Chapter Text
Despite the fact that Cooper had been fortunate enough to retain his sense of taste—muted as it was—his preoccupied brain didn’t process the flavor of a single f*cking bite. He shoveled scrambled eggs and pigrat bacon into his piehole, chewing as if the food had inexplicably developed sentience and had insulted his long-dead mama.
“Everything okay there, Ghoul? You seem madder than a three-peckered goat in a hot pepper patch.” Sal eyed him from across the table. “I mean, I know Piper’s cooking can be questionable at times, but it ain’t that bad.” The old man chuckled and was treated to a light slap on the back of his head, courtesy of his wife.
“That cute little vault-dweller of yours hasn’t shown up yet,” Piper introjected with a knowing glint shining in the depths of her grey eyes. “That have something to do with that sourpuss expression of yours? Did you two have a tiff last night or something?”
Cooper only gave her a noncommittal grunt in response as he took another bite. All around him, Cranson eyebrows lifted as if waiting for him to elaborate. He didn’t feel in the mood to oblige. He heard Chastity let out a small gasp of concern next to him. He ignored it, gritting his teeth as he let the nearly tasteless food slide down his gullet.
It was her goddamn meddling that had led to this sh*tty feeling that was currently clawing up his insides like the talons of a particularly bloodthirsty deathclaw. He didn’t feel inclined to offer Chastity a single word of explanation or indulge her unwanted concern.
If the damn girl had just left well enough alone, then he wouldn’t have ever let himself do something as goddamn foolish as begin to hope that Lucy MacLane actually cared for him. Instead, she had plied the vaultie with Rot Gut, which had eaten away at the smoothie’s better judgment—had made her seem to enjoy his touch and kisses far more than she actually did.
Then the Cranson girl had gone and taken it a whole step further by giving Lucy those f*cking pills—pills that he had half convinced himself Lucy had actually wanted to accept…that she had wanted to use with the ugly, withered mess that was himself.
What a goddamn joke!
But, then again, maybe the only person he truly had a right to be angry with was himself, Cooper surmised as his gut gave a bitter twist of personal resentment. He had known better than to believe last night meant something more than a dumb, drunken moment on the vaultie’s part. He had known better than to let himself fantasize—like a stupid peckerwood schoolboy with a crush—after he’d found those damn pills.
Yet he had…
Once he’d gotten over the initial shock of finding them in the vaultie’s possession, he’d let his idiot imagination run wild. He’d quietly put the bottles of Ghoul-Ease back where he’d found them, gone to take a shower, and of course, he’d jerked himself off while thinking about all the many uses he and the vaultie could get out of those little green capsules.
He had imagined filling Lucy’s sweet c*nt slowly—inch by inch—drinking down all her breathy little cries with greedy kisses. He had imagined being buried to the hilt in her, looking down at her with awe as he basked in the passion and want painted across her pretty face…just like he’d paint the pale skin of her belly with his cum—simply for the joy and privilege of getting to mark her as his.
He had imagined them finding a way to build a life together after they had concluded their business in the den of snakes that was New Vegas. Maybe they’d build themselves a little house somewhere—maybe start a farm or a small brahmin ranch. He’d grown up raising cattle. Ranching was baked into his radioactive bones. He could probably make them a decent living doing it, too.
After all, he’d have to do something lucrative…f*ck-pills probably weren’t cheap, and he had doubted that Lucy would want him to continue bounty hunting after they’d settled down. Womenfolk didn’t tend to be too keen on the idea of their men being one bad job away from taking a bullet to the head.
Cooper had reckoned that he would happily give up his old way of life for the vault girl. It had only ever been a means to an end anyway. And—who knew, he had mused—maybe Janey was out there somewhere…and one day the three of them could be a family.
That ridiculous idea had been percolating in his delusional, chemically pickled brain so strongly that it had actually seemed like a legitimate outcome when he had dressed and stretched out next to a sleeping Lucy. The notion had only intensified when the vaultie had immediately snuggled into his side the second he’d laid his head on the pillow, cuddling her head against his chest.
When Cooper had awoken with the rising sun—as he was wont to do—he’d mixed Lucy up a glass of pain powder, set it aside, and crawled back into bed just so he could hold her a bit longer. When she had once again sought him out, still in the throes of sleep—pressing herself up against him—his dumb ass had smiled and thought it meant something.
That very idea now made him want to throw back his head and let out a bitter, self-effacing laugh. Apparently, a clueless idiot boy who didn’t even know how to use his own dick had more appeal than him! And he’d been a goddamn fool to ever think otherwise. Just because the little smoothskin had kissed him back when she’d been all liquored up didn’t mean she would suddenly ditch her old life in the vaults for one with him.
Sure, she might reconsider living in what was essentially a Vault-Tec breeding cult once he told her everything he knew about the corporate monsters and their quest to one day rule the broken world they had ravaged. However, Cooper now knew better than to think that Lucy’s inevitable disillusionment with the place she’d grown up would ever lead to her settling down with the likes of him.
Of course it f*cking wouldn’t! She’d probably end up running off with the tin-can operator after all. Cooper supposed he couldn’t blame Lucy for that.
As much as she evidently disliked the idea of having to teach a sexual newbie about his own body (as well as hers), it was probably a hell of a lot more appealing than having to resort to f*cking a thing like him. The soldier, after all, could be taught. No amount of teaching and coaxing could rid him of his severe case of ugly.
