Deacon swung the barrel of his rifle back over the barricade, eye jammed to the scope to take out another Gunner in the distance. “I need you to start dropping some of these close-range fucks.”
”I can try.” Fixer’s voice was bitter. She wasn’t a bad shot. Against a target. That wasn’t shooting at her. She popped up next to him, firing at one of the figures creeping up on them. The bullet went through his kneecap and he went down screaming.
“Nice.” Deacon’s voice was flat as he ejected a shell and jammed another round into the chamber. There was an anger simmering under the surface that he was holding at bay until he wasn’t being shot at. Survive now so he could yell later.
Because this was Fixer’s fault. She had insisted on trying to hack a terminal on the off-chance it said something about her son or husband, and it had set off an alarm that brought waves of Gunners down on them from either side. Distantly he knew that she knew that, and he was probably facing an apology on the other side of this. He wasn’t looking forward to that. He didn’t want to hear it at the moment and he wasn’t sure he’d want to hear it once everyone was dead.
She was at least keeping the room clear while Deacon fired into the hallway, taking headshots where he could and kneecaps where he couldn’t. Fixer wasn’t used to battle. She could handle a gun without taking out her own toes, and popped the occasional mole rat, but that was a far cry from shooting at another person.
Another Gunner dropped to Deacon’s right, and he grudgingly admitted she might be adapting quickly.
Eventually the last Gunner fell and Deacon flopped back behind the barricade, leaning his head back against it and trying to catch his breath. Fixer was doing the same beside him, head between her knees. He tried to let the anger bleed out with the adrenaline but it clung to him like sweat, persistent and pervasive.
Eventually Fixer’s voice floated up from next to him and he clenched his jaw before she even got his name all the way out.
“Deacon…”
”I don’t want to hear it.” He was surprised by the anger in his voice. Sure, it matched the heat he was holding in his chest, but that was kind of the problem. It was supposed to stay in his chest. Not hang in the air, making her flinch away from him.
That flinch hurt, more than he was expecting. Almost enough to cut through the anger. Almost.
“You fucked up.” Deacon continued, not looking directly at her. He couldn’t, not and hold on to his anger. “You got impatient, which made you sloppy, which almost got us both killed.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fixer curling in on herself. Deacon closed his eyes, clenching his jaw. He was supposed to be teaching her. This was teaching. Sometimes teaching hurt. That was how this worked.
“I saw something about an infant.” She was barely audible. “I didn’t - I didn’t know if it was a Gunner log or the hospital’s - I just - “ She cut herself off as her voice thickened and Deacon let out a string of curses in his own mind. She was crying. He’d made her cry. And that did hurt enough to cut through his anger, damnably.
“I know.” He consciously gentled his tone, not wanting his frustration at himself to come out as frustration at her. Even if he was still genuinely, justifiably frustrated with her. ”But you can’t get ahead of yourself. There’s too much out here that wants to kill you.”
“I know.” It was a whisper, and she tried to surreptitiously wipe her face. “I’m sorry.”
Deacon heaved a sigh, rocking forward to climb to his feet. “Come on,” he said, offering her a hand up. “Let’s see if any of these jackasses had anything good.”
Fixer stared up at him for a moment, and he finally let himself look at her fully. Her nose and eyes were red, but her face was dry. It was her expression that did him in - not quite fearful, but definitely unsure. Part of him said that was good. She shouldn’t trust him. But another, louder part was cut straight through by the idea that she didn’t.
“Come on.” His voice was quiet as he wiggled his fingers at Fixer, and after a moment she took his hand, letting him pull her upwards. Her hand was warm, even through the wrap around her palm, and it lingered after she released him.
“You hate when I loot,” she muttered as she passed him to go around the barricade.
“I think we’ve got time,” Deacon responded, looking at the swath of bodies covering the floor.
Normally he did get annoyed by her looting. She was meticulous and it took forever. Normally he would have given a proper lecture, a shouted rant and possibly an ended partnership.
He was starting to realize that this wasn’t going to be normal.