#nuri look away from my unresearched brain surgery

[breadandblankets]

one of the afternoons ever (fo4)

Railroad AU X6-88 has infected my brain so i made a lil thing about how he got the courser chip out of his head. i figured it would be more fun to make this be mercenary maccready's problem. first time posting for this fandom so hope it turned out okay.

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You ever have something so batsh— uh crap insane happen to you that the whole event simply takes up permanent residence in your head?

Although really, if things like this are going to keep happening to him, RJ figures, he’s going to have to open a head hotel to store them all. 

Picture this, you are RJ MacCready, you are 21, just barely donned the Gunner green, and you are accosted by a man with a shoulder to waist ratio like he walked straight out of a pre-war skin mag. With the benefit of hindsight he could contemplate the concept of perfect men existing in this hellscape. 

At the time he was, of course, Distinctly Terrified.

“Do you have a knife?” the man demands, his voice low and steady.

“Wh—”

“A. Knife.” the man emphasizes.

“Yeah but—”

“Good.” the man swiftly cuts him off, holding his hand out expectantly.

“Hold on hold on! I’m not just going to give you my knife!”

“Why not.”

“So you can gut me with it?? Or take it? Weapons are expensive!”

“Fine.” he fishes in his coat before tossing a bag at MacCready. The bag is Heavy. “Is that sufficient?”

“I— yeah sure, what do you even want it for?”

“There is a computer chip in my brain, it must be removed.”

“Are you just, like, going to cut it out?”

“That is the plan.”

“That’s twenty different kinds of dangerous,” and RJ here has no idea what in the fudge possessed him to say this but— “Do you want a hand?”

The man sizes him up.

“It would be appreciated.”

And that's how RJ MacCready found himself 400 caps richer, with hands covered in blood, as he dug around in this mystery man’s head. 

The man didn’t even flinch or make a noise as RJ dug the thing out. A younger him would have been impressed, MacCready the father was mostly just concerned. Who made you so small that you can’t even say ow?

It was one of the afternoons ever.

When it was over, a stimpack closing up the majority of injury, the man had taken the chip and crushed it under his boot.

Then he took out a weirdly white laser rifle and emptied a clip into it.

Then he reloaded. 

And emptied a second.

RJ watched with a kind of detached panic. That was gonna be SO expenssivveeee.

When all was left was some ash and melted plastic, the man took off his impressive leather coat and sunglasses and tossed em into the pile.

The rifle followed.

“Hey so uh, we skipped this part but, the name’s MacCready,” RJ held out a hand to shake.

Steel grey eyes looked down at his hand before acquiescing. 

“For now, X6.”

X6 nodded and then vanished like smoke before the realization that RJ just dug some computer parts out of a synth fully hit.

He didn’t have time to unpack allll of that.

It had been months and he still didn’t.

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Two years from now, after the Institute turns into a sunken crater in Cambridge and his son is safe and sound. In a house in Sanctuary, Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome shows back up with Deacon of all people. 

What the actual fudge.