There was also the harsh reality of ghouls being as sterile as an old-world hospital. Even if the vaultie had gone and lost all her common sense and decided that she actually wanted to be with him, the fact that he’d been shooting nothing but blanks for over two hundred years would probably have been an issue. He knew all about the f*cked-up, baby-makin’ triad between vaults Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, and Thirty-Three. He was also well aware of how indoctrinated all their dwellers were.
Bud’s Buds… his upper lip curled in revulsion just thinking about it.
Cooper knew far more than he had ever wanted to about Bud Askins’ little underground breeding program. After he’d overheard Barb’s meeting with all those fat-cat investing bigwigs—after he’d heard his own wife suggest that they destroy the f*cking world just to make sure Vault-Tec stayed on top—he had started doing some real digging.
For the two months following his eavesdropping on the meeting that had changed everything, Cooper had been a man on a mission. To say he’d been obsessed with uncovering every last dirty tidbit of the heinous sh*t his blushing bride was involved in was a gross understatement, to say the least.
Looking back, Cooper wasn’t sure if he’d even eaten more than a few bites here and there and had slept more than a few small snatches of catnaps every now and again—during his time playing covert investigator. He had played off his change in behavior to Barb as a midlife crisis triggered by his dwindling career…and whenever her back had been turned, he had snooped.
Documents she had secreted away at home were all unearthed and poured over. Any work call she’d received at home, he listened in on. He had even gone back to Miss Williams (later known as Lee Moldaver) and acquired some handy password-busting spyware that he had used to glean all the information he could possibly get his hands on from Barb’s work computer.
He had played off his many visits to his wife’s office as just needing comfort and affirmation for his wounded ego while he supposedly struggled to accept that his days as Hollywood’s golden boy were over. Meanwhile, whenever Barb stepped out to attend a meeting or to check on something, he was at her desk, siphoning whatever updated information he could get on the vaults.
That was how he’d learned what Bud Askins’ supposed “management training” program really was—that it was a breeding farm with the prime objective of creating an army of super managers that would one day lord over the ruined world Vault-Tec planned to conquer. He had read all the notes and plans on the triad of vaults involved in the program. He’d poured over Bud’s disgusting mission statement about the proposed early conditioning of all children born in vaults Thirty-Two and Thirty-Three.
He knew that all born vaulties in the triad were raised to believe that reproducing was the highest honor one could possibly achieve—that anyone with a healthy reproductive system had to use it and that being childless was only an option for those physically unable to procreate. Hell, Lucy, herself had been so conditioned to the breeding-obsessed nature of her home that she had been willing to get hitched to a perfect stranger without so much as laying eyes on him beforehand!
Cooper wasn’t naive enough to believe that just because Lucy MacLane had left her vault, the cult’s deeply engrained way of thinking had magically faded from her mind. She would want ankle-biters of her own; she had been brainwashed to want nothing but. So, maybe it was best that she found the idea of sleeping with him so revolting. No offspring would ever come of it, and she’d only end up resenting him because of his lack of potent swimmers.
He’d been a complete f*ckwit to forget that nasty, unfortunate string of facts. Welp…he’d never make that mistake again! Cooper promised himself as much with a rueful glower down at his meal as he shoved another bite of rubbery eggs between his lips. From here on in, it would be strictly business between them.
He would take the smoothie to get the answers he’d promised. He’d even keep his word and tell her everything he knew about the vaults and the bombs, but he’d be damned if he ever played stand-in for her boyfriend again!
He’d suffered every kind of pain imaginable to the human mind. Hell, he’d spent seven years in a coma—only for his chemically induced slumber to be interrupted once a year—for a good old-fashioned torture session! Yet nothing had cut quite as deep as hearing Lucy MacLane thank f*cking God himself that she hadn’t debased herself by f*cking him.
What Cooper couldn’t quite figure out was why he had ever let himself think there was actually something real brewing between them. Just because she hadn’t passed up a chance to be a sanctimonious virtue-signaler when she had dropped those vials in front of him at the Super Duper Mart, it didn’t mean they were meant to be together or anything ridiculous like that!
Jesus Christ, he wished he could go back in time, just so he could punch himself in the face, as he had laid down on that grubby couch in the blood-spattered chop-shop and dared to dream of her.
You’re a f*ckin’ idiot, and you got what you deserved for ever bein’ so goddamn stupid!
As he took an overly forceful bite of his toast—ripping into it as if it were Rodger’s insides—he noticed every single pair of Cranson eyes trained on him in wary concern. He pointedly ignored them and was grudgingly grateful when they didn’t ask him anything else about that damn vault girl.
At least the lovesick cook wasn’t around to witness his misery, Cooper thought. Temperance was serving breakfast to the campers in the outdoor dining area, so the bounty hunter took solace in the fact that he’d been spared at least that bit of humiliation. Now he could eat his grub with a tiny shred of peace. But, of course, his reprieve was short-lived because that was when the vaultie just had to make her appearance.
Goddamn…she looked all cute and touchable in fresh clothing, with her dark hair all shower-damp, smelling like flowery soap and sh*t—which perfumed the air as she passed his chair to take an empty seat three spaces down from his. He tried his best to ignore her, glaring down at what remained of his breakfast, yet every cell in his radiation-ravaged body remained far too aware of her.
