitter pill to swallow.
He was weak. The illusion of autonomy dissolved, leaving only the raw core he had tried to hide. Vulpes knew he would give in the exact moment those fingers touched him.
Weakness was his baseline.
A slick finger pressed against his tight hole, sliding inside without hesitation. This was the purpose of a tool, to serve as a vessel for stronger men to exhaust themselves upon. The finger hooked upward, immediately caressing the bundle of nerves with agonizing perfection. An involuntary moan burst past Micah’s teeth, his hips twitching blindly against the table. The sound only urged the finger to move faster, spreading the slick oil deeper.
A second finger pushed past the tight ring of muscle, Vulpes stretching him with an unhurried, voyeuristic pleasure. Micah choked on a sob, his hips flinching away from the intrusion before Vulpes pinned his pelvis flat against the table. In the dim light, his cold eyes remained fixed on him. A strange expression that almost looked like pain flickering through his features.
"You are fortunate that my patience outlasts your treachery," he murmured against Micah’s ear, cold and level. "A common deserter belongs in the pens, fresh meat for the common men. You remember the tents. You know exactly what a group of tense soldiers does to the weak ones."
The threat hit, forcing Micah's thighs to widen further in absolute compliance. Terror locked his joints, stripping away any lingering urge to resist as his body offered total access to keep Vulpes from delivering on the threats.
“I’m sorry, dominus.” Micah choked out, the words barely above a whisper.
Seeing the surrender he had been fishing for, Vulpes stopped. His fingers remained buried inside him, but the expected smug satisfaction failed to materialize. Instead, his grip on Micah’s shoulder tightened to a punishing degree, the blunt pressure of his fingers digging into the muscle until the bone underneath groaned. A ragged breath escaped him, his teeth catching his lower lip.
When he spoke next, the analytical veneer was gone, replaced by a pained edge that Micah had never heard before.
"I spent three weeks combing through the wreckage and dredging the river for your corpse, I checked every body before they were thrown in the pyres." Vulpes spat, his fingers curling against Micah’s prostate with an uncharacteristic urgency that matched the wild look in his eye. "I dispatched agents into the NCR territory to see if you were rotting in a stockade."
To Micah, the words sounded like a terrifying audit of lost property, an accounting of a stolen tool, yet the violent trembling in Vulpes’s grip suggested something far more volatile. The seething expression on his handsome features, eyes wide and dark with an intensity that bordered on madness. His perfect, detached facade was fracturing, the smooth mask slipping to reveal an ugly, unresolved desperation he tried to hide with anger.
"There was nothing," Vulpes whispered against Micah's ear, thrusting his fingers harder and deeper, bordering on pain. "You vanished, and I was left without a body to bury. You will not disappear from me again."
The fingers inside him twisted sharply, targeting the sensitive spot again and drawing a broken whine from Micah's lips. Caught between the electric pleasure and the terrifying realization that Vulpes had spent years hunting for him. That he had mattered, at least enough to warrant such a search. Their last conversation had clearly expressed his total lack of care, that Silvan was nothing but a loyal dog. Yet, there was no familiar sadism in his touch, only a surreal desperation. As if Vulpes were using the friction to convince himself that the body beneath him was alive.
His slick fingers slid out with a wet sound. Bracing his heels against the worn edge of the oak table, Micah shifted his weight onto his forearms to tilt his hips the way he knew his master preferred. Vulpes’ gaze never leaving his naked form as he unbuckled his armor, tossing it aside carelessly before pulling his tunic off. Hands sliding down Micah’s spread thighs before he took his cock in his hand, stroking it a few times as he stepped closer.
The blunt head of Vulpes’ cock pressed against his opening before driving inside him with one hard shove. A shock of discomfort mixed with traces of pleasure obliterated his capacity for thought. Vulpes was larger, thicker than he remembered, and a bitter surge of self loathing hit him because he had spent four years missing this exact sensation.
A hand clamped around Micah's jaw, fingers digging into the bone to tilt his head back. Vulpes slammed his mouth down in a bruising kiss. Simultaneously, his hips smashed forward, starting a relentless pace. The thrusts came hard and deep, teeth clashing against teeth as if he was trying to tear through the four years of absence with brute force.
When Vulpes pulled back slightly to breathe, Micah noticed his eyes. Pupils blown, staring down with a raw intensity that felt entirely wrong. The predictable clinical distance was completely absent, in its place was a naked hunger that Micah had no framework to navigate.
The relentless friction suddenly faltered. Slowing his pace to a grind against his most sensitive spot, Vulpes remained buried deep inside him while his hand slid up to cup his cheek. Searching Micah’s face, gaze darting between his vacant expression and the tight set of his mouth. Another kiss followed, softer this time, but the response remained unchanged. Micah merely endured the pressure, perfectly still in his practiced submission. Whatever the man was seeking, the hollowness of Micah's fear failed to provide it.
Dissatisfaction hardened his expression. The pace turned brutal again, the blunt impacts rattling the old table as Vulpes drove himself inside with punishing force. A slick hand moved down between their bodies, wrapping around Micah's cock, pumping it in sync with his thrusts.
