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Boone asked him to marry him. Three years to the day, marked on a free Stockman's Association calendar underneath a oversaturated print of the sun setting behind a towering mesa. He circled the date in pencil, neat and tidy, and celebrated the event with a steak dinner and charred dandelion coffee on the stoop looking out over the bay and the bridge, and, casually, asking if he'd consider marrying him.
Arcade snorted with laughter and ashed his cigarette into the sego lilies and said that he'd get better odds of him joining The Fighting Wanamingos as their star pitcher.
----
He asked him again during the outbreak in 2298. It swept down from the north, rolling into San Francisco faster than the Shi medics could prevent it. Arcade reluctantly stepped out from behind his desk and put on his scrubs for the first time in years, and spent weeks sitting alongside the sick and dying. He helped them to breath and, more often than not, helped them to die. When he finally came home after the worst of it was over, tired and tense and smelling of bitter antiseptic, he sat at the kitchen table and picked at his nails and didn't move when a plate of meatloaf and mash was placed at his elbow.
Boone watched him carefully, making note of the slump of his shoulders and the lines at the corners of his eyes. "I still want to marry you, y'know."
He didn't look up. "No, you don't."
----
Boone's breath was hot against his neck, biting at the curve of his jaw as he fucked him slow and easy. Sunlight poured into their bedroom and warmed their sheets, cast in green and gold by the leafy tendrils of the thick vines that twisted and crawled over their crooked house halfway down a steep hill.
Arcade had a lot on his mind lately. About work, about life, about Craig. About repeating history. Boone had been married twice before him, one he won't talk about and one that he talked about with great fondness. Tracy was a caravan merchant, funny and talkative and smart as a whip. Arcade liked her a lot, and welcomed her occasional visit to San Francisco with an open door and good meal.
Grew apart, Craig always said with a shrug when pressed. The spark burnt out. Their marriage got in the way of their friendship, easily rectified by a visit to the nearest NCR records office and a divorced celebratory drink afterwards.
Arcade dug his heels into the small of Boone's back, forcing him into stillness. "I thought about what you asked, by the way."
The same pattern, the same template. He'd known Craig for nearly twenty years, watched him fall in love with men and women alike, all of them smart and clever and inclined to conversation. He's watched him fall out of love too, the hot flame of attraction guttering out into comfort and friendship and (mostly) gentle well wishes from both parties. He had a type, and Arcade fit his pattern perfectly.
"About what." Boone rolled onto his elbow to look at Arcade; stroking the flat of his palm along the soft curve of Arcade's belly and chuckling when Arcade groaned low and needy at his touch. "I ask you lots of things."
Arcade rubbed at the bridge of his nose as he struggled to articulate the question on the tip of his tongue. How long do you think this spark will burn for? How long before you – I – get bored?
"Just so we're clear, if – if – I lower myself to marrying you...," he said finally, giving up on his previous line of thought entirely. He'll deal with it later, he decided, or not deal with it at all. It wasn't important, he told himself. Not really. Not right now. He drummed his heels against Boone's thighs, encouraging him to start fucking him again, harder and faster, and braced a hand against the worn frame of their bed. "You're the doctor's wife. Got it?"
"Reckon I'd like that." Boone laughed his rickety rusted gate laugh and kissed him, deep and thorough. "Sure. Got it."
----
Arcade received a summons to the NCR embassy late in the summer. By the time he walked there his shirt was soaked in sweat and his cheeks were flushed scarlet red, and it was a sound relief to step inside and away from the unaccustomed heatwave suffocating the entire city.
He'd come to know everyone who worked at the ambassador’s office ever since Boone got a solid job as the ambassador's personal diplomatic bagman. There was some ice around the edges though, a few NCR folk wary of a Follower working with the fiercely independent Shi, but it was nothing worth worrying about. Craig was liked well enough by everyone that they mostly paid Arcade no mind, or at least came to tolerate - possibly enjoy - his company on the few times he joined them for drinks after work.
The receptionist greeted him warmly and handed him a parcel wrapped in crumpled brown paper and tied up with gunline string.
"Not long to go now," he said, the paper crinkling in his hands. "Are you looking forward to the circus returning?"
She rolled her eyes and tartly said that the longer the ambassador and his entourage were away on official business, the longer she can enjoy overseeing the office the way it should be run. "Who needs 'em?"
He took his parcel home and set it down on the kitchen table, and poured himself a drink before he carefully unwrapped it, saving the string and smoothing the paper flat. There was a book or two, titles that he'd mentioned once or twice that he might enjoy reading, sitting underneath a broken pair of sunglasses wrapped in a red bunting pennant with a new baseball, smooth and evenly stitched. He shook out the felt and laid over the back of Boone's chair before unfolding the letter tucked away in the worn cover of Saturnian for Academics, rolling the baseball between his fingertips as he read.
Arcade.
Miss you. NCR city is hot dry and smells like old well water. Walked the map you gave me and saw your old house. It is for sale but they want 15 Thousand caps and even I don't think your worth that much Money. That was a joke. Leaving here 1st week of June, going to Boneyard first then back home to SF and you.
Broke my sunglasses the first day here. Thought about how much that would make youluaghlaugh, so I included them as a present. I got you something else too. Thought you might like it.
Your wife,
Craig.
It took him a moment to recognise the Fighting Wanamingos NCR city baseball league logo stitched into the pennant felt. He touched his fingers to his lips, and laughed and laughed until his eyes watered.