Even after hearing the vaultie thank the powers that be that she hadn’t made the mistake of f*cking him, Cooper still wanted to go to her so goddamn bad it hurt. His arms itched to enfold that petite little body against his; his mouth still craved her kisses. He wanted to bury his ruined face in the side of her neck and breathe what he could of her sweet scent into his lungs.
f*ckin’ forget it…she was never really an option for you. Yer just a jackass that convinced yourself that reality ain’t what it is. That ain’t her problem. It’s yours. And you had best get the hell over it!
“Hold on, Lucy, I’ll get you a plate,” Chastity told the vaultie, getting up from her seat and hurrying to the kitchen.
“Thank you…” Lucy called after her weakly, visibly wincing with the effort— pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and greyish forefinger.
“What’s the matter, honey? Drank a bit too much of the devil’s water last night?” Sal asked her.
Cooper tried his best to ignore her as he stabbed the remainder of his eggs with his fork…but his goddamn eyes had minds of their own and kept veering off from his plate to settle in the vaultie’s direction.
“Yeah…too much Rot Gut…” Lucy murmured quietly, and the bounty hunter couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for how bad her head must hurt.
The only thing you should be concerned about is the fact that she’s gonna be slower than molasses and will cost ya nearly an entire day of progress, he chastised himself.
“Hey, Chass! Mix up a glass of great-grandma Annie’s magic hangover cure!” Piper shouted in that gravelly, smoke-ravaged voice of hers—causing the vaultie to wince yet again.
“Already on it, Granny!” Chastity called from the kitchen.
“Don’t worry, Lucy hon, this will help fix you right up,” Piper winked at the girl, who offered her a feeble nod in response.
Except for a few cries from the infants in the room, as their mothers took their cues and prepared to breastfeed, everything got as quiet as a churchyard after that— which was highly unusual for the Cranson household. Cooper flicked his gaze up from his plate to see the whole lot of them shuffling their curious stares back and forth—between the vaultie and himself—obviously picking up on something being off between them, which wordlessly confirmed Piper’s theory about his current mood.
Not every set of eyes that drilled into him belonged to his nosey friends, though. Cooper felt Lucy’s gaze on him before he even glanced up to confirm it to be so. He was far too damn hyper-aware of that girl, and it irked him to no end. When he finally relented to the goading will of his curiosity, Cooper cast what he thought to be a covert glance over to his right.
The vaultie, apparently, wasn’t all that concerned with being covert or discretionary. She openly stared at him—big hazel eyes all wounded, wide, and pleading. What the f*ck did she want from him? Did she want him to not care that her thinking the idea of them knocking boots was so revolting that she’d nearly swooned with relief when he had confirmed it hadn’t happened? Because he wasn’t gonna play pretend to suit her personal comfort. That was for damn sure!
She had put all her cards out on the table with that “Oh, thank God!!!” and now he was putting down his. She didn’t have to pretend she liked the idea of being intimate with him, but he sure as hell wasn’t gonna act like everything was sunshine and apple pie after a rejection like that! She could just take those big ole’ doe eyes of hers and point them at someone who gave a sh*t.
“Here, Lucy, I can switch places with you, if you like…” Rita, Jude’s wife—who sat next to him on his left—offered.
Cooper grit his teeth, grinding the food in his mouth to a tasteless pulp.
The vaultie offered Rita a weary but grateful smile. “Oh, thank you, I—” Lucy began, already starting to rise from her chair.
“She’s fine right where she is,” the bounty hunter interjected. He knew his tone was harsh and scathing—cutting like the lash of a whip across the girl’s words of gratitude. He didn’t care.
All eyes shot to him—numerous sets of brows lifted in shock-mingled-intrigue. He ignored them. f*ck ‘em. He didn’t have to play nice just because they wanted him to. They were his friends, not his goddamn owners.
“Oh…ummm…never mind then. Thanks anyway,” Lucy murmured to Rita, settling back into her chair with a defeated slump of her shoulders, her pretty little angel face looking all pitiful and dejected.
Cooper ignored the now familiar worm of guilt that began to nibble on his insides. What in the deep-fried f*ck did he have to feel guilty about anyhow!? She had made it clear how she felt. Why couldn’t he do the same?
“Trouble in paradise?” That peckerhead Tommy just couldn’t seem to pass up the opportunity to be a smug little sh*tbird, a knowing grin tugging at the corners of his too-wide mouth as his assessing stare flicked from Lucy to him.
“Oh, Tommy, hush,” Alice grumbled from beside her tactless husband, poking him in the arm with her elbow, “Learn to read the room.”
Thomas grumbled something inaudible in reply and went back to consuming his breakfast in silence, albeit with a great deal of surliness. All around the table, throats cleared as if to dispel the mounting awkwardness. Cooper’s gaze flicked to Sal as the old man took in a prolonged, noisy inhalation—looking as if he might try and say something. Cooper wished he’d just leave well enough alone.
“Here you are!” Chasity sing-songed as she came traipsing back into the dining room, far too chipper for the bounty hunter’s liking, yet he was grateful to the girl for interrupting what would have doubtlessly turned into a very unwanted conversation.
“Eggs, pigrat bacon, and toast,” Chastity informed the vaultie, setting the plate in front of her. “And…” Chastity added, placing an age-fogged highball glass next to Lucy’s plate, “That there’s G.G. Annie’s magic hangover cure. I’m told she called it a ‘prairie oyster.’ It’s one raw egg, topped with a dash of homemade hot sauce, a spoonful of homemade vinegar, a bit of salt and pepper, and just a tiny splash of fresh-squeezed tato juice.”
