Just realized I forgot the warnings!
Pairing: Nick/F!Sole Survivor
Warnings: Graphic Violence, Adult content, Non-con elements (brief in one chapter), Language, Robot sex, Sexual Tension, Character death
Soulmates aren't the ones who make you happiest, no. They're instead the ones who make you feel the most. Burning edges and scars and stars. Old pains and pangs, captivation and beauty. Sweetness and madness and dreamlike surrender. They hurl you into the abyss. They taste like hope.
- Victoria Erickson
Part One: The Commonwealth
Robots had always excited her.
When other children begged for puppies and kittens, she had begged for a Mr. Handy or a Miss Nanny. Too expensive, her mother had said. Damn robots stole my job, her father had said. But Mr. Handy could be my friend, she had said, and they had given her a frown. Peculiar girl, they said, go play with Sally Johnson down the street. But Sally Johnson was always playing with baby dolls or pretending to be a princess. And Matthew Tyler next door wasn't any better. He never got off his Giddyup Buttercup, and never let her be the cowboy, or Grognak, or the Silver Shroud. Those are for boys, Matthew had said, indignant, wiping the snot tricking from his crusted nose with his scrawny, sunburned arm.
Mr. Handy would have let her be the cowboy. Mr. Handy would have let her be anyone she had wanted.
She got older, and her love of robots enviably took a different turn. It was after a visit to Wattz Consumers Electronics. While her mother had shopped for a new washer, she had clung to the velvet ropes cordoning off one of the many Mr. Handy displays. It hovered inches away, three shining arms rotating gracefully around its round body as it pretended to dust and clean a pea green living room set. It paused, seeing her, eye stalks pinwheeling open and closed. It whirred a hello like a mechanical purr. It hadn't been programed to speak yet, but the sound touched something deep inside, something her ten-year-old self had barely begun to discover.
She had explored it later that night, the echo of that sound in her ears, in her body. Her first orgasm, a powerful, shuddering wave of pleasure followed by a fuzzy sense of wrongness. Her mother's voice whispered in her head:
Peculiar.
Her parents never did get a robot. Some instinct must have warned them that her fascination went much deeper and weirder than they had wanted to admit. But after missed school dances, a lack of slumber parties, and weekend after weekend of her laying around the house, nose-deep in the latest Robco catalogue, it became apparent no human boy could pique her interest, or human girl for that matter. So her parents did the reasonable thing.
Sent her straight to a shrink.
Dr. Weatherby, a boring man with thick brown glasses forever sliding down the huge slope of his sweaty nose, plagued her existence for most of high school. Between his endless personality tests and inkblots and questionnaires and verbal probing, it was a wonder how she managed not to pitch herself out his six-story window to end the torture.
Technosexuality is what he told her distraught parents, and her cure? A tiny bottle of blue pills that tasted vaguely like seaweed. Back in the prewar days, drugs cured everything, and yeah, it cured her all right, killed whatever sex drive she could have had for that boy fumbling with her bra strap or sticking his clumsy fingers inside that delicate part of her body. Her mind was hazy all the time and her grades slipped from A's to D's. She had nightmares of Mr. Handy cutting her to pieces or burning her alive.
It wasn't until one morning after a particularly nasty dream of being strapped to a chair and spoonfed glass by a Miss Nanny, it was pretty damn clear the meds had to go.
So she lost her virginity to Pete...something. Told her mother the glorious news and flushed those little blue fuckers down the toilet right in front of her face. But her mother had had the last laugh. Another pill took its place; not in the medicine cabinet, but in her purse. Birth control. For the oodles of no sex she would be having. Sometimes you just can't win.
High school ended. Collage began. She could have gone into Engineering or Robotics, but that would have been like an alcoholic trying to be a bartender. So she studied Law like her grandfather, a decision applauded by her parents (with profound relief), and supported with grant money and her father's wise investment in Nuka Cola stock.
