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everamazingfe · 3 years

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You Can Ride On My Rocket 69 - Chapter Ten

Fic Summary: Jeremy has recently awoken in this strange world, 210 ten years after he was put to sleep, and is now the lone survivor from his vault. Trevor's a radio host from Diamond City who's barely left the station, lonely in his own right and isolated from the rest of the Wastes. When they meet, Trevor finally gets a chance to see the rest of the wasteland like he's always wanted, though Jeremy becomes more of his bodyguard than Trevor does his companion. They meet various people along the way, some being friends like the odd throuple they meet in one of the neighboring city, or foe like a certain Diamond City guard. Both are wary about bringing up their pasts, but the wasteland has a strange way of bringing people together.

Chapter Summary: Jeremy and Trevor learn the truth about Vault 111, and Trevor takes a little vacation to Good Neighbor and makes some strange bedfellows. This chapter's song is "Maybe" by The Ink Spots.

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Words in this chapter: 4296 Pairings: Jeremy/Trevor, Michael/Gavin/Lindsay, Jeremy/OC Warnings for this chapter: Mentions of death, minor character injury, alcohol use

Notes: There's a link to the first chapter of this fic as the source of this post! Click it to go read this fic over on A O 3, or you can search up the title or ‘everamazingfe’ on the site! This is also my longest chapter ever, and there’s some art to go along with it, but that’s in a separate post.

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The vault had clearly remained untouched since the pair had last been there, the dust that coated everything undisturbed aside from handprints on the cryopod and dust wiped from the terminal's keyboard. Trevor was back at that terminal, typing and clicking away as if it would get him any closer to accessing the menus hidden behind the password screen. Jeremy stood at the pod, his forehead and hand pressed on the glass.

A groan of frustration came from the computer, followed by a soft thud as the side of the monitor was hit, and Jeremy turned his head. "No good?"

"Nope. No good," Trevor muttered, shaking his head and huffing in frustration. "I'm gonna try and find another terminal, maybe one of the others won't be so broken. Just... Hang out here." He let out another huff as he picked up his bat, leaving the room to explore the vault more. There were radroaches everywhere, but with the mods Jeremy had made to the swatter in his hands, it killed them in one swift hit. He didn't remember there being so many the last time they were there, but maybe they were just getting bold.

Trevor figured his best bet would be the overseer's office, maybe the computer there would have some sort of master control system. He didn't know. Computers weren't really his thing, but he was trying his best to be helpful. He made his way down the hall towards where he figured the overseer's office, but before he reached it, he found another room full of those same pods. That terminal was unharmed, and though he wasn't sure he wanted to know what it held, he looked anyway.

What it held was rather appalling. Whatever malfunction had caused Jeremy's pod to open had shown mercy on him, because he was the only one to make it out of there alive. The cryogenic array and life support systems had long gone offline, and everyone left in the pods had thawed and begun to rot. It was easy to figure out that something similar had happened in the room that held Jeremy's husband's pod, and in every other room in the vault. The realization that he was standing in a room full of corpses, already entombed with their family and friends, made him stagger back, bile rising in his throat. He'd suspected it, but the confirmation was something he wasn't ready for.

The overseer's terminal didn't bring Trevor much better news either. The all-clear that was supposed to come from Vault-Tec never did. The resulting incident, as staff of the vault rioted and overthrew the overseer, was one of chaos and horror. The skeletons littered about the vault had made that clear, but somehow those were easier to stomach. They didn't still look like people, and from the sound of the memos he found, they weren't meant to make it out of the vault alive either.

Trevor let out a long sigh, scrubbing his hands over his face as he tried to process what he'd learned. It was all so much. Vault-Tec was pure evil, that much was certain, and he was glad he never had had to deal with them. The Institute was bad enough as it was. He slid down the desk until he was sitting on the floor, looking over at the skeleton of the overseer nearby. "Were any of these people ever supposed to leave? Were you?"

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Jeremy hadn't budged from the pod since Trevor had left. His eyes were still fixed on it, on his husband inside. The harsh reality of the situation was all around him, but he refused to accept it without concrete proof. The man couldn't be dead. He had fought for years in The Great War, only to die a week after getting home? It just seemed too cruel, Jeremy couldn't accept that as the truth. But he knew that the man inside didn't deserve a life out in the wastes, either. Maybe he was better off in the pod.