Cooper nearly laughed out loud at the way Lucy’s nose crinkled up in abject disgust at Chastity’s description of what was in the glass she’d been given.
“Oh, I know it sounds disgusting…and I’m not gonna lie to you…it tastes it too, but I promise it works like a charm. It’s saved me from countless amounts of suffering plenty of times,” Chastity assured her with a cheery grin.
“Yeah, and Chass would know all about that,” Thomas introjected, “She drinks like a damn fish.”
Alice gave her husband a sound smack on the back of the head. “I swear to God, Tommy…one of these days…” she grumbled heatedly, letting the open-ended threat settle between them like a dividing wall. Tommy, apparently having nothing to say to that, once again returned to his meal in sullen silence.
“It works, girl. I myself swear by it,” Sal assured the vaultie. “Come on then, down the hatch. It isn’t gonna get any better by letting it sit there.” The old man chuckled.
“Okie-dokie…” Lucy let out a prolonged sigh of resignation, hesitantly picking up the highball glass and giving its contents a pained stare of doubt before gingerly putting the rim of the glass to her pretty pink lips.
Everyone, himself included, watched with rapt interest as Lucy squinched her eyes closed (as if that would somehow help), threw her head back, and let the dubious concoction slide down her gullet. As anticipated, a great deal of coughing, as well as a dismayed cry of “Oh gosh…why!?” followed.
Of course, everyone chuckled, but for some odd reason, Cooper found himself suddenly fixated on the fact that Chasity had forgotten to offer the vaultie a glass of water to chase down that hot-sauce-slathered egg. His already-present frown deepened as he silently refilled his half-empty glass with the pitcher that sat in front of him.
“It tastes like a slimy ball of sh*t wandered its way through the spice pantry, but you’ll start feeling better soon, Piper assured her with a rasping laugh.
Lucy only coughed in response. Cooper scowled.
“Here. Stop gawkin’ at her coughin’ up a lung and give her this, dammit,” he grumbled, holding up the water glass to Chastity—bristling agitation clear in his tone and body language.
“Oh! I’m sorry! I forgot!” Chastity gasped, accepting the proffered glass from him, with a mollified blush painting the apples of her cheeks. “Here, Luce. Drink this!”
Cooper watched with unexpected satisfaction as Lucy gulped down the water, her coughing immediately ceasing. At least now she wouldn’t be stuck just sitting there, hacking her goddamn head off, while everyone watched like a bunch of slack-jawed yokels with their thumbs up their keisters.
“Thank you…” the vaultie murmured, and when Cooper looked up from taking his last remaining bite of scrambled eggs, he had expected to see the girl looking up at Chastity as she delivered her thanks.
Instead, Lucy was looking directly at him, her doe eyes pinning his with a soft, sad puppy kinda look, which instantly made him want to forget all about what she’d said back in the trailer.
…But forgetting was for puss*-whipped rubes who didn’t have enough pride to put their foot down when they knew they were being strung along, and he was no rube, Cooper reminded himself. Jaw gritted with resolution, he pushed his chair back, plucking up his empty plate and cutlery.
“If you’ll excuse me, folks, I’m gonna mosey on back to the trailer and make sure we’re all packed up and ready to go,” he announced, bending down to retrieve the empty trencher at his feet that had contained a generous portion of pigrat bacon and eggs, which dogmeat had wolfed down almost immediately after it had hit the dish.
“You sure? There’s no rush,” Molly assured him with a quizzical tilt of her curly red head.
“Yup. There’s still a long way to go until we hit Vegas. Gotta get a move on,” he assured her with a resolute nod, standing up and heading towards the kitchen, “I’ll just deposit these in the sink.” He paused then, stopping in his tracks with an abrupt ceasing of his jangling spurs, only partially turning in Lucy’s direction before curtly adding, “Meet me at the trailer when yer done.”
Cooper didn’t wait for any sort of verbal acknowledgment before ducking through the small arched doorway that led to the Cranson’s spacious and cluttered kitchen. Dogmeat followed at his heels—probably hoping for more treats, four-legged garbage disposal that she was.
The bounty hunter then put the used dishes in the large, farm-style sink and quickly went back the way he came, calling out “Thanks for the chow!” to his hosts as he beat a hasty retreat out of the dining room and through the front door— still too goddamn aware of the vaultie’s eyes on him as he went.
She didn’t know what to say to him; that much was clear to Cooper, as he tried his best to pointedly ignore the girl as she went about awkwardly packing up her sh*t in the trailer—casting big-eyed searching glances his way every now and again. The fact that she didn’t bother with half-assed apologies was just fine by him. Lucy MacLean felt the way she felt, and no amount of “I’m sorry I hurt your tender, jackass feelings” was going to change that.
He just wished he could properly concentrate on cleaning his damn guns as he waited for her to finish—instead of feeling inconvenient pangs of sympathy and concern whenever she winced from the obviously lingering pain in her head. Apparently, great-granny Cranson’s supposedly magic hangover cure wasn’t so magical after all.
Ha! He could have told her that, Cooper thought with a sardonic twist of his lips. A “prairie oyster” wasn’t something Annie Cranson had invented; he’d just been too polite to say so at the breakfast table. They’d been a thing long before the bombs. The version he’d tried (back in his solider days) had contained Worcestershire sauce instead of tato juice, but it was still the same basic concept.