Boyfriends came and went, even tried a few girls, but seriously, girls were a pain in the ass. So it was back to boys again, and then men. Nothing past the first date, or first base. So many; too many. Never good enough, interesting enough, funny enough. Dating was like digging into a package of gum drops and getting nothing but the flavor you hated. It was fucking depressing, each night gasping and trembling to images of steel arms and mechanical voices. And forget about admitting her habit to anyone. Nobody understood. Though, a Hester sales rep named Dan Mather gave it a fair shot after a private game of truth or dare in her little rundown campus apartment-when truth: she wanted to fuck robots. Oh shame.
Dan had laughed, then saw her face and backpeddled, apologizing for being an insensitive prick. And just when he seemed like he wasn't such an asshole, he started crawling toward her, his jeans sliding off his barely-there ass, and making what he must've thought were sexy robot noises. He sounded like a dying protectron.
And speaking of protectrons, that was how she'd met Nate.
The subway was the worst and best part of her day. The jostling humanity wore her out, but there were protectrons everywhere, and while not as thrilling as Mr. Handy and its variants, there was something almost innocent about them, the burbling beeps they made, the flashing lights under their head casing. The urge to touch one was usually manageable—unless they were trundling right in front of her—as this one was. The bulky form of it swayed no more than a foot away, tantalizing, tempting her fingers with the clear view of its inner gears working. All that complexity and beauty within arms reach. Her subway train squeaked to a stop. The doors opened. People spilled out. The protectron made a trilling beep and did a clunky swivel to face her.
"Hello citizen, please present your subway token."
Its automated voice sent a thrill through her. Her finger traced its glass casing. Smooth and cool. A tingle began low in her belly and slithered downward.
"Citizen, please present your token. Delinquent behavior will not be tolerated."
"Uh, hey, better give it your token. They get pretty damn pissy if they think you're going to hop a train. They'll haul you off or worse, and they don't care how lovely you are."
A man with dark hair that curled over his forehead, and handsome in a beaten sort of way, nose a bit too big, but kind eyes. Deep and expressive. Her hand fell away from the casing. He didn't even ask why it had been there. Didn't judge. Just smiled.
"I'm Nate," he said, and extended his hand.
His grip was hot and a little moist, but that was okay. The tingle in her body stayed. It swelled and filled her.
Maybe...just maybe with him it will be different.
She married Nate after a year, and three months after that he went off to war. Her old habits returned, off and on, but nothing past fantasies. Harmless ways to pass the lonely nights—and to lessen the fear of losing him. But no letter came in the mail. No knock on her door. What did come was the resentment—not for Nate, but for the war itself. For the so-called land of the free. Why couldn't everyone just leave each other alone? All this death and destruction over scraps, and her husband caught in the tug-of-war with no end. It didn't matter whose flag won. The prize was death either way.
Eventually, he came home, but as a different man. Injured and sullen. Pulling away when she touched him, when she kissed him. He was a wounded, suffering thing, a dog that growled at anyone who tried to help him. It was a miracle she even became pregnant, but that was a rare moment in the park, after they had moved to Sanctuary to start over. Nate had almost been himself again, laughing and tucking flowers into her hair. They had found a secluded corner, hedges hiding them, grass soft and fragrant. The picnic basket stayed covered, the sweet rolls inside, uneaten. He pinned her with his eyes first, then with his body. He tore at her underwear and she wrapped her legs around him, riding his desperate, jerking thrusts.
At the end he sobbed. She smoothed his hair and held him to her breast. Rocked him like a baby. It was all she could do.
Shaun was born nine months later.
She couldn't bond with him. Not even when they laid him in her arms. He cried and cried. They say babies can sense things. Maybe he sensed how peculiar she was. Everyone told her it would come, this mysterious it like a magical blessing from the maternal Fairy Godmother. Shaun was her flesh and blood—and a stranger. A needy ball of flailing flesh and big eyes. It was a horrible thing to think, and no matter how many prayers she said or how much she tried to be a good mom, no magical blessing came, nope, not for her.
She didn't breastfeed, so Nate took care of Shaun most of the time. It seemed to suit him, get his mind off the war and its horrors. No more thrashing awake, screaming and weeping. No more shaking like a chem addict on the floor. Maybe it was meant to be this way. Now she could finish that last semester of law school and get her career going. Never too late, right?
