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lagingersnapz · 28 days

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Some Rain Must Fall - (Fallout Fic) Chapter 3: Hazards and Homesteads

Chapter: 3/?

In the past, Lucy decides to stand up to the noseless man raining terror down on the marketplace. Definitely not only because the judgmental bobblehead stared her down, either.

In the present, Lucy and Cooper do their best to talk a gun out of Lucy's face.

Characters: Lucy MacLean/Cooper Howard(The Ghoul), Dogmeat(CX-404), Original Characters

Word Count: 3876

Warnings: Violence, Swearing

Author's Note: Okay, listen. I have no idea if "Vault-Dwellers" should be capitalized or not, so sometimes it will be and sometimes it won't be. There will be no logic to it. I'm only a little sorry, honestly. Continuing my daily posting here. Not sure what else to say about it right now. ^^; This was posted weeks ago on Ao3 and honestly it's kinda crazy to me how much the story has developed and how I found my voice and the characters between now and then.

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Ao3

~~~

There it was, in black ink on the yellowed pages of the logbook: L. Moldaver. Lucy felt the first bit of relief since she had stepped foot on the surface. It was the first real sign she had found of how to get her dad back. There had to be more, though. Something in the book had to say where Moldaver was going, or what she was planning to do with Lucy’s dad. Trying to still her shaking hands, Lucy started flipping through pages. Outside, the sounds of a fight continued.

“No! No, please!” Wilzig sounded desperate, but Lucy didn’t have time to stop and help him. Her dad needed her more… Right? She glanced back at the doorway of the shop but couldn’t get a clear look at what was happening outside. When she turned back, something caught her eye; a Vault Boy bobblehead on a shelf. And it was staring straight at her, arms crossed. A bobblehead had never felt so judgmental before.

Lucy heaved a sigh, staring back at it, mentally trying to reason with it, to explain that she couldn’t stop now. If she joined that gunfight, she risked being killed, and then nobody would be able to save her dad from the kidnappers, so clearly she couldn’t get involved.

The Vault Boy was not moved by her mental explanations and continued to stare at her, arms crossed, waiting for her to take action. Lucy shook her head, trying to steady her breathing. She looked down at the book and then to her tranq gun, slowly settling her hand on it. Everyone outside was using guns of the more lethal variety. If she went out there with just the tranq gun, how much could she actually be expected to do?

The walls of the shop were lined with all kinds of weaponry. Any of those might serve her better. One in particular was massive, with a sign next to it declaring it to be a ‘Junk Jet’ for 285 caps. Something like that could certainly give her an edge in the fight… If she had the caps to pay for it, which she didn’t. The judgmental Vault Boy bobblehead might be urging her to join the fight, but stealing was still wrong. She couldn’t abandon all of her morals up here.

With one more steadying breath, Lucy pulled out her tranq gun and moved back to the front door of the shop. The right thing to do was to step in. If she abandoned all her father had taught her about accountability and kindness on her way to find him, it could only disappoint him. Outside, the scene was much as she had left it, minus all the other combatants. The noseless man stood alone above everyone.

Ma June was tying a tourniquet on her leg, and it wasn’t a stretch to think she must have taken a bullet. Wilzig himself was practically laying down now, still moaning in pain, trying to scoot himself backwards on his elbows to escape the noseless man, but making very little progress.

Lucy strode between the two, trying to look as confident as she could. The noseless man was facing away, but he must have heard her walk out, because his shoulders slumped with an annoyed sigh, and he drew the gun he had probably only just re-holstered as he turned to face her… And then stopped in his tracks.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave him alone,” Lucy said. To her amazement, the man didn’t immediately shoot her, and it gave her just enough confidence to continue. Maybe, just maybe, she could talk him down. “Now, I acknowledge that I’m unfamiliar with your circumstances. But, at first glance, your treatment of this man appears unfair, and I’m obliged to intervene.”

While she spoke, the noseless man tilted his head, looking at her as though she was some sort of strange creature the likes of which he had never seen, yet at the same time he wore a small grin that was not at all nice.

“Huh,” he grunted, and suddenly Lucy felt like a child that was simply being humored, but she had started, so she might as well press on.

“Now, if your instinct is to harm me,” she raised her free hand, palm tilted placatingly, “as a person simply trying to de-escalate a conflict, then I’ll have to assume of the two of you, you are likely the primary aggressor.”

The noseless man tilted his head the other way, his grin still plastered on his face, clearly amused more than anything at her attempts. The action was almost patronizing enough for Lucy to stop her attempts at calming things down. Almost.

