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Your dad never taught you anything. Except how to turn your head so the buckle of his belt didn’t take your eye out. The Followers taught you to read.
When you got so sick you almost died your mom banged on a drum and yelled. When that didn’t work she acted like you were already dead. The Followers gave you pills and poured water back into your body through a tube in your arm and you got better.
You don’t know what the Enclave is except that they killed a lot of NCR. Which is a good thing.
So when the Follower doctor from the Enclave gets released into gen pop you tell everyone he’s under your protection and if anyone has a problem you’ll slash their throats. He looks you up and down. Tells you it’s not the clumsiest I-think-we-should-travel-together pitch he’s ever gotten. You grunt.
His glasses get smashed when a pair of Red Caps try to kill him in the yard. The Enclave killed their ancestors and they want payback. It’s your fault because you didn’t notice them. You get in there with your knife and stab one and chase the other off but it’s too late. His glasses are broken.
You fuck him after that. Loud and public so people can hear but not see. They have to know he’s yours and you aren’t sharing. He squirms but doesn’t fight. He lets you push and pull his big body like a tamed bighorner. When it’s done he wipes himself and says it’s going to be a lot of work civilizing you. That makes you confused and mad. He explains that civilize doesn’t mean forcibly integrate you into the underclass of a modern centralized nation state. You always remember when he talks like that so you can look up the words later.
Civilize means wait until he’s ready before doing it so hard. Not to draw blood when you bite. It means he won’t bite when he does it with his mouth. You’ve always been afraid of that ever since dad hit mom one too many times and then fucked her face. And she bit him and he bled out because nobody would help him. Your Enclave Follower Doctor sucks you so good that you put up with him trying to civilize you.
You put up with his moods where he doesn’t want to talk or do anything. When he insists he doesn’t want to be comforted and you don’t need to use your mouth but it’s very sweet of you to ask. You get him out of trouble when he can’t stop trying to help people who will just hurt him. You ask about his scars until you drag the stories out of him. Plasma guns and war machines and deathclaws. Sometimes he talks too much and you want to shut him up. When he makes you feel small. Hitting him just makes you feel smaller. Even when he doesn't fight back.
Since his glasses got broken you have to read out loud to him.