A mere twelve credits later and she graduated. Now her certificate sat collecting dust. All her applications went unanswered or unread. To cheer her up, Nate talked her into getting a robot. A Mr Handy. And no, she had never told him about her...habit. And now after three years of marriage? Oh by the way, honey, I might find some other uses for our new toy besides dusting and cleaning.
She should be elated. Her childhood wish had come true. But now her habit seemed on the brink of discovery, a curtain that had thinned with the sunlight, revealing how moth-eaten and fragile it was. If she slipped up her marriage was over, so she prepared herself as if going to war. The enemy would not get past her defenses, no matter how adorable or shiny it was.
Nate decided on naming their Mr. Handy, Codsworth, who was every bit the English butler, voice and all. "Mum," Codsworth would say, "what would you like for dinner? Mum, I must insist you allow me to do the laundry. Mum, here is your tea, two cubes of sugar and a dash of milk, Oh, Mum, here is your paper—opened to the funnies of course," that last bit with a wink in his voice. Fuck, it was like being a chem addict with a chemstation in the middle of your living room.
Ignoring him-it-didn't work. Like a cat, Codsworth seemed to hone in on her discomfort, going out of its way to appease and satisfy every whim, every need. It was torture. And Nate, she could count on one hand how many times they had had sex since Shaun had been born. The house was stifling. Codsworth was everywhere, puttering around, cooking her favorite meals, planting her favorite flowers, cleaning shit that didn't need to be cleaned—and one day, she had finally had it. Enough was enough, and the straw too, was what her father would have said.
Idioms aside, finding the right moment came sooner than expected. It was a late Saturday afternoon. Shaun was napping, and Nate had gone to the Super Duper Mart to pick up a few things, but a "few things" always turned into a cartful of junk they didn't need. She had an hour—or more if Nate decided to hit the hardware store in Concord.
Codsworth tended the white roses in the garden, and she hummed the latest from The Five Stars as she showered. She dried her hair and curled it, made her eyes up and dabbed a bit of gloss on her lips. Then the finishing touch: a fine misting of the perfume, Glamour, an anniversary present from Nate and not cheap. A twinge of guilt then like pinpricks in her stomach, but she shrugged it away—and her robe—and strolled from the master bedroom without a stitch of clothing. She headed for the kitchen, still humming, and began to make coffee.
The sound of clinking mugs drew Codsworth, like a moth to the flame. He made a strangled noise and she smiled, her bare backside in full view. "My word, Mum! You're...you're naked! Where on earth are your clothes?" The shock in his voice processor. It was hilarious.
"I don't know, Codsworth, they seem to have fallen off."
"Well, that's just odd. Odd indeed. The last I checked you hadn't lost any weight-not that you need to mind you," Codsworth added with haste, arms rotating back and forth with agitation. Poor little thing, he had no idea what to do. She stirred her coffee, leaning over the counter, breasts pressed against the chilly surface. All three eyes pinwheeled completely open. Was that like pupil dilation for a robot? Some sign of arousal?
"Ahhh." Codsworth's arms stopped moving and he gave an indulgent chuckle. "I know what this is, you naughty girl—"
She straightened, spoon frozen in her hands. Did he know? Truly? Her pulse raced, tiny drums in her throat.
"Thinking about expanding the family are we? A little sister or brother for young Shaun? It's absolutely brilliant, Mum. Sir will be most pleased when he comes home—and don't worry, Mum, I'll make myself…scarce," Codsworth said with emphasis on scarce. He chuckled again: my, my, humans are so darling, aren't they? and floated toward Shaun's room.
The spoon clanked in the mug. Of course he would think that. And what was she thinking? He wasn't programmed for...sex. No robot on the market was made for that. Even if she somehow made him understand, it would be like taking advantage of a child. Or a pet. And then another epiphany came, this one like a slap in the face.
The robot she wanted didn't exist. It would never exist. The Robotic Ethics Board wouldn't allow it. A robot could be any shape or size but human. No androids allowed. They didn't have the tech, nor the energy to wade through the moral swamp of creating a robot that looked like a person, acted like a person. Because if you did, then by golly, you might have to treat it like a person, and that's when the waters got murky.
