![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
[drabble][Fallout New Vegas, Sterling, G] Something like Nostalgia
Title: Something like Nostalgia
Fandom: Fallout: New Vegas
Rating: G
Word Count: 562
Characters: Sterling
Summary: Something about the Mojave just brings back memories.
If there was only one thing Sterling needed in life, it was open skies and the world at his feet. Some details, of course, would be ace- secured rest areas, places to get supplies, the occasional person to share a conversation with; but the one thing that never failed him was traveling. Even in the worst conditions all he needed to straighten out his head was the repetitive motion of his steps on the ground. His heartbeat would slow, his thoughts would fall into order and everything around him would snap into such focus it was like moving seamlessly in a world standing still. And, before he'd know it, all his answers were right in his grasp.
It was part of why he left New Reno. Its flashing lights trapped him in, captured his problems and agitations simply because the buildings blocked out the sky. Even with a population as big as it was, after so many years all the faces became familiar and all its secrets found. He had walked its streets so often he could fall asleep doing so and it was far too dangerous for a courier's brain to just shut down.
So he traveled. For six years he traveled which ever direction he felt was the most promising and in all that time, even through all the struggles he had, he never felt as if he was missing anything. For six whole years, asides from routine calls back to New Reno, he didn't give the city, it's people, not even the family he left behind a second thought.
Until he hit the Mojave.
He couldn't name what it was, just that sometimes something would hit him sideways, right under the ribs, and he'd remember. The Strip had nothing on New Reno- couldn't hold a candle to its glamor or dangers but when the sounds meshed together just right and the lights stung at his eyes, it was like standing on Second Street again. When he'd walk through the doors of the isolated, courier-refurbished police station, sometimes he'd walk in expecting it to be bigger, noisier, with a dozen couriers bustling in and out on their way. Even just being with the Mojave couriers made him think of the ones he'd grown up with: a joke Rafael would howl at, a swindling trick that would make Kiet's eyes sparkle, a verbal shutdown that would make Lana beam with pride. There was something in the ease he found with the Mojave couriers that brought out the long-dormant memories of the first couriers to have his back.
Sometimes they even made Sterling think of Ryland and Jackson, those thoughts occasionally accompanied by a band squeezing at his chest so tight he had to consciously remember how to breath. It made his brain itch to hear their voices again, to see the smiles he had etched in his fondest memories. It made him imagine the three sitting around a table, staying up for days as he told stories about what he'd seen and done.
It made him, for the first time, think about going home.
It wasn't distance that made the heart fonder, at least not Sterling's. It was fondness of a moment that reminded him of fondness from the past. After so long and so far, he'd finally felt something like nostalgia. That, Sterling thought, was a story all its own.
Fandom: Fallout: New Vegas
Rating: G
Word Count: 562
Characters: Sterling
Summary: Something about the Mojave just brings back memories.
If there was only one thing Sterling needed in life, it was open skies and the world at his feet. Some details, of course, would be ace- secured rest areas, places to get supplies, the occasional person to share a conversation with; but the one thing that never failed him was traveling. Even in the worst conditions all he needed to straighten out his head was the repetitive motion of his steps on the ground. His heartbeat would slow, his thoughts would fall into order and everything around him would snap into such focus it was like moving seamlessly in a world standing still. And, before he'd know it, all his answers were right in his grasp.
It was part of why he left New Reno. Its flashing lights trapped him in, captured his problems and agitations simply because the buildings blocked out the sky. Even with a population as big as it was, after so many years all the faces became familiar and all its secrets found. He had walked its streets so often he could fall asleep doing so and it was far too dangerous for a courier's brain to just shut down.
So he traveled. For six years he traveled which ever direction he felt was the most promising and in all that time, even through all the struggles he had, he never felt as if he was missing anything. For six whole years, asides from routine calls back to New Reno, he didn't give the city, it's people, not even the family he left behind a second thought.
Until he hit the Mojave.
He couldn't name what it was, just that sometimes something would hit him sideways, right under the ribs, and he'd remember. The Strip had nothing on New Reno- couldn't hold a candle to its glamor or dangers but when the sounds meshed together just right and the lights stung at his eyes, it was like standing on Second Street again. When he'd walk through the doors of the isolated, courier-refurbished police station, sometimes he'd walk in expecting it to be bigger, noisier, with a dozen couriers bustling in and out on their way. Even just being with the Mojave couriers made him think of the ones he'd grown up with: a joke Rafael would howl at, a swindling trick that would make Kiet's eyes sparkle, a verbal shutdown that would make Lana beam with pride. There was something in the ease he found with the Mojave couriers that brought out the long-dormant memories of the first couriers to have his back.
Sometimes they even made Sterling think of Ryland and Jackson, those thoughts occasionally accompanied by a band squeezing at his chest so tight he had to consciously remember how to breath. It made his brain itch to hear their voices again, to see the smiles he had etched in his fondest memories. It made him imagine the three sitting around a table, staying up for days as he told stories about what he'd seen and done.
It made him, for the first time, think about going home.
It wasn't distance that made the heart fonder, at least not Sterling's. It was fondness of a moment that reminded him of fondness from the past. After so long and so far, he'd finally felt something like nostalgia. That, Sterling thought, was a story all its own.