“In which case, I think everyone in this town would agree that force is justified.” She looked off to the side at the town in question, but the streets were clear now of everyone but the dead and the four of them. The noseless man looked around too, his brow raised in amusement as he likely noticed the same thing.

“Unless you willingly stand down now.” Lucy raised her gun and aimed it at him, the same as she would have in the training range. The same as she had the raiders that had threatened everything she had ever held dear on what ended up being the worst day of her life to date. The day everything had changed for her and the world got a whole lot meaner.

“Fucking vault-dwellers. Jeez,” Ma June groaned from her place on the walkway. Lucy continued to stand her ground, trying to still the slight shaking in her hand as she stared down the noseless man. He was searching her face, scrutinizing her.

“Huh,” he grunted again. In the end, he must have found her wanting, because he chuckled mockingly and started walking towards Wilzig, ready to simply ignore the young woman with the tranq gun.

The gun hissed sharply as Lucy pulled the trigger. The dart hit the noseless man in the chest, and his smile faltered along with his steps as he looked down at it. But he stayed on his feet, and Lucy watched in confusion as he simply plucked the dart out of himself, inspecting it between gloved fingers for a moment before his smile returned and he looked up at her.

“Well, now, that is a very small drop in a very, very large bucket o’ drugs.” He flipped the dart away from him with a turn of his wrist, and Lucy watched, wide eyed. Why hadn’t it worked? It had worked on everyone else she had ever fired it at, and those raiders were almost certainly on drugs as well. She started to lower her weapon at the same time the noseless man raised his, aiming straight for her.

“She said stand down, Ghoul .”

Behind them, the sound of small jets heralded the appearance of a man in power armor as he landed on the roof of one of the buildings behind the noseless man that he had called ‘Ghoul.’ Wobbling slightly, the armored man flew down, so he was standing at ground level with them, sending leaves and garbage flying around the marketplace. Lucy smiled in surprise at the entrance. If anyone could help the situation, this man seemed to be the one. Lucy had read about power armor before.

“Knight Titus of The Brotherhood of Steel. Stand down, or be cut down.”

The Ghoul was looking at the knight now, his smile having fallen at the interruption, though his arm stayed up and the gun pointed at Lucy. Then the smile came back, mockingly.

“You gotta be fucking kiddin’ me,” he said. Then, with a chuckle, he turned back to Lucy. She realized she had seen children have this same reaction before in the students at school in the vault. Many of them opted for the exact opposite of what they were told to do, just like he was about to.

Eyes widening, Lucy stared as the Ghoul pulled back the hammer of his gun. From the side, she heard the pounding of heavy feet as the knight charged in and tackled her. The bullet pinged as it deflected off of the power armor, and then the two of them were crashing through the wall, back into Ma June’s Sundries.

***

“Please,” Lucy said.

“You’re gonna wanna remove that gun, friend,” the Ghoul said at the same time in a much more threatening tone. Lucy wanted to give him a dirty look, but she was afraid to take her eyes off of the gun barrel. Not that staring down it was going to save her if the man pulled the trigger.

The man with the gun grunted. “As far as reasons go, that’s a pretty shit set if I ever heard one.”

Lucy was starting to feel a little wobbly. She hadn’t thought the wound had been that bad at first, but given that it had been the Ghoul that shot her, albeit accidentally, the bullet was likely not of the regular sort.

“We were just passing through,” Lucy said with as much strength as she could muster. “We didn’t mean any harm.”

The man didn’t look convinced, but he hadn’t pulled the trigger yet. The child tugged on his sleeve and spoke quietly, though Lucy was close enough to hear.

“She took a bullet for me, Dad.”

“A bullet shot by her friend there,” the man reminded the child, but the child simply kept staring up at him meaningfully. Lucy watched their little debate, and shook her head to try and clear it.

“Hey, I’m not feeling so great here, you know, because of the bullet, so I’m just gonna sit down if that’s okay,” she said, and half collapsed onto her butt. She hadn’t even felt this bad with a knife sticking out of her side. Behind her she heard movement as the Ghoul came over to her side, pressing his hand down over hers to increase the pressure on the wound, muttering another curse under his breath. She was pretty sure she heard something about the first rule. The dog snuffled around at her side, whining quietly, giving Lucy’s face a lick.

“Come out to get some food and run into this nonsense,” the man grumbled. “Take this,” he said to the child, handing them the gun. “Keep it trained on the ghoul there, ya hear?” The kid nodded, and the man looked down at Lucy and the Ghoul. “Gotta get her back home if we’re gonna do anythin’ ‘bout that bullet. You draw on me or mine and a hole in yer hat is gonna be the least of your worries.”

Lucy started to nod, but the world swam around her and she felt nauseous. What the hell kind of bullet had that been? He claimed he was just gonna shoot the gun out of the kid’s hand, so surely it wasn’t some kind of poisoned ammo. Before she could ask about it, the sounds around her started to fade out, and Lucy closed her eyes.