People back in the old days had sworn by them too, claiming that the cysteine and amino acid in the raw egg helped break down acetaldehyde, a byproduct of processing alcohol. Yet experts back in the day had debunked that pseudo-science bullsh*t time and time again.
It didn’t stop folks from continuing to throw back that gross nonsense and proclaim it to be a miracle cure, though. The placebo effect was mighty convincing. It was kinda funny that the myth of the magic hangover cure had endured through the end of the world. Cooper just wished it wasn’t all bullsh*t, for the vaultie’s sake.
Try to ignore it as he might, any time Lucy’s pained movements or sharply indrawn breaths caught his attention, he found himself wanting to go to her—to try and make it better for her any way he possibly could.
Forget it, you sorry sonofabitch! She indirectly told you that you had about as much chance with her as a paper dog successfully chasin' an asbestos cat through Hell. So, her hangover troubles ain’t none of your concern. Not your monkeys, not your goddamn circus…
When the vaultie was finished gathering her meager belongings, she put her hair up in a sloppy bun with a frayed elastic, secured her Pip-Boy in place on her wrist, and shrugged on her pack.
“Okay…I’m ready…” she murmured meekly, heading towards the trailer door.
Cooper grunted in acknowledgment, putting his cleaning kit back in his saddlebags, sliding his rifle back into his bandoleer sling, and settling his revolver back at his hip.
“Yeah…daylight’s a wastin’…” he told her tersely, plucking up his saddlebags and draping them back over his shoulder—slowly getting up from his seat at the rolltop desk. “Let’s mosey.”
After bidding the Cransons goodbye, with hugs and sloppy cheek kisses given to both Lucy and him by the womenfolk, they continued on their way—following the path Cooper knew would lead them to the place he was certain that sorry sack of slimy gulper sh*t—Hank MacLean—had taken refuge. They had been back on the road for merely twenty minutes when the vaultie began to make it clear as crystal that she was losing her patience with his lack of chatter.
She had tried quite a few times to get him talking since they’d left The Happy Pigrat. He had ignored every single one. Now she was having herself a good ole’ fashioned silent hissy fit—stomping her boots as she trailed behind him—huffing loudly with exasperation every now and again. She could go right on ahead and keep doing all that, Cooper thought with a rueful scowl. He didn’t feel like talking, so he wasn’t gonna.
“That’s it!” Lucy suddenly shouted behind him, startling him enough to stop dead in his tracks—Dogmeat halting at his side.
“I’ve had it with this brooding, cold-shoulder nonsense! I don’t know why you’re so mad at me, but it’s obvious that you are, and my head is still pounding too much to think straight, so please do me a favor and just tell me what I did wrong!” He heard the smoothie huff—his back tensing, his teeth gritting together.
Cooper turned to face her slowly, certain his expression was as dark as his mood, as he trained his narrowed eyes directly on hers for the first time in over an hour.
“Oh, so you want me to spell out my humiliation for ya as clear as day, darlin’?” He snarled, taking a step towards her—pettily relishing having caught her off guard when her eyes widened in surprise. “Fine, you asked for it. You wanna know what’s stuck in my craw? Well, vaultie, a man doesn’t tend to want to hear how a woman that he’d happily give his right arm for a chance to be with is so damn relieved that nothing happened between them that she nearly swoons with joy!”
“But I get it. I’m an ugly, mean motherf*cker, and I was a goddamn fool to ever hope that the kiss last night meant anything other than you bein’ three sheets to the wind! You want me to admit how disappointed I was that you thanked f*ckin’ God Almighty that I didn’t touch you!? Fine! It felt like a goddamn kick to the nuts with a steel-toed boot! Does that make ya feel good, sweetheart!? You got your revenge for all the f*cked up sh*t I did when we first met! You got the last laugh, and I’m suckin’ up my pride and admitting to it! Happy now!?” the bounty hunter shouted, taking yet another step forward, his sense of satisfaction growing when the doe-eyed smoothie’s jaw dropped—her pretty face going as pale as sun-bleached bone.
She was both shocked and disgusted that he’d just come outright and said it—Cooper was certain of it. Oh well, she’d pissed on what he’d had left of his pride that morning, so what the f*ck else did he have to lose? Nothing! Now she couldn’t cry and pout about him not being a chatty Cathy. He’d snatched away her right to that, so she could take her adorable pouty lips and go purse them at someone who gave a sh*t!
He waited in tense silence for her admission—for her to sigh, look guiltily down at the ground, and finally say out loud that the idea of f*cking something like a deathclaw held more appeal than f*cking him. Yet, when she finally stopped blinking at him like a wide-eyed owl, she didn’t say anything even remotely close to what he prepared himself to hear.
“What the fudge!?” Lucy shouted right back—her pretty face going all scowly—her posture rigid with indignation. “Why are you just assuming the worst of me!? First of all, ever since you let me curl up against you the other night, you’re literally all I can think about! It’s like you crawled under my skin, and I can’t get you out—I don’t want to get you out!”
Now it was Cooper’s turn to blink in wide-eyed disbelief. Was he having a stroke? Did his kind even have strokes??? He wasn’t sure. He’d never met a fellow ghoul who claimed to have one, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Clearly, he was suffering from some kind of episode because there was no way in Satan’s withered taint that he was correctly hearing what the vaultie was saying!
