TO VICTORY.

REPOST, NOT REBLOG

GENERAL: ✖ NAME:                     Arthur Maxson ✖ AGE:                        ten in FO3 / twenty in FO4 ✖ BIRTHDAY:             January 10th ✖ SPECIES:               human ✖ GENDER:                cis male ✖ SEX:                        male ✖ ORIENTATION:      heterosexual ✖ PROFESSION:       military leader; Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel

@shadowofsteel

He closed the terminal, another ill-thought out, emotional message in the wind of cyberspace, or however the hell terminal communication worked.

If anyone asked - and they did, of course they did, no one could hope to get Piper to shut up for a second - he couldn’t say why he kept sending these reports.

Part of him had to believe it was duty. Strip him of his rank, sully his reputation, drag his name in the mud, what have you. It didn’t take away his duty. He was a soldier, and he was loyal to the Brotherhood til his last dying day. His men, his family, were adrift out here in the Commonwealth. Any reports from the field would be useful - hell, they could save lives. Lives Danse had sworn to protect. So fuck protocol. He’d keep on with this until they blocked his signal.

(and part of him, a stupid, hopeful, desperate part of him, wondered why Arthur had never changed the private terminal address that enabled him to send them in the first place).

But that ugly part of him that knew he was a machine, programmed to obey, knew his directive had apparently been to be the best goddamn soldier the Brotherhood could dream up. That part of him wondered, in angry outbursts at Nick or wrecked, shaking breaths to Preston, if the only reason he couldn’t let this go was because he literally, physically could not. That this loyalty was just a program, and that by his very inability to let this go he was endangering the people he loved.

(and he did love them, god - with all his mechanical or what-the-fuck-ever heart and soul, he loved them to hell and back).

And it wasn’t just duty, he knew that. And it couldn’t be just programming, he had to believe that. He loved them. He’d become a man in their company. He’d bled with them, laughed with them (sometimes). Cried, and fought, and lived with them. He’d watched Arthur grow up, that scared little boy into the determined, scared man and leader they all loved.

He couldn’t leave them out to dry. He couldn’t abandon them like they’d abandoned him, attacking on sight, spewing hateful things from Vertibirds as he retreated from the gunfire of his brothers.

No. He wouldn’t abandon them. Not for a thousand years, not in any fucking lifetime. The Commonwealth needed the Brotherhood of Steel. Danse needed the Brotherhood of Steel. They’d have to kill him to stop him.

He hadn’t disclosed his departure, simply because he could not bring himself to do so. He was blindsided by his own determination; an overwhelming desire to repair the wounds he inflicted despite knowing the choices he made were set in stone. Arthur did not regret his decision to deploy the Brotherhood into the Commonwealth; not when its residents so desperately needed their assistance, but it forced his hand to make calls that could have been prevented or re-evaluated. And this — this escapade of his could endanger everything he fought for from the day he walked into the Citadel. Alone, his life was at stake; but to proceed as he wished to, his morals and ambitions, and everything that the Brotherhood of Steel had become were in grave danger.

But if he could not protect his own — if a synthetic unit had become more human than Arthur himself ever could — what purpose did the Brotherhood have at all? The enemy had always been the Institute, not the synthetic lives they created to showcase their feats of scientific discovery. The risk was in the programming; the false sense of security, a planted detonation grown from the seeds of mistrust and watered with surveillance, but humans were just as malleable. 

With the Institute’s destruction came liberation from paranoia. Freedom for the people affected by scientific atrocities, and the collection of knowledge to prevent such abuse of power from reoccurring. This had been the plan from the start despite the collateral damage that occurred between. And that was what brought Maxson before the familiar bunker in which Danse resided; a creature of habit, perhaps, or one filled with as much hope as any human soul would ever have. Arthur knew his location full well, and it was the sufferings of a comrade-in-arms that brought him here.

His approach was slow — dark eyes aware of the infrared sight of each laser turret dotted along the exterior of the bunker, but their lack of movement to scan the immediate surroundings suggested that they were inactive, allowing Arthur to proceed forth unscathed, but whether or not he was unnoticed was another question altogether. One he did not have time to consider, let alone mull over. With planned steps, he swept through the entrance he descended through the lift, the air pressure dropping as the cool, dampness of the bunker sunk into his bones. The overhead light flickered and the enclosed chamber shook, but only when it reached the bottom floor did the battered doors slide open, and Arthur lifted his tired head.

Arthur formally sat down to review the intel report—a movement made tosuccumb to fatigue; the silent admission behind closed doors that he was, indeed, pushed to his limits. But at the end of the day it meant little, for war never slept. The wasteland would not fix itself, not without a guiding hand. It took settling into the hard seat of the chair that his body ached; his muscles screamed at his resignation and his eyes stung. Tired he was, but sleep he could never find. And so he reserved his dwindling attention for the blinking screen as stress, insomnia and his innermost, personal wars ate away at the back of his mind.