"Touch me," Vulpes ordered, his voice rough and devoid of its usual self assured cadence. "Touch me too. Now."
Confusion swirled in Micah's mind, but obedience took over. Reaching up with trembling hands, he sought the familiar script, settling for what he knew the man used to prefer. His fingers found the expanse of Vulpes's back, tracing the ridges of old whip scars before digging his nails deep into the tough skin.
A guttural moan escaped Vulpes's lips, a sound Micah had never heard him make during their entire history. He buried his face in the crook of Micah's neck, hiding his expression as his hips worked with a furious, unchecked rhythm. He pumped Micah's cock faster, the wet slide of their combined arousal turning loud in the sparse room. Every heavy thrust drove Micah higher, his heels slipping against the table edge as the uncharacteristic desperation of his master broke the remaining silence.
A slick palm slid up the inside of Micah’s thigh, forcing his leg upward until his knees locked tightly around Vulpes's lean hips. The adjustment gave him deeper leverage. Every slam hit his prostate directly, completely shattering Micah’s remaining composure. Clinging to the older man, Micah let out broken moans with every thrust. The dual assault of being fucked and the tight grip around his cock was too intense, driving him helplessly toward completion.
“V-Vulpes…” he moaned, raking his nails against Vulpes’ sides as he felt the pleasure building to an unbearable degree.
Vulpes’ cock swelled to an impossible hardness. Hot, ragged breath scorched the skin of Micah's throat. With a final thrust, he bit down hard into the meat of Micah’s shoulder, stifling a groan against the skin as hot cum flooded his core.
The sensation triggered an immediate reaction. Micah’s hips jerked violently as his own cock twitched, painting cum across his chest as he clung to his master, mind wiped from the brutal ecstasy he hadn’t felt in years. Every muscle in his body going slack at once as he quivered in the aftershocks.
Even after release, Vulpes did not pull away. He kept grinding his hips forward, burying his length as deep as the anatomy allowed, the twitching friction pushing both of them to the absolute limit of overstimulation. The frantic pace slowed into a trembling stillness.
For a long minute, neither of them moved. Vulpes’ chest rose and fell in heavy thuds against Micah's ribs, his forehead resting in the crook of Micah’s neck as his breathing gradually stabilized. A sharp prickle of moisture stung the corners of Micah’s eyes. Disgust at his own body’s betrayal flared hot in his chest, and he squeezed his eyelids shut, forcing the tears back. He could not show that kind of weakness here. Vulpes could not be allowed to see how deeply this encounter had unraveled him.
The erratic nature of the encounter contradicted every memory Micah held of his former master. Only once before had he witnessed the commander’s icy composure slip so completely. It had occurred after a savage, drawn-out argument with the Legate behind closed tent flaps, leaving Vulpes unmoored and dangerously unpredictable for the remainder of the day. Normally, the man functioned as a predictable brand of evil, an equation that was terrifying but easy to solve. God knew Micah had spent the last four years dissecting every variable of that equation during his lonely nights on the trail.
Terror still fluttered in his chest regarding what the frumentarius intended to do with him now. The promise to keep the desertion a secret meant nothing; Vulpes lied as effortlessly as he breathed. Trust was a luxury Micah could not afford. Survival dictated a simple strategy: maintain absolute compliance until the grip loosened, then search for a clean opening to run. Four years of hauling heavy freight through the Mojave had built real muscle into his frame, and he was stronger now. In a flat footrace, he might actually stand a chance of outpacing Vulpes’s longer stride if worse came to worst.
Reaching up with a stiff hand, Micah pressed his thumb and index finger firmly against the base of Vulpes' skull. The old habit used to soothe his commander’s worst moods. The response came instantly. Vulpes shifted his entire bulk forward, leaning down with a sudden density that made the joints in Micah's braced arm protest under the combined weight.
"I’m sorry, d-dominus…"
The apology acted like a spring. Vulpes pulled back immediately, the raw hunger vanishing behind a perfectly schooled veneer that looked far more like the spymaster Micah remembered. The composure was a thin counterfeit, however. A genuinely calm Vulpes allowed his pale eyes to wander the room, cataloging details with casual boredom. Right now, his gaze remained pinned entirely to Micah, unblinking, and entirely too focused.
Vulpes pulled out, cum spilling from Micah’s abused hole. The younger man went to cover himself with his shirt quickly. Vulpes did not look back as he reached for his tunic, his movements reacquiring their usual military precision. Micah’s eyes on the door, wondering if he would be able to outpace Vulpes at a dead sprint. He had put on quiet a bit of muscle in his years as a courier.
The heavy leather straps of his chest piece clinked in the quiet room. "Your apologies are as cheap as your compliance, Silvan," Vulpes said, his voice entirely flat as he pulled his belt tight. "You are calculating the distance to the threshold. You are weighing your stride against mine, waiting for the exact second my back is turned so you can bolt."