“Yeah, sure, it’s way too soon to be saying anything this darn crazy, but here it goes anyway,” Lucy went on, and the bounty hunter felt like his heart had inexplicably lodged itself in the confines of his windpipe—his pulse racing at a dizzying speed. “When I’m with you, I feel like I’ve finally found a missing piece of myself! For some strange reason, I feel like I’ve known you my whole life…even though that doesn’t make any sense! You make this scary garbage world up here seem far less awful! Even though my life as I knew it has all but dissolved around me, a part of me feels like it needed to happen for various reasons!”
Yup. He was definitely having a stroke, Cooper decided, sniffing the air to see if he got a whiff of burnt toast. Wasn’t that a sign of a stroke? Or was it brunt feathers? He couldn’t f*cking remember!
“I needed to know the truth about my dad and the horrifying thing he did at Shady Sands, but I think I also needed to find you! In the matter of a couple of days, you’ve begun to make me think that I might not ever want to be without you! And yeah, we didn’t have the best start…frankly, it was terrifying, and you were just awful…but then you showed me who you really are—the kindness and tenderness you’re capable of. You were willing to give up your life for me when that deathclaw came around, and you made me realize that I would do the same for you!” Lucy shouted, all but pelting him with her words.
Cooper took a step back, mind reeling. Had he fallen asleep or something? Was this some kind of f*cked-up dream? Was his subconscious mind trying to torture him with something he knew better than to hope was a reality?
“Now, it all seems so laughable that I ever thought I had real feelings for Max because what I felt for him was just silly kids with crush stuff, compared to this all-consuming ache you’ve started in me! And yeah, I was really drunk last night, but I remember our kiss…and it was everything I had always thought kissing someone should be! I felt fireworks from the top of my head all the way down to the soles of my feet, and even as I’m telling you all this, it’s like I can still feel your mouth on mine!” She glared at him, clearly exasperated, despite the sweetness of her words, and Cooper began to genuinely worry that his goddamn brain was broken.
“And if you must know, I said ‘Thank God’ because I’d been terrified that I’d been so drunk last that I had missed out on getting to remember our first time together! I was also worried that I might have a disease because Chastity told me that can happen if you have sex with a ghoul without taking one of the green pills that she gave me last night.”
“So yeah, I was kinda freaking out, but that had absolutely nothing to do with the way you look! Despite what you’ve assumed, I actually really like the way you look! And yes, thinking back on it, I can see how what I said earlier came off sounding bad, but you could have just asked me about it instead of assuming that I was some kind of awful jerk! I also feel like my freaking brain is on fire, so excuse me for not being super quick on the draw, Mr. Cranky Pants!” She huffed.
Cooper felt his jaw gape open like a door with a busted hinge. What…what in the southern fried hell was happening??? Was he still breathing!? He wasn’t sure…nothing made any goddamn sense anymore!
“Since it seems that you have nothing constructive to add to all of that, you’ll have to excuse me for a second. I forgot to pee before we left, and I need to use the ladies’ room,” Lucy informed him tartly, turning on her heel before marching off towards the rusty remains of a van about thirty yards in the distance.
Cooper could only stand there, blinking after her like a stupefied limp-dicked jackass. He watched her disappear around the side of the old van, seeking privacy in which to do her business.
His heart was beating like a wild, crazed thing in his chest. He could feel his palms sweating beneath the shielding cover of his gloves, and his kneecaps felt like rubber. He glanced down at Dogmeat, who was looking up at him with a curious tilt of her head—probably wondering why he’d gone so quiet and motionless.
“You heard all that? That wasn’t just my sh*tty, radiation-warped brain playing tricks on me? The vaultie actually said all that, right?” the bounty hunter asked his canine friend, whose only reply was a quizzical little sound made at the back of her doggy throat—something that landed somewhere between a whine and a bark.
“I sure as f*ck hope that’s dog-speak for yes,” Cooper muttered, scrubbing a hand over his noseless face—feeling completely shell-shocked.
“In the matter of a couple of days you’ve begun to make me think that maybe I don’t ever want to be without you!” Her words played through his reeling brain, causing a shivering thrill to zip up his spine.
Had she really meant that? Could that even be possible? Just as he was beginning to think it just might be, a scream ripped through the quiet stillness of the desert air. Lucy’s scream!
Cooper’s heart stalled against his ribs, his bowels turning to ice water—the taste of cold, coppery panic filling his mouth. He was already reaching for his revolver when he heard the enraged, crazed screaming of an unknown man coming from the direction of the van.
“f*cking bitch bit me!!!”
“What the f*ck are you doing, Duke!? Don’t just stand there watching her take chunks out of him, f*cking help me subdue her!!!!” He heard a woman shout.
Cooper’s long-legged stride was already eating up the distance between himself and the van before he could even fully process what he was doing. All he could think about was getting to his girl and making whoever the hell it was that was messing with her wish to Christ that they’d never been born.
Pulse thudding like a drum solo in his ears, the bounty hunter eased around the side of the decrepit van—Dogmeat following his stealthy lead and slinking beside him like a silent shadow.