So that was that. This was her life, pining for a fantasy that would never be realized, and here she was, standing naked in the kitchen, trying to seduce a talking appliance. The heat building in her eyes spilled over, splashed onto the countertop.
"Mum? Are...are you all right?" Codsworth glided into the living room as if her tears had summoned him.
"Yes, Codsworth, please…please just give my robe."
When Nate came home she was still in that robe, bundled under the covers and feigning sleep. In the other room, Codsworth fed Shaun, singing a British lullaby.
Nate stood over her, his shadow on the wall, his gaze like a weight. Minutes passed; tension stretched into a taut, thin wire. Then his sigh broke it, and he climbed into bed without a word.
The next morning was October 23rd, 2077, the day the world finally snapped its own wire that had been stretched to the breaking point for years. It had been such a beautiful autumn morning, the red and golds of the leaves vibrant in the sun. She had been happy, getting ready for the day, making a promise to her reflection that she would give up her habit, that she would try for the sake of her marriage, her child. Then the newscast. Then the sirens. The panicking, fleeing herd of humanity.
Good thing Vault Tec had been there to save the lucky ones, distract them with calm directions and cooing assurances. She should have known something was wrong. The Vault Tec staff, the secret glances, the nervous smiles. Decontamination they had said. Just step into the pod, they had said. Liars, all of them. There had been a poetic justice to their deaths, as would be for the bastard who had shot Nate and stolen Shaun right in front of her pod. He still owed her for the two hundred years worth of nightmares in cryogenic sleep, seeing that same scene play in an endless loop. It had been so impersonal, like Nate hadn't even mattered. She had loved him, and yes, maybe that love had faded a little, but after all that he had been through in the war, a bullet to his head was injustice. It was insulting.
She would find that bald-headed bastard. She would tear out his eyes with her bare hands.
But the new world wouldn't make that easy. When she had stumbled out of the vault elevator, the shock of the destruction had dropped her to her knees, and she wept there in the dirt like a child struck senseless, surrounded by the bones of those not fast enough to make it, or privileged enough to be chosen. She wept for her parents who were dead and dust, she wept for her neighbors who had never woken from their frozen sleep, and for Nate who had at the wrong moment and time.
She wept for the world. For herself. Everything she loved was gone.
All around her, a barren and scarred landscape, Sanctuary a graveyard of crumbling husks that people had once called home. Her Pipboy crackled a warning wherever she turned. Everything was poison: The land, the water, the air. How would she find Shaun? How would she even survive the journey? Everything in this fucked-up world wanted to kill her or eat her.
Codsworth was her anchor, a rusted, dented miracle still trying to clean the empty shell of their house. But he stayed stuck in the past, unable to fathom what had taken place—maybe programmed not to. Even when she had told him: Nate is dead. Shaun is missing, he still didn't seem to understand. So she left him there, weeding dead shrubs, and explored Sanctuary.
Her first kill was an hour later.
The giant bugs didn't count. That had been pest control, and Codsworth had made short work of them with a few puffs of flame. Those wonderful Mr. Handy tools for lighting summer barbecues and trimming rose bushes and so tenderly changing Shaun had become weapons. Tools of survival.
But Codsworth hadn't been there when it happened. She had intended to stick by Sanctuary, but the ghosts and the memories had driven her beyond the borders. The lake and the forest called to her, the blasted trees jutting from the hillsides like a wooden cheval de frise. There had been a broken dresser sitting in a clearing near a dilapidated shack. The remains of a toilet squatted in the front yard along with a molded red couch now faded a sickly melon color, and the pieces of the once white front door. Through the opening, darkness. Nothing moved—until she cracked open one of the drawers, and a woman bolted from the doorway, screaming, something silver and gleaming waving in her hand.
"MINE, MINE, MINE!" The woman chanted as if in the throes of some religious fugue, words rising in a phlegmy shriek. Her gray hair stuck out in matted tufts, half her teeth missing or rotted. The dirty blue flannel shirt she wore flapped in the wind, holes revealing another layer of grimy clothing. The silver thing—a pistol— pointed at her and fired.
