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Deacon watched the raider camp from possibly the shittiest tree stand he'd ever constructed, peering through the scope of his rifle. There were cages in the camp, and people in the cages, because it was a slaver camp. Fixer was in one of the cages, because it was a slaver camp, and her local tin soldiers had gotten their dander up about it. Why she, as their general, had to be bait for their little trap was beyond him. Even further beyond him was why he had to be involved.
It wasn't because she was general. He knew that. It was because she was Fixer, and she was always going to get involved. And the second Fixer got involved, so was he. Because she was Fixer.
She was currently antagonizing the raider in charge of her particular cage, evident by the way he kept slamming a metal pipe against the door. The deal had been for her to try to weasel information out of them, see if they were just one arm of a larger operation, but mostly she seemed to be getting cussed.
That tracks, he thought wryly. She was at the wrong angle for him to read her lips, but whatever she said was the final straw for her guard, who snatched a pipe pistol out of his belt and aimed it at her head.
Deacon's scope snapped to the offending hand and a bullet took it off. His head was next, and screams cut through the air as Deacon slammed another shell into the chamber.
Dogmeat charged into the clearing a moment later, followed by a handful of Minutemen, and Deacon just kept popping raider heads where he could find them, cursing himself the whole time. Stupid. stupid. stupid. That hadn't been the plan, the plan had been to get intel, now everybody was dead and you couldn't get intel from dead people. Fixer was going to be pissed.
But if she was pissed she was alive. That was the point, at the end of the day, was for Fixer to come out of it alive. And dead slavers were always a net positive, as far as he was concerned. Surely she could see the logic in that.
When everybody who needed to be dead had stopped twitching, he lowered his rifle and sat up from his prone position to watch the ants scurry around the camp. Fixer glanced up in his direction once or twice, but she knew he wasn't coming down until the crowd had dispersed. His help was contingent on as few people seeing his face as possible.
They cleared out eventually and he made his way down to the clearing where Fixer was digging through the boxes and crates the raiders had assembled. "Hope you like Cram," she said as he approached. "Somebody here must have had a salt deficiency."
"Beats not eating," he said, nudging a dead raider with his toe. "Everybody get out alright?"
"More or less." She stood, wiping her hands on her pants. "Couple scrapes and bruises, but nobody got shot."
She was looking right at him when she said it, and he sighed. "Fixer - "
"It's fine," she said, shaking her head. "It's my fault."
"…what did you say to him?"
"He said if I didn't shut up he'd shoot me. I told him to try it."
Deacon closed his eyes, trying not to think about if he'd been a little slower, or if the raider had been a little twitchier. "You can't just say shit to raiders, Fix, they couldn't control an impulse if they had it on a leash - "
"I know, I know." She threw her hands up in frustration. "I'm sorry. I know you hate helping me with Minuteman stuff. I shouldn't have made it more difficult." She kicked a loose can of Cram. "I'll delegate it next time."
"You'd go crazy not being involved," he sighed, digging her empty bag out of his own. "Here, load up and let's get out of here, the locals are starting to stink."
"Hey," she said after a moment, and he looked around at her. "I only did it because I knew you had my back." She wasn't looking at him, focusing maybe too intently on stuffing canned meat into her bag.
It didn't make him feel better, exactly, but it did make something warm crawl up through his chest and into his throat, and he had to cough before he spoke again.
"Just...maybe don't jump at every rescue mission that gets thrown at you, is all I'm asking."
"I can try."
She couldn't, and they both knew it. If there was a chance she could help, she'd take it. And Deacon would be right there beside her, because it was Fixer, and he was trapped in her orbit no matter what he did.