“Why can’t I just take her off a ways, have my fun her, then put a bullet in her head? We have her gizmo you were after; we don’t need her!” Another man spoke up over the frantic screaming of the other, and suddenly Cooper knew exactly who it was that he was dealing with—the three shady f*ckers from the night before.
f*ckin’ knew that we should have killed them last night, but goddamn Piper, with her sanctimonious ‘one warning’ bullsh*t, just had to let them go!
“We’ve already gone over this, Duke! We came out here to join the Khans, and they don’t let just anyone in. You have to prove yourself with a demonstration of worth of some kind! You saw what she was wearing when she first showed up at that trading post. She’s a f*cking vaultie! She comes from a vault that’s probably loaded up with supplies and tech,” The woman told her companion.
“If we present her to the leader as an offering, promising him that he can use her to find out where her home is, he’ll let us in for sure. Besides, she ain’t bad looking. The fact that she’ll make a decent sex slave will be a nice little cherry on top of the cake, but you’re gonna ruin the appeal of that if you go filling her with your nasty, diseased cum! We’ve been waiting out here since last night—waiting for her to get far enough from the protection of the hicks at the trading post, and I’ll be damned if I let it all be for nothing! Now shut your yap and go keep an eye out for her ghoul friend. When you spot him, shoot him in the head. He’s of no value to us,” Cooper heard the calculating bitch from the night before snarl at her cohort, his jaw clenching so tight it hurt.
Dead mother-f*ckers—all of them. To say he was mad enough to eat a horn-toad backwards was a laughable understatement! Those three had just signed their death warrants in blood…and in their last suffering moments, Cooper vowed that he’d make them wish that they’d never been so goddamn stupid as to think they could lay hands on his woman and get away with it. The Cransons had given the three sacks of pigrat sh*t a Hail Mary last night…and they’d chosen to piss all over their good, undeserved fortune. Now they were fair game.
Just as the bounty hunter was about to step out from behind the side of the rust-bucket van and reveal himself as the harbinger of death that he was, there came the tell-tale sound of a struggle—muffled grunts of pain and grumbled, hissed oaths.
“f*cking slippery little bitch!” He heard the leader woman scream. “Get her, Duke! Don’t let her get away! Quit your whining about your hand and help, Ash!”
That’s when Lucy came running out into his line of sight—pack, holster, and Pip-Boy missing—mouth smeared with blood, wrists tied in a haphazard knot that was already working itself loose.
“Goddammit, you little c*nt! You’re more trouble than you’re worth!” the bearded, thick-bodied man Cooper deduced to be “Duke” came jogging after her.
That’s when the bounty hunter struck—like a coiled rattlesnake in wait. Without so much as a word of warning, he trained the barrel of his revolver on the worthless sack of gulper puke that pursued Lucy—aiming for his leg. Yeah, he had a clean shot at the sorry f*cker’s head, but if he took that shot, it would be over, and where was the fun in that? The walking ass-pustule had talked about violating his vaultie. He was gonna f*ckin’ pay!
He pulled the trigger—relishing the surprised scream of agony that ripped from the throat of Lucy’s would-be rapist, with a dark, burning thrill of satisfaction. Just like Wilzig, Duke’s leg was left nothing but a pulpy piece of butchered meat from the calf down. The bearded man collapsed onto the ground—the golden sand around him sprayed with the fine pink mist that had been the rest of his leg just seconds before.
As he took his time sauntering up to the moaning, panting duke with a wide grin of macabre anticipation stretching his mouth from ear to ear—feeling like an apex predator closing in on its wounded prey—he noticed movement from the corner of his eye. The other man—Ash—came hobbling forward, a pistol gripped loosely in one hand, the other bleeding at his side. It appeared his little hellcat had given as good as she’d gotten.
Cooper’s chest swelled with pride for his woman’s fierceness as he took aim at the peckerwood known as Ash. Apparently, he needn’t have bothered though. Dogmeat came flying at the sorry son-of-a-whor* like a furious hound of Hell, freshly released from her tether by Satan himself. The stupid bleeding f*cker didn’t have so much as half a chance to squeeze off a single round before the canine was pinning him to the ground, like a crazed hyena on a gazelle in one of those old-world nature documentaries.
Ash’s pained cries phased into incomprehensible gurgles as Dogmeat tore the sorry bastard’s throat clean out. Her deep-bellied growls, accompanied by the wet tearing of flesh, filled Cooper’s ears like the sweetest music he’d ever heard.
Good girl…
He turned back to his own quarry, holstering his revolver and slowly pulling the Mare’s Leg from her sling at his back. He approached the whimpering bucket of buzzard chum lying before him, with what he was sure must be unhinged glee etched onto his ruined face.
“Lucky for you—or unlucky, as the case may be—Sal happened to have a few rounds of ammo for this here lovely lady,” he drawled, giving the rifle’s stock an affectionate pat as he sauntered up to stand directly in front of the raw meat ruins of Duke’s leg.
The sorry f*cker stared up at him with wide, pain-glazed eyes—mouth puffing open and closed like an out-of-water fish struggling for breath. Cooper grinned all the wider. He gave the messy pulp at the end of the sh*t-sucker’s ruined leg a sound kick for good measure—savoring the almost inhuman wails of agony that tore themselves from the bastard’s throat.
“You like laying your filthy hands on unwilling women, I hear…wanted to take my girl off somewhere and force your idea of fun on her, huh?” He asked with a sneer, taking two of the highly coveted explosive rounds from his bandoleer and pushing them into the loading gate of the Mare’s Leg.