He had reached for a bottle as the report was selected —his only solution to his internal struggles— and his rough, calloused fingers curled around the cold exterior of the glass. He drew it towards himself, the intent to consume evident, but the motion itself was paused as his gaze traveled across the emerald words that lit up the screen.

The silence that lingered was deafening, broken only by the soft shuffle of his fingers loosening around the neck of the bottle before shoving it back into its original place. In the chaos that was his own thoughts, Arthur deliberated. He weighed one unspoken decision with another, and after a time, he hauled his exhausted form from the chair and pulled on his coat.

Fingers flitted about the collar, brushing the lapels down before reaching for a belt of fusion cells and a modified fusion rifle once belonging to one of his own. With a sense of overwhelming determination and sheer will suppressing his fatigue, Arthur marched out of his chamber without a single word and departed the Prydwen, slinging the thread of ammunition over his shoulder as he headed directly for downtown Boston.

           In the face – rather, feet – of her fate, she laughed, but the end of the sound fell off tune, the slightest ripple revealing shadow beneath her surface.

           Dropping the game of bottle-chasing, Lance lowered to lie upon the table, laying her head at the guillotine in gentle acceptance of her crimes, unkind pillow of hard shins an agreeable start to her penitence.

          “They did understand the word ‘Commonwealth’ at least. And through pantomime the adviser - the wise man - and I, we establish simple names and loyalties. I come from the Brotherhood of Steel,” she pointed over her chest to where the emblem would have sat upon her power armor. “I serve Elder Maxson,” she gave the toe of his boot an appreciative squeeze as she twisted to stare up at the ceiling, avoiding his eyes for this part of the story.

          “They’re calmer. The tea returns. The leader seems to propose a toast in your name. I’m down for that– I’m probably about to be eaten by unpredictable and rabid wastelanders any moment, I might as well…” She risked a glance toward steely eyes.

        “–You see where this is going already? Oh, Arthur, I’m so dense…” The ceiling again catches her gaze. How she’d rather be displaying a scar of the flesh rather than the latest wound of her own folly…

          “They still don’t let me leave but seem to be waiting for something. Another hour or so and a trader arrives. One who understands both them and me. A translator.

          “So it turns out: The deathclaw had been such a longstanding issue their leader had promised his daughter, their princess, to anyone who could defeat it. 

          “I guess they assumed only a man could do that, because they were really bothered when the daughter, through ceremonial drink-sharing, was promised to another woman – a most handsome groom but one incapable of siring an heir… ‘Fortunately,’ the wise man figured I must be owned by - and therefore represent - a formidable man. So ownership of the bride, through reckless toasting, was transferred to you… Congratulations.”

           Again she turned to face him, a hand to soften the sentence at her cheek with a small embracing of his calves. “So really just another ‘Lance Fucking Up’ report…” She winced, and continued to cling to him with both hands and deep apology in her eyes. “Only this mistake’s set up to follow me home– with a small armed escort.”

The more her tale unraveled, the more their sense of jovial camaraderie gave way to a grave and somber understanding and admittance, to which she, in a sense, had difficulty coming face-to-face with. And by noting the shift in her gaze towards the tinny ceiling of the Prydwen, quite literally so.

But the more she spoke, the less Maxson interjected, and the more the thick, framing brows above his eyes arched into something akin to ire interlaced with concern. Had she not found solace in the hard plane of his shins, Arthur would have sat upright to confront her, however he had instead simply locked eye contact with Lance as she looked to him in apology. Yet, above all else, he only managed a short phrase:

          “An armed escort?”

His gaze shifted towards that of the door leading into his personal quarters, a deliberate silence in his movements and breathing as if to listen to what went on beyond the threshold--for a disturbance, conversation, or confusion and disarray that might have taken place should they have been waiting just beyond, or if news of a foreign military unit hovered within the Brotherhood’s headquarters here in the Commonwealth. It was after those moments that Arthur came to a decisive consideration.

The proposal is initially met with a small laugh from the vault dweller.

“I dunno, I think I look pretty good, these days.”

He was making a fast job of hiding his surprise at the offer. Of course, why else would the young Elder call him in under these circumstances? Alone, with no one else to intrude on their conversation.

Still, the offer made little sense to him. He’d left because he didn’t like where he’d seen the brotherhoods course taking it, he didn’t know why Maxson though he would just jump at the chance to hop back onboard.

In response to the elders rigid posture, his own faded. The Wanderer crossed his arms over his chest, one hip slightly cocked out as his humor faded.

“Sell it to me then. Why do you want me back, and why would I want to join back up?”