A cold knot tightened in Micah's stomach. The brief illusion of having managed the interaction collapsed, leaving him thoroughly exposed. Vulpes didn't just see the fear; he mapped it, utilizing Micah’s own survival instincts against him. The realization was utterly demoralizing, a stark reminder that the frumentarius remained three steps ahead of anyone trapped in his orbit.
"Let us look at your reality," he continued, "You are a Legion deserter. You are currently standing inside a butchered NCR outpost. By every law of the Republic and the Legion, your life is completely forfeit. You breathe because I allow the air into your lungs."
Micah remained frozen on the edge of the oak table, his bare legs shaking slightly. The weight of his vulnerability made his gaze fall to the floor. If Vulpes chose to whistle, the guards outside would have him bound and crucified before sundown.
"However, I have no intention of delivering you to the crosses, nor the pens," Vulpes said, turning around to face him. The severe mask was fully back in place, no trace of the strange desperation he’d had only moments ago. "Mars has plenty of bodies for fodder. What I require is an agent who is already dead to the world."
Leaning against the desk, Vulpes picked up Micah's discarded stetson, spinning it slowly on his finger. "Before your unfortunate accident with the bullet, you were the courier contracted to deliver a specific token to New Vegas. The Platinum Chip."
Micah's brow furrowed, the throb in his temple spiking at the mention of his old delivery contract.
"Your delivery was intercepted, but the objective remains," he tossed the hat back onto Micah's lap. "You are going back to the Strip. You will resume your identity as a simple courier. You will watch the Lucky 38, you will monitor House's movements, and when that chip surfaces, you will secure it for me."
The terms of his survival were laid out clearly, any notions of being mourned quickly dismissed. Vulpes hadn't kept his secret out of sentimentality; he had kept it as an investment.
"If you succeed, I will consider your freedom," Vulpes murmured, leaning down to press a cold finger under Micah's chin. "If you attempt to run, I will personally see to your destruction. The NCR will hang you for the Rangers rotting under the trap, or my interfectores will find you. Either way, the outcome is identical. Do we understand each other?"
"I understand," Micah nodded stiffly.
Sliding off the table, his bare feet hit the gritty floorboards. Trembling knees forced him to grip the ironwood edge to keep from collapsing entirely. He reached for his discarded jeans, pulling them up his legs with clumsy movements.
Vulpes watched the pathetic display with bored indifference. He didn't offer to help, nor did he look away from Micah’s humiliation.
"I expect you in Novac within three days," He ordered, "My scouts occupy the ridges along Highway 95. I will know the exact hour you deviate from the path, so do not attempt to subvert my orders, Silvan."
Picking up his signature coyote helmet, Vulpes paused at the threshold. Surveying Micah's hunched form as the courier struggled with his shirt buttons.
"You performed adequately today," Vulpes murmured, a cold smirk touching his lips. "It is reassuring to know that no matter how much time you spend among the profligates, you are still nothing more than an obedient whore."
The door swung open, letting in a brief, blinding flash of desert sun before clicking firmly back into the frame.
Silence rushed into the room, thick and suffocating. Micah stood alone in the dim office, the half-buttoned shirt hanging open against his chest. The smell of death, sweat, and sex lingered in the air, a visceral testament to his undoing.
Micah tried his best to cover himself. Shaking tore through his limbs, making the simple act of threading the metal button through the hole a miserable failure. He tried again, his breath hitching in his throat as his thumb slipped off the brass rivet.
Four years of grueling labor, months of building a life from nothing, all the times he tried to bury the man he used to be. All of it had vanished in less than an hour. The terrifying truth settled deep into his gut: he had caved the moment Vulpes touched his skin. Every choice he had made since the Dam, every mile he had walked as a free man, was nothing but a fragile illusion.
Weakness defined him; it always had.
A sudden wave of blinding fury consumed him.
Lunging forward, Micah seized the medical crate by its handle and hurled the box across the room with a vicious scream that tore at his vocal cords.
"Fuck you!" his voice devolved into a raw screech.
The crate smashed against the door, splintering the frame and scattering it’s contents across the floorboards in a chaotic explosion of glass and bandages. Whipping back around, his vision went red as he faced the table. He drove his right fist straight down on the solid wood. The impact vibrated up his forearm, Pain flared up his bones, but it did nothing to blunt the suffocating anger.. He struck the table again, then again, his left hand joining the relentless assault until the skin across his knuckles split wide open. Thick blood smeared across the ancient grain of the wood with every desperate blow.
“I hate you! You fucking asshole, piece of shit, dickwad. Fuck you!” Micah slammed his fist down one more time, the wood finally splintering under the assault.
The rage evaporated as quickly as it had arrived, leaving a familiar hollow void behind. Gasping for air, Micah stared at his mangled hands, the throbbing in his split flesh merging with the dull ache behind his eye.
His knees buckled completely. Sliding down the leg of the table, he collapsed onto the dusty floorboards. Curling into himself, tucking his bleeding hands against his chest while the absolute hopelessness of his situation pressed down on him. The wind howled outside, whistling through the cracks in the building to the same pitch as the ringing in his bad ear. The wasteland indifferent to his ruin, just as it had always been.