"I wish I was still in mine," he whispered, examining the lines of the other man's face. "I wish I could remember you." He put his palm flat on the glass, his fingers curling against it. "I remember us. I remember... Our life. But not you."

Something about coming out of cryofreeze must have fucked his brain up, maybe he'd gone without the life support functions for just a little too long after thawing, before his pod had opened. Or maybe his mind was protecting him from something bad. Jeremy didn't know. But luckily, his eyes still worked fine. At least he could still see him clearly. He inspected him closely, committing his face to memory and filling in the gaps where decay had caused the skin to fade away. The man inside the pod still looked as handsome as he did in all those photos from before the war, in Jeremy's mind. But what was underneath wasn't muscle, or bone.

Jeremy pressed his nose right up against the glass, almost like he was trying to push through it to see better, his eyebrows furrowed together in confusion.

"What the hell?" He squinted and looked even closer, and all at once his breath was ripped from his chest.

When he got it back, all he could do was scream.

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"Trevor!"

The pained cry echoed off the walls of the vault, and Trevor's head snapped to attention. It was Jeremy. For a moment, he was excited, thinking that maybe he'd finally gotten the manual release switch to work, but as the other man screamed again, he knew that it was anything but joy in his voice. He'd never run faster, but the vault was maze like and confusing. When he found Jeremy, the man was no longer standing calmly and staring pensively into the pod, but repeatedly punching the glass.

"Jeremy, what-"

"-He's a fucking synth!" Despite Jeremy punching the glass again and again, his knuckles bloodied and bruised, there wasn't a single crack in the surface. "That's not my husband, that's a fucking synth!" Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he hit the glass one last time before he turned to face Trevor. "He's... Trevor, he's..." He choked on his words, covering his face with his hands as he dropped to his knees. "This is worse than him being dead."

Trevor approached slowly, kneeling down in front of him and tentatively putting a hand on Jeremy's shoulder. It was shrugged off, so he decided not to push it. Looking towards the pod, he saw that Jeremy was right. How had they missed it? Wires and metal, all on display. A false bone faceplate and synthetic skin that didn't look quite right upon close inspection. One of the earlier models for sure, the newest ones had no differences from their human counterparts, but he didn't think that they existed before the drop. "That's sick. That's... That's downright disturbing." What business did the Institute have with a Pre-War corpse? "I don't even know what to say." What was there to say? 'Sorry that the man you love turns out not to be a man at all?' Bones were easier to break than that thick glass, especially when Jeremy was the one throwing the punch.

"Was my whole life a lie?" Jeremy took a shuddering breath, trying to keep everything from fading to black around him. "Was he even real? Did he ever even love me?"

"No, no... The Institute... It wasn't around before the bombs. There's no way." Either the man was somehow always a synth, or they came and swapped his body out. But that didn't answer the question of why? What was so special about him that they'd sentence everyone else to death? He realized now that this was probably the source of the malfunction that had doomed the other pods, and they'd probably cut off the manual release to keep anyone from finding out. "He was real when you knew him. I'm sure of that."

Jeremy scoffed. "Great, so then the Institute is a bunch of graverobbers. What are they, the fucking Resurrection Men?"

"I don't know who that is."

"They're... Fuck it, nevermind. We need to find those fuckers." His tears had gone from distraught to furious, his whole body running red hot with anger as his fists clenched at his sides again. The Institute had taken so much from him. They'd taken a peaceful death from him, and now they'd gone and taken away the only thing that had ever made his existence bearable. That hurt more than all the hits he'd taken out in the Commonwealth combined.

"No one knows where they are, Jeremy. Otherwise they would've been taken out decades ago."

"Even better, we'll be the first!"

"Where would we even start?"

"I don't know!" Jeremy was shouting now, standing up abruptly and startling Trevor in the process. Pointing at the pod, Jeremy continued. "He might still be out there! He could be out there, alone and scared and wandering the wastes like I was before I met you, or the Institute could be doing shit to him, and I don't know which is a worse fate. We have to find him." He lowered his hand, hauling Trevor up. "I have to find him."

Trevor just stared down at Jeremy, finding his footing and freeing his arm from his grip. "I don't know if I'm gonna be able to help you."

"Then forget you, I'll do it myself." He started to walk away, but Trevor grabbed him by the shoulders to stop him, and Jeremy met his eyes with a flare.