“Don’t be a fool, Aaron.” He responded promptly, tone even, expression placid. Despite the seriousness of the offer and that of his posture, Arthur himself almost seemed disinterested in the game Aaron wanted him to play. That, or confident enough in himself to allow a casual sort of demeanour despite the formality of their exchange.

“You know well enough that your services to the Brotherhood were an exemplary sort, just as you know what I think of you.” He paced towards the edges of the glassed hall, gaze turned out unto the expanse of the Commonwealth with his back to his former brother-in-arms. 

“Despite your--” a pause in his words, as if to search the contents of his mind for an appropriate word to stress the severity of the opinion he was about to spill without offending, “...untimely departure, my opinions of you have not changed. You are an asset, and you know the benefits that the Brotherhood has to offer you.” His gaze shifted from the horizon then, to the reflection of his guest within the window’s pane.

“I know that your conceptions involving the Brotherhood of Steel have shifted dramatically since I have taken the mantle,” his arms unfurled from their rooted position against his back, gesturing loosely then with an open hand, “but it is that very perception that I wish to clarify--for you to understand what it is that I require, and what I would expect from you.” And alas, he turned to face the Lone Wanderer once again.

“In truth, and selfishly so, I require your skillset; your knowledge and honesty at my disposal to guide the Brotherhood going forward.” A brief pause to punctuate the gravity of his words, and within moments thereafter, he continued. “I need your council, your experiences, and the drive to fulfill our purpose one step at a time; to put the Brotherhood of Steel in the position it should be, and towards creating a future for mankind.” His gaze hardened then; the flesh at the corners of his eyes pulled and creased, exposing an accelerated age far beyond what Arthur had even come close to reaching.

“But what I need you to understand is that I will not lead as Elder Lyons did, or as Sarah intended. Not when it has failed in the political climate since, and not when we are at war against an institution that violates the basic human rights of the people in the Commonwealth and beyond if it cannot be stopped.” His brow wrinkled with fervor, the strength of his tone intensifying as he punctuated the severity of his devotion with the movement of his hands. “There is a time and place for peace-keeping and for goodwill negotiations, but that time is not now. I will not turn a blind eye and kneel simply due to general discomfort with military action, and discontent with our presence. Our destination, and our purpose here is clear--” his fingers curled in towards his palm to form a fist; muscles beneath the long, leather sleeves, flesh and encasing bone straining with the movement.

The Paladin’s suggestion was ignored and disregarded entirely, though Maxson took a moment to survey the situation. It was only after a few breaths that he proceeded forward, the soles of his boots thundering against the steely scaffolding as he moved into view.

Without so much as inquiring for permission, Arthur reached around Danse’s form and pried the cigarette from the other’s hands, then proceeded to drop it towards the ground where it was thereafter crushed under his heel.

           A nod.

          “Their English had… changed. I couldn’t understand them, but they were having some sort of celebration over the deathclaw– I was just nodding and hoping to run into a doctor.

          “Their leader, their… king of sorts. He directed me to a tent and there was an old woman in there and another person– Female, I assumed, but she was covered from head to toe.

          “The old woman offered some kind of tea. The other woman drank so I drank it too– That was the first time I removed my helmet. The two seemed fine enough, but in moments another person showed up and began yelling. So their king comes in and starts yelling too. Everyone’s livid and for the life of me I can’t tell with whom they’re more upset– The old woman, the hidden woman, or me.

          “Also I don’t know why they’re yelling and I’m worried I’ll have to fight my way out of this too.

          “Then some older man chimes in and he seems to be some sort of adviser. He gets the leader to quit shouting but they still won’t let me go…” 

           She rose to sit on the table, legs resting upon the chair she’d just occupied. A sudden calm mischief touched her eyes as she looked toward his and mimicked a walking figure with two fingers, trekking her hand slowly across the table toward the bottle to see if he’d halt her now.

Arthur sat through the dramatization of her story--through the flourishes and theatrics with a certain patience allotted to her, and her alone. And he had, indeed, been patient. All up until she managed to wriggle free from his oppressive grasp to climb unto the table and test the waters in which she waded through so brazenly. 

But it was in light of such an attempt that Arthur leaned away, perhaps in such a fashion that insinuated that his underlying ire had been placated enough via what little information he’d been given. Her informal report, however, had given him little if any data that had corresponded with her initial proclamation, so it was with an easy rock of the chair that he had propped upon its backmost legs, and slammed his own unto the table like a guillotine into the direct path between Lancelot and the object of her desires. A fair warning, if there ever was one.

(( lance worries about him but would try to shield him from being witnessed in times of weakness lmao ))

I want someone to make him weak.

I want him to understand that he’s a human being, and that he’s prone to mistakes and to emotion, anD THIS LITTLE SHIT NEEDS TO EXPERIENCE WEAKNESS AND HAS TO HAVE A GOD DAMN VICE OTHER THAN ALCOHOL