The drawer exploded in her hands and she ducked, scrambling behind a large dead tree. More shots, splinters flying. She was going to die over a damn dresser. Another shot, this one sending wood grazing her cheek. She covered her face, shouting, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't know it was yours!"
"Mine, bitch! Mine!"
Her first human contact, and the woman was a fucking loon.
You betcha, honey. Loonier than a toon. And you know what you gotta do." Nate's voice in her head, rueful and unpleasant, like he had to break some bad news, and gosh he wished he didn't have to. She hadn't brought the gun she'd found in the Vault. Stupid, but the overgrown roaches and flies had been hard to hit, and it seemed more logical to save the bullets. She had a combat knife, but she hadn't planned on using that on anything but those purple fruit trees. They were a bitch to harvest with all their thorns.
Guess you get to prune something else instead, honey.
The woman reached the tree, panting like an animal, ragged and wheezy. "Gonna get you, bitch!" and she loosed a gleeful cackle that made the Wicked Witch of the West seem sane.
Go for the throat, the eyes. Do it quick.
The woman sprung around the tree in an Ah-Ha, found you! lunge, but found a knife in the throat instead. It stuck there dead center, almost comical with its slight wobble and position, until the blood started spurting around it, a bright red arc splashing the tree. The pistol in the woman's hands fired into the weeds and then fell to the ground. Its owner fell on top of it right after. The woman lay at her feet, gurgling, pawing at nothing, and then made a sad, tired sound before dying, as if relieved the whole messy business was over.
She shook over the body, fists balled at her sides, her breath rushing in and out. But it was only the aftershocks of adrenaline. No remorse came. No guilt. Nothing at all. Like she was a radio station receiving dead air.
She was crazy, higher than a red balloon on a windy day, Nate sounding pleased. Served the bitch right, I'd say.
She knew it wasn't Nate in her head. He was in Vault 111 where she'd left him, a chilled corpse inside a fancy hi-tech freezer. She couldn't bear to bury him. Not yet. No, this wasn't Nate. It was her, some dormant, seething part of her that had disguised itself as her husband. Soldier of war. Warrior of the apocalypse. If that's what it took to get Shaun back, then so be it.
Honey, trust me, it gets easier after the first.
Of course it did. It always did.
Codsworth was waiting for her back in Sanctuary, clucked over her like a jet-propelled hen. "Mum, you frightened me! I thought you were never coming back!"
No, she was back. And she was pissed. This Commonwealth would fear her. Hell hath no fury like a neglectful mother.
It took a week before she ventured out again. When the DIY training sessions with sharp pointy things and the few firearms she'd found had finally become second nature. When she had exhausted herself clearing out the homes of dead friends and neighbors. When she'd had enough of looking at the drooping form of Codsworth who was still in denial, still unable to accept reality. She didn't blame him. He was a machine after all. But he did have one useful thing to say:
"Concord, Mum, there are people there."
And she'd met one on her way there—not a person, but a dog, a German Shepherd that wouldn't stop following her. And that was fine; he did an amazing impression of a rabid wolf when anyone attacked her—which happened as soon as she stepped into town. More crazies like the woman, but these were in armor and carried bigger guns. The Crazies had besieged a group of people in the Museum of Freedom, the leader calling for help on the balcony. She had almost left him there, a desperate dark-skinned man who looked as if he'd stepped out of the colonial era: hat, coat and all. He wielded a laser version of a musket, red beams disintegrating any Crazy that came too close. If she left him there, she'd be no different than the ones trading gunfire with him.
The war may have ruined the world, but it didn't have to ruin her too.
Raiders, is what Preston Garvey called the people that had been hounding his group since Quincy, picking them off one by one until twenty had become five: Old Mama Murphy, Jun and Marcy Long—and Sturges, dear Sturges who actually made her laugh, made her feel human again, made her want to help. Her walls came down a little, enough to get the power armor on the roof and end the siege. The armor was clunky, hard to maneuver. How the hell had Nate tolerated this thing? It did keep bullets off her, and okay, it was thrilling to jump off the roof to the ground without a scratch, but it was like being encased in a metal coffin.