***

It has been a long time since Cooper Howard has traveled with company, and the reasons why were being driven home spectacularly at that point. They were not nearly far enough away from the observatory, and now the little Miss Hazard MacLean was going and passing out on him. Literally.

Cooper gritted his teeth in frustration as he felt her go limp against him and put an arm around her to keep her from sliding down into the mud and rocks. So much for only one pace, he thought bitterly to himself.

“I think you better follow me, or she might not make it back to our place,” the man standing over them said. Cooper looked up to find the man had pulled a second firearm, though he wasn’t pointing it at them yet. It would be easy to take him out. The kid would probably lead Cooper back to their home if he threatened enough. But if he drew on them there was a perfectly good chance they could get off a lucky shot on him. Not to mention that they were right. If they didn’t get help soon, specifically in the way of a stimpak, Lucy was going to bleed out here.

“Fine,” he gritted out, and moved to stand, scooping up the limp young woman in his arms without so much as a grunt. Dogmeat stood nervously at his side, sniffing at Lucy’s dangling hand.

The man nodded. “Name’s Rob,” he said, turning to walk away now that Cooper’s hands were more occupied and less likely to be reaching for a weapon.

Cooper didn’t respond. He wouldn’t tell Lucy his name, and he sure as shit wasn’t gonna tell this random stranger. The man led him off of the remains of the road they had been following and out into the marshy, overgrown land around them. Cooper couldn’t see the path they were following, but there must have been one, because the man never faltered.

The kid walked behind the rest of them, and Cooper noticed as Dogmeat started to lag behind as well. Soon enough, he heard the hushed whispers of the kid behind him, and he glanced back in time to see them pull something out of a pocket and slip it to Dogmeat, who quickly gobbled it down. The kid smiled, and Cooper felt something angry twist in his gut at the sight. It was too good, too clean for this world to see a child smile like that.

Just as Cooper was about to lose his patience and demand to know how much further they had to go, he smelled campfire smoke and heard a low buzz of conversation, and the trees started to thin around them.

As they emerged into the open area, Cooper was surprised by what he saw. Three homes, ramshakled together like everything else in the world was, but with plants lining the dwellings in a homely way that one almost never saw anymore. Gardens were ploughed into the much sturdier ground here, and although he couldn’t see it, he heard the mooing of a brahmin. How the hell had this place lasted out here like this?

“Ellie?” the man called. “Eloise! We got some comp’ny needs patching. Got a stimpak to spare?”

Cooper hoisted Lucy up a little more securely in his arms as he looked around. There were at least a dozen people milling about in the crops, and he suspected there were more in the homes, but it didn’t look like most of them were the fighting type. He saw more than one other kid, and even an elderly person or two. Downright unnatural these days. The only way people made it to that age was if other people were taking care of them, which of course nobody did anymore.

From the middle building, a middle aged woman came trotting towards them, something clenched in one hand. Cooper wanted to draw his gun, wanted the safety of its weight against his gloved fingers, but instead all he had was the uncomfortable weight of one unconscious vault dweller.

“We dabbling in cannibalism, now?” the woman said, though it was clear she didn’t mean it. “When you said you were taking Kelly out to look for some game, I didn’t think you’d come back with…” She paused as she reached them, her eyes running appraisingly over the Ghoul and the woman in his arms. “This…”

“I’d watch yer jokes with this one, Ellie. He’s a sour one. I can tell.”

Ellie looked at Rob and then back at the Ghoul and Lucy, motioning for them to follow her. “Come on. Got a place we can set her down and take a look at her wound. Stimpak won’t do much if we don’t make sure she don’t just get re-injured.”

Cooper looked for Dogmeat and found her following closely at the heels of the kid from before, Kelly, apparently, and he scoffed mentally about how easily the dog’s trust was won. Then he followed Ellie as she made her way back to the house she had come from. The whole thing had him on edge. The inside of the house was dim, lit only by the lights coming through the windows, which he noted had no glass. There were lamps and candles around, but they must not have used them during the day to save on oil and wax.

Ellie led them through the halls into a room with a rusted bed frame and a thin, weathered mattress covered in threadbare quilting. He didn’t bother waiting for permission before laying Lucy down on the bed. Glancing down at himself, he was annoyed to see that she had been bleeding on him. His already stained clothes were gonna be even worse after this.