"Stop! Wait. I meant I don't know how to help you. But... Remember how I told you 'bout how I was brought up by Nick Valentine?" Jeremy nodded, though he was uncertain. "He's a detective, back in Diamond City. He can help you."

"Oh." Jeremy instantly relaxed, his glare being replaced with a softer expression. He'd thought that Trevor meant that he wouldn't help him. "Well, I guess we're going back to the city, then."

"Guess so," Trevor agreed, letting out a sigh. At least Jeremy seemed a bit less worked up now, but he still felt a bit on edge. "All this back and forth is fucking exhausting."

Jeremy nodded in agreement, shaking out his hand and pulling a bundle of gauze from his pocket to wrap it with. "Hey, Trev?" He said once they were back on the elevator platform, looking at the other man for a few long moments before he actually hit the button to take them back up.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry. And... Thanks."

Trevor shrugged, looking down at his feet. "That's what friends do, right? Help each other?" He looked back up at Jeremy now, a soft smile on his face. "And when they can't, they point them in the right direction."

"Yeah, exactly. But, uh... We gotta be careful out there, alright? I can't lose you too."

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"I can't lose you too."

The words echoed in Trevor's head as he stared up at the sky. They were camped out in some abandoned house somewhere halfway between Sanctuary Hills and Diamond City, Trevor's own exhaustion nearly making him collapse and Jeremy's injured hand making it hard for him to hold a gun well enough to protect them. The roof was long gone, but the walls were intact enough that they could barricade the holes, and there were some mattresses left on the floor that were perfect for sleeping on. Only, Trevor couldn't sleep. Jeremy was snoring way too loudly beside him for that, and his armor was uncomfortable.

The sky was always so clear, aside from the occasional radiation storm that rolled through, and he wondered if people before the war ever got the chance to appreciate it like this. Jeremy had said no, that the lights of the cities were so bright that you couldn't see the sky anymore, when he'd asked. He couldn't imagine living without being able to see the stars. They'd always brought him some sense of comfort, and if he was a smarter man maybe he would've taken the time to learn their names. But he wasn't, and that information wasn't available to him anymore even if he was.

Trevor let out a sigh and rolled over, his eyes on Jeremy now. The words still replayed in his head, over and over. They had since he'd said them. Maybe he was putting too much meaning into them, but to him it felt like proof that someone finally cared about him. No one ever had before. His parents had abandoned him, leaving him to end up just another Diamond City orphan until Nick took pity on him. Nick had cared for him as much as a synth could, but he'd still said, "My hands are tied," when Trevor had gone to him with complaints about Ian. Everyone in Diamond City shunned him and didn't do anything to protect him, that had all been Jeremy. Because he actually cared about him. And he realized, as he lay there listening to the ambient noise of the wastes and the loud snoring, that he cared about Jeremy too.

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"I'm not going back to Sanctuary again."

"Not asking you to, Trevor."

"But Nick said he wants to go look at the vault, take a look around. So we gotta go back."

"You don't have to go."

"Yes, I do."

The conversation had been going on like this for around ten minutes now, Nick and his assistant Ellie standing by and politely pretending that they weren't eavesdropping. Trevor was reluctant to let Jeremy leave without him, despite being in no shape to travel. Whether it was because he was too scared to be on his own, or too scared that he wouldn't be there to help Jeremy in case things went bad, Trevor didn't know. But regardless, staying in Diamond City without Jeremy sounded terrifying. For all he knew, Ian could be back on duty, just waiting for a chance to catch Trevor alone.

"Look, Trev... You're exhausted. I am too, but... I gotta go back there with him, I have to start trying to get this figured out. And you? You need to rest, I'm sorry but you look awful." Jeremy didn't like the sound of leaving Trevor alone either, but there was really no other choice. He at least had army training under his belt, he could run of too little sleep for far too long if he needed to, but Trevor didn't have that. And, admittedly, he'd been pushing the other man a bit too hard since they'd gotten back out in the Commonwealth. "Look, I'll take you to Goodneighbor, how about that? I'll bribe Michael to keep an eye on you, set you up with enough caps for a room at the Rex. How's that sound?"

"Sounds a lot better than staying here."

Jeremy smiled at that, clapping Trevor on the shoulder. "Great. Nick, I'm gonna go do that, then I'll be back."