And when she couldn't stand being inside it anymore, a giant demon lizard burst from a tunnel under the street, tearing raiders apart and charging at her full speed, tossing her poor dog out of the way like a toy. Suddenly the metal coffin didn't seem so bad. Deathclaw was what Garvey called it after the dust had settled and the creature had breathed its last. Dead bodies of raiders littered the street, but her dog had survived, and Garvey and his settlers were safe. The Minutemen, he said, could use someone like you. But by then her walls were back up, higher than ever. Couldn't afford to get attached, get distracted. Shaun needed her.
Garvey could have Sanctuary. It wasn't home anymore.
But she wasn't alone, not really. The German Shepherd by her side went by the name of Dogmeat. An awful name, but he wouldn't answer to any other. Mama Murphy said he belonged to whomever he chose, and apparently he had chosen her. Dogmeat was safe. Not human, not robot; no aggravation or temptation. He did what she asked when she asked it. And the bonus: he did tricks and played fetch.
Diamond City holds answers, but they're locked tight. You ask them what they know, but people's hearts are chained up with fear and suspicion. But you find it. You find that heart that's gonna lead you to your boy. Oh, it's...it's bright. So bright against the dark alley it walks.
That mantra repeated itself in her head as she had neared this fabled Diamond City. Another one of Mama Murphy's little trips into the Twilight Zone, or Chem Zone to be more accurate. This was how the "sight" worked. Getting a frail old woman high, now that was a new low, no pun intended. Just another shitty thing on her shitty list of you should know betters. And it wasn't even the first. She was racking up a body count, cutting a bloody swathe through the Commonwealth like she'd been born to it. That Law degree seemed so far away now, a dream of a woman who no longer existed.
No, honey, not in this world. The weak get eaten or worse.
She glimpsed horrors on the way. Besides the massive mosquitoes, moles the size of Dogmeat, and miserable looking deer with two heads, there were humanoid creatures who twitched and shuffled like zombies. Ghouls, is what Garvey called them. Irradiated humans. Some are normal, but others have gone mad. Those are called ferals. The ferals seem to like abandoned buildings and train cars, so she avoided those. They also were attracted to noise, so she stayed quiet. Dogmeat whined low, ears laid back. He didn't seem to like ferals either. Given their misshapen bodies, bulbous heads, and filthy, tattered clothes, they probably smelled awful.
On her Pipboy, the Diamond city marker blinked ahead, the skyline of Boston looming through the fog.
The sight took her breath away. Gone were the pinnacles of technology, the marvels of modern architecture, its former glory shadowed now by an alternate city of decay and ruin. The bones of skyscrapers spiraled to the sky, stark and lifeless, windows like eyes gone dark. Great sheets of metal curled from the sides of buildings, rusted on roofs; collapsed highways blocked entire districts, the piles of debris so high they could be buildings themselves. Advertisement signs lay on their sides, or torn from their frames; huge Nuka Cola billboards lay like twisted corpses in the streets. Raiders were everywhere like an infestation, nesting in barricaded alleys or buzzing along plywood bridges that spanned between crumbling buildings. And some districts were guarded by big green creatures who looked like men—but due to radiation or something else—had grown twice the size, and were a hell of a lot more uglier. She'd have to ask someone what they were, if she made it to Diamond City alive. Thankfully the mean greens were idiots and easily evaded. Often bellowing stupid blue lady! as they attempted to give chase. Charming fellows.
The wooden signs to Diamond city seemed to spring out of nowhere, white arrows pointing to salvation. Another block, and turrets idled in strategic positions, the guards dressed in old baseball uniforms, umpire helmets. Some carried bats wrapped in barbed wire. One guard saw her vault suit and stared as if seeing a unicorn or dragon. Then he shook his head, freeing himself from the spell. He motioned toward a green wall peeking over the remains of an apartment building. That way, his nod said. Then he walked behind her as if making sure she got there all right, the gesture so civilized and goddamn sweet, she had trouble keeping the tears at bay. She sniveled as she walked, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Some warrior she was.