The sorry sh*t-sucker made a feeble attempt to scoot away from him—arms and his one good leg uselessly scrabbling against the ground. Cooper threw back his head, laughing long, loud, and belly-deep as he used the lever of the Mare’s Leg to cycle a round into the rifle’s chamber.
“Ain’t too fun when you’re the one who’s gettin’ hurt, now is it?” he asked, pulling back his booted foot and kicking the f*cking bastard in the nuts so hard, the bounty hunter felt the recoil in the marrow of his radiated bones.
Duke howled like a wounded dog, and Cooper kicked him again for good measure, snorting in dark amusem*nt as he saw a large wet spot begin to spread across the crotch of the cowardly f*cker’s jeans.
“Men like you go around foolin’ themselves. They convince themselves that they’re all bad and tough, but the second they have to endure any kind of real pain, they piss themselves like the pathetic little bitches they are,” Cooper cajoled—delivering a fresh series of kicks to Duke’s urine-soaked crotch until all the man could do was limply turn his head and wretch onto the sand. “You’re a dime a dozen, really,” Cooper informed the worthless sh*t-sack at his feet with a mock sigh. “I reckon it’s a good thing I’m ‘bout to kill ya...'cause you won’t be able to use that mashed mess in yer trousers for much of anything anyhow.”
A pained, broken wail was Duke’s only reply.
“Now then,” the bounty hunter said almost breezily as he stepped up to Duke’s head, bearing down on the man’s throat with the sole of his boot—relishing the choaked gurgle he got in response. “Since I consider myself reasonably fair-minded, I’m gonna do the decent thing and tell ya just where you went and f*cked-up beyond all recovery…” Cooper snarled, applying more pressure to the man’s windpipe with his booted foot, savoring his hacking, futile gasps.
“You, my unfortunate friend, made the mistake of touchin’ what’s mine. That woman you were talking about raping and killin’ is very much mine, and not a goddamn soul alive is gonna’ do so much as even think about harming her without having to answer to me. Death has come a callin’ son, and he’s one jealously protective motherf*cker,” the bounty hunter growled and bent down to shove the barrel of the Mare’s Leg between Duke’s lips—his boot still on his throat, pinning the coward in place.
“Kinda ironic, isn’t it?” Cooper asked with a toothy grin. “You’ve probably shoved that now ruined meat stick of yours down the throats of many unwilling womenfolk. Yet havin’ an unwanted phallic object shoved down your gullet is the last thing you’ll ever experience. It’s goddamn poetry!” He barked a laugh, easing the barrel down until he heard the f*cker gag—taking a sort of perverse joy in the way silent tears slipped down the dirty slimeball’s filth-smeared cheeks. He pulled the trigger.
Duke’s upper torso exploded in a shower of red goo, bits of him pelting the sand like a fleshy rainstorm. Cooper scarcely had time to admire his handiwork before a feral scream ripped through the violence-charged air.
“Don’t you f*cking touch him, bitch!!!”
Lucy!?
The bounty hunter whirled around just in time to see the blonde ringleader—gripping a wicked-looking hatchet in her hand—drop dead about ten feet away from him, a shot ringing out like a thunderclap. The sneaky sh*t-smear had been trying to bury the business end of that hatchet in his skull, Cooper realized, but his little hellcat had saved his hide.
He stood there—momentarily speechless—admiring how his vaultie’s chest heaved against the clingy fabric of her dark grey t-shirt, how burning ferocity crackled in those big hazel eyes. Her hair was a tangled mess around her shoulders, having fallen out of its bun during her struggle with the three sh*t stains. Her mouth was smeared with Ash’s blood, her stance almost proud and resolute, as she dropped the unfamiliar gun in her hand—letting it drop to the sand like unwanted flotsam.
“I took the one guy’s pistol after Dogmeat attacked him. Then I saw that awful woman was going to hurt you, and I just…I just couldn’t let that happen. Thank goodness she lost her gun somewhere in the scuffle. I think it got kicked under the van…” Lucy heaved out a shaky breath and Cooper couldn’t recall a time in their short association when she had looked more beautiful than she did in that moment.
“There you are, little killer…” He murmured in wide-eyed awe and admiration—white-hot lust burning through his body like a searing brand as he slid his rifle back into its sling.
Lucy said nothing, her actions doing all the talking as she ran to him. She leaped into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist—his hips caught in the surprisingly strong clutch of her thighs. His heart pounded wildly as the vaultie twined her arms around his neck. He gripped her by her pert little backside, holding her tightly to him. His fierce little fighter: he couldn’t get enough of her. When she pressed her lips to his, he didn’t mind the taste of blood.
He groaned into the welcoming warmth of her mouth, slipping his tongue inside to savor the sweet, natural taste of her—flavored with the coppery lifeforce of their fallen enemy. There was something so primal and perfect about it, and Cooper swore to himself that if his radiation-ravaged body were to inexplicably give out on him right then and there, he’d die a happy man.
“You called me yours. I heard you,” she panted breathlessly against his mouth.
“It’s the truth, ain’t it?” He asked and nipped at her lower lip.
“Yes…I’m yours…and you’re mine…” She murmured between frantic kisses, and Cooper hadn’t realized just how much he needed that confirmation until it left those beautiful blood-flecked lips, making him feel drunk on the heady rush of heat she sent flooding throughout him.
“You’re damn right I’m yours, babydoll. You’re damn right…”