"Don't worry about it. Take your time," Nick assured, waving them off. Both he and Ellie watched them as they left, the pair still bickering quietly. When the door shut, he turned to her and spoke. "I'm glad the kid's found a friend, but I thought he had a better head on his shoulders than that."

Ellie shrugged, returning to her desk and writing up a report to go into the case file. "I dunno, Nick. Seemed like they're more than that to me."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing, nothing, it's just..." She smiled. "Intuition, I guess."

"Right. 'Intuition.' Just be careful you don't end up like Piper, sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

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Good Neighbor without Jeremy was just boring, Trevor decided. It wasn't the comforting retreat he thought it would be either. Instead of worrying about the people around him, he was just worried about Jeremy. Spending time with Lindsay, Michael, and Gavin at the Third Rail was a decent distraction during the day, but there was nothing like that when he had to go back to the hotel alone.

"You should check out the Memory Den some time," Gavin said one afternoon a few days into his stay, passing Trevor a Nuka Cherry with the cap already off. "Some people like taking a trip down memory lane when the real world stops being interesting enough for them."

Trevor scoffed quietly, taking a long sip from the soda. "Yeah, I'll pass. Most of the memories I've got, I don't wanna revisit."

"Not even your night with Lindsay?"

Trevor spluttered, nearly spilling his drink all over himself as he stared at Gavin in shock, who could only grin wryly back at him. "You know about that?"

"Course I do, it's not like I don't talk to them," he said, chuckling as he popped the top on a Gwinnet Stout for himself. "We're quite close, y'know. The three of us are. We talk. And Lindsay loves to talk about you, they'd been dying for you to some back ever since you left."

"I don't think that's true at all." His cheeks were as red as his soda now, and he just wanted to run away and hide.

"Oh, but it is. You really impressed them." Gavin was getting a great deal of joy out of making Trevor squirm the way he was, and he glanced behind him towards the stairs that Lindsay was coming down right then. He winked at them, putting a finger to his lips when he made eye contact, quickly lowering his hand when Trevor was looking his way again. "So, tell me Trevor-boy. Were they as good of a neighbor as their songs claim? Oh, come on! Don't be shy now."

"Okay, well... Honestly? They were great. I mean, just... So sweet, and so perfect, but... I don't think that's gonna be happening again."

Both Gavin and Lindsay's face fell, and he leaned in close. "Why not?"

Trevor bit his lip nervously, hoping he hadn't upset the other with his response. He swirled his soda around in the bottle, staring down into it before he looked up at him. "I don't think I was that good of a neighbor." Saying that he was dealing with some complicated feelings about Jeremy felt like he'd be confessing too much to someone he barely knew, and it wasn't Lindsay's fault that those feelings had only gotten more complicated since the last time he'd been around.

"Oh, Trevor." Lindsay's voice came from behind him, and they wrapped their arms around him from behind him, making him bristle. "Don't be so hard on yourself. I think you were the best neighbor, but... I'm not against giving you a chance to redeem yourself."

"You... You set me up!" He cried, pointing at Gavin accusingly, but the only response he got was a wink as he knocked back the beer. "This is the worst. You're the worst, Gavin."

Lindsay laughed and unwrapped their arms around him so they could sit on a stool beside him, asking Gavin for a glass of wine when he was done being a dick. "I'm sorry, darlin', but it was just too cute watching you get all flustered like that."

Some version of the same antic happened every day, and he didn't know how he hadn't gotten wise to it at that point. After the fifth day of being in Good Neighbor, he took Lindsay up on their offer of redeeming himself because he just couldn't stand how lonely his hotel room was anymore. It was much the same as the first time they had spent the night together, and it didn't really fill the void.

The next night, Lindsay invited Trevor back to the apartment they shared with Gavin and Michael. Not for sex, but just so he wouldn't be alone at night anymore, because it really seemed to be getting to him. He'd swapped his Nuka Cherry for whatever beer Gavin had on hand, and they'd all started to get concerned. They all considered him a friend, they thought he was sweet and fun to talk to, and he had good choice in music, and they weren't going to let their friend be miserable if they could help it. Trevor was better after that, switching back to soda after his nights were filled with games of Blast Radius instead of listening to his own voice on the radio, staring up at the ceiling because he couldn't see the sky from the window.