Putting thoughts of his already ruined clothes into the back of his mind, Cooper leaned down and started unzipping the vault suit to get at the wound better, and Lucy moaned quietly. It was the first sound she had made for most of their walk, and Cooper was surprised he was relieved to hear it. Must have been because it would have been a shame if he had killed her on accident like that. If he was gonna kill someone, he'd want to do it on purpose.

Cooper slipped the vault suit off of Lucy’s arms and down to her hips. It was also blood soaked, and the t-shirt she had on under it was more red now than white. The bullet had caught her in the back, barely missing her kidney. Whatever it had torn up inside would probably be fixed by the stimpak, but not if they didn’t get the damn bullet out first.

Taking the finger of one of his gloves between his teeth, he pulled it off, then the other one. “You got some alcohol around here?” he asked. Ellie was already handing him something, and he noted that she had also lit a few lamps and brought them into the room. It wasn’t exactly a surgical suite, but it would have to do. She also held a set of small knives and tweezers. The tweezers looked maybe a little rusty, but the knives looked clean enough, probably.

It was not his best work, as Cooper cut into Lucy’s side after dumping some of the alcohol over his hands and then the wound. The shock of the sting had woken her, and she was whimpering and twisting as Ellie tried to soothe her and hold her down in equal measures. The bullet in question had been coated in a poison that thinned the blood, which was why the vault dweller was losing so damn much of the stuff.

After a few minutes of struggling, Lucy went limp under his hands again, passed back out, he hoped, rather than dead. Otherwise he was doing all this work for nothing. As soon as the bullet was out, Ellie had the stimpak ready, and she injected it at the site of the bullet wound. The injury began to stitch itself up quickly, and Cooper sat back on the floor with a sigh and a grunt. And then a cough. And he kept coughing.

Damn it. He had left his saddlebags back at the road. There hadn’t been time to grab them before Rob had set off and Cooper had been made to follow. While he wheezed on the floor, Ellie set to cleaning Lucy up, wiping away the blood smeared over her torso.

“This a common occurrence for you two?” she asked, and Cooper looked over to ask her what the hell she was talking about, but saw the line of a recent scar on her other side.

“I didn’t do that one,” he said, voice hoarse from his coughing fit. “Only just started traveling with little Miss Hazard here.” He watched the woman wrap a bandage around Lucy, covering the site of her most recent wound. Something in his chest eased slightly at the sight.

There was a knock on the open door behind them, and Cooper turned, reaching for his gun out of habit, but only saw the kid from before standing there with Dogmeat at their side.

“Dad went back to get the rest o' yer stuff,” they said, resting one hand on Dogmeat’s head and giving her ear a scratch. Dogmeat closed her eyes and gave a pleased sigh at the attention. Usually she had to fight to get Cooper to pet her, so right now she must have just about been in heaven.

“Dogmeat seems to have taken a shine to ya,” Cooper said, letting his accent come out thicker than normal. The kid smiled, looking completely different than they had out in the marsh. More at ease. More like a child.

“This is Kelly, mine and Rob’s daughter,” Ellie said from behind him.

Cooper nodded and dipped his head, taking off his hat to inspect the hole in the brim. “Tell me, Kelly, was it you or your daddy that put this here hole in my hat?”

Kelly looked sheepish, curling her now bare feet against the filthy floor and glancing away. “I did.”

Cooper continued to look at the kid for awhile. He wanted to be mad. Well, he was mad, but he didn’t know if he could be mad at this kid. She looked all of 9 years old and like a strong wind might blow her over. If he was that size, he might shoot before asking questions too. Hell, he did that now at his current size and considerable age. “Well, you’ve got mighty fine aim, Kelly. Closest anyone’s got to taking me down in a long time.” He tried to keep his eyes light, so the kid would know he wasn’t taking it personally. “Guess I’ll have to keep an eye on you.” He reached out and gave Dogmeat a little pet. “Maybe I’ll have to have Dogmeat stick with you ‘til we leave, huh? Keep you out o’ trouble.”

Kelly smiled again, and Cooper got the same stab of anger and resentment as he had when he had seen it on their walk before, but he pushed it down again.

“Come on, Kelly, let’s let them rest a spell.” Ellie stood up and moved around Cooper to leave the room. “I’ll bring you something to drink and eat a little later. Holler if you need something before then or if the girl needs anything.” Putting her hand on Kelly’s shoulder, she moved the girl out of the room. Dogmeat looked at Cooper, but he nodded his head towards the departing child, and the dog happily trotted out after them.

“One pace,” Cooper muttered to himself, turning to rest his back against the shabby bed frame. “Ain’t your babysitter,” he added, just as bitterly, requoting the rules he had set down not very long ago for Lucy. Yet, here he was… Babysitting.

A day , Cooper decided. He would give Lucy one day, and if she wasn’t ready to move by then, well, he was sure these folks would be willing to take her in. He could spare a day.

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