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Jeremy wasn't doing much better, either. Nick Valentine, as nice as he was, just wasn't as good company as Trevor. That was his biggest problem with the synth, really. That he wasn't Trevor. The man's voice did play over the radio, but he knew it wasn't the real deal. The real deal was, hopefully, safe in Good Neighbor.

The trip back to Sanctuary had been easy enough, but a tour of the vault didn't really tell Nick anything that Jeremy hadn't already told him about the situation. He'd expected as much, but it didn't hurt to look for any sort of calling card that may have been left behind. Their trip had taken quite a few detours, too, because of Nick wanting some help looking into other cases that he had on the docket. Jeremy had been reluctant to help, but he figured since he was being helped for free, it was the least he could do to pay him back. Once they were back in Nick's office in Diamond City, he relayed the information to Ellie for her to write up and add to the case file, and spoke with her to try and figure out the next step. She said something, and Nick's face lit up, knocking on the desk to get Jeremy's attention.

"Lucky for you, where you're gonna want to go next is where you have to go anyway," Nick said finally, turning to Jeremy, who'd nearly fallen asleep in the chair he was seated in. "In Good Neighbor, there's a place called the Memory Den. People usually use it to try and look back on fond memories, but I think in your case, it may be the key to figuring out what happened while you were on ice."

Jeremy was glad to not have to roam all over the Commonwealth again, and even more excited that he'd get to see Trevor again. Next time, he wasn't going to be leaving him behind. "Great, I'll look into it."

"Come back to me if you get anything useful."

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It was another day at the bar for Trevor, another day wishing that there was something he could use to get in touch with Jeremy somehow. Letters were useless, and he was pretty sure that a Pip-Boy couldn't receive any messages from terminals without being hooked into it.

As usual, he was leaned against the bar, chatting with Gavin who stood next to him, and Michael and Lindsay who were seated on the other side on the stools. The Third Rail wasn't open just yet, but Trevor had taken to helping Gavin get the bar set up and keeping the other two company as they waited for opening time. And though it wasn't open, it seemed like Michael had forgotten to lock the door back up behind them, because heavy footsteps started coming down the steps. The conversation immediately stopped, Trevor and Gavin ducking down below the bar as Michael moved to stand in front of Lindsay.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Trevor heard Michael say, but it wasn't in anger like he'd been expecting. He and Gavin glanced at each other in confusion, the Brit silently reaching to grab a pistol that was stored beneath the counter just in case.

"I'm here for Trevor. Guy at the Rex said he'd been hanging out with you guys lately."

He recognized that voice, and he knocked the gun out of Gavin's hands before popping his head up to confirm what his ears had heard. "Jeremy! You're back."

"You didn't think I'd forgotten about you, did you?" Jeremy asked, a grin spreading across his face when he saw Trevor stand up from behind the bar. Barely a moment passed before Trevor was stepping out from behind the bar, running up to Jeremy and wrapping him in a hug. "Whoa, okay... Guess you did," he laughed, awkwardly raising and lowering his arms a few times before he settled for wrapping them around Trevor, hugging him back tightly.

"No, I didn't, I just... Missed you." The confession made Trevor's cheeks go red, and after a minute he pulled away from the hug. "But... I'm glad you're back. How'd the search go?"

Jeremy made a noncommittal noise, gesturing vaguely. "It was kinda pointless, to be honest. But I know where to go next. Some place called the Memory Den?"

"Oh, well I could have told you that! You didn't need some crackpot gumshoe for that," Gavin said, "That's where I told Trevor he should go when he started getting bored." Michael reached across the counter to thump him across the head. "What? I did!" The ghoul just cut him a look, and Gavin stuck his tongue out at him in response before quieting down.

Trevor cleared his throat, turning back towards Jeremy with a smile. "Hey, at least we know where to go. And it's not very far, either. I bet you're even more sick of wandering around the wastes than I am at this point."

"You've got that right," Jeremy said with a chuckle, heading over to the bar to take a seat and motioning for Trevor to join him. "Mhm. But we're not going there right now. First, I need a drink."

#ragehappy #rpf #treremy #doollins #jeremy/trevor #mavinsay #juggey #gavinsay #mavin #fallout au #fallout 4 au #fic #fanfic #my fic #my writing #everamazingfe

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