Diamond city. What her world had once called Fenway Park, this world now called The Great Green Jewel. Now she understood how Alice felt in Wonderland. All she needed was a Cheshire cat and some drink me potions. Suppose Dogmeat could be her cat, and her Mad Hatter could be the reporter lady cursing and stomping at the gate. They wouldn't let the reporter in, some sort of story she had printed about the Mayor. Something about synths—wait, this dump had a Mayor?
Why yes, yes it did. After the reporter used her to get inside, she had made his acquaintance, a portly man that oozed insincerity like a proper politician and was absolutely no help in finding Shaun. Nice to know some things didn't change.
However Piper Wright, pain in the ass to authority figures everywhere was all too eager to point her in the right direction—after an interview, of course. Piper wasn't happy with what the "Vault Dweller" (this damn vault suit needed to be burned) had to say about the state of this post-apocalyptic bliss, but really, could Piper blame her? She just wanted to kill the bastard that had shot her husband and get Shaun back. And if this Institute had a hand in any of it, she'd kill them too, boogiemen or not. Their synths sounded like clone people, bona fide Invasion of the Body Snatcher types, and while creepy, was really not her problem.
"Come on, Piper, where is this detective friend of yours?" She was already at the door of Piper's little hovel, hand on the cold, rusted knob. Outside, Piper's little sister, Nat, bellowed for people to read the Synthetic Truth. Dogmeat wandered around a small ratty rug as if deciding whether to lay on it or not, then wisely changed his mind. He padded over, bumped her leg with his nose and then sat on his haunches, panting.
Piper lit a cigarette, the match casting an orange glow on her chin and the ends of her silky dark hair. Disappointment in her eyes flickered like the match, her quirky smile not quite snuffing it out. "Okay, Blue, but you'll keep me in the loop, right? I'm not a sign or a street post here. People need the truth, and if you find out anything…" Piper let it trail off and fiddled with the cuff of her dull red press jacket, the brim of her newscap hiding her eyes.
"Yes, I'll give you the scoop. Promise." If she even bothered to come back here, that is.
"You're the best, Blue, you know that? All right, good old Valentine. Just follow the alley to the corner, and from there to the signs. You can't miss them. A great big neon heart with an arrow." Piper drew an imaginary heart in the air with her free hand.
"Neon heart? Is this Valentine running a brothel?"
Piper almost choked on her cigarette. "Oh shit!" she sputtered between coughing, her cheeks redder than a Nuka Cola label. "Oh wow, I can't wait to tell him that one."
Why was that so damn funny? Whatever, she didn't have time for games. With Dogmeat in tow, she left Piper still giggling in her cramped metal shack, and strolled past Nat balancing on a pallet that looked dangerously close to collapsing. The dark, narrow space between makeshift buildings beckoned, what the denizens of this quaint shanty town called an alleyway.
Oh, it's...it's bright. So bright against the dark alley it walks.
Not sure about the walking part, but the small sign burned like a street lamp, the surrounding metal shacks and boarded path bathed in a deep pink glow. Bright hearts floated in her vision long after she darted toward the direction of the arrow. It didn't bring to mind a brothel, no; it was more like an advertisement for a carnival sideshow. The signs you'd see shining like beacons over the main attractions, or gleaming near the openings of tents so garishly colored they hurt the eyes. An announcer's voice, booming and dramatic, played in her head: Come, see the great Monsieur Valentine unravel the mysteries of the universe! Witness his incredible and death-defying powers of deduction! Be stupefied and amazed as he unveils secret treasures and lost heiresses!
He probably wasn't even a real detective. Who here would know any better? It's not like he had any formal education or training. In this world, anyone who recovers a stolen bottlecap could say they were a detective.
Dogmeat waited outside, and she entered Valentine's office, expectations low. They dipped even further at his teary-eyed secretary caressing Valentine's ties, and babbling about him missing for two weeks. How the heck had Piper not known this? Wasn't this guy her buddy? And now look, another damn charity case. Of course Valentine had gotten himself into a mess. And of course she would hunt him down because finding the detective so he could find her son was just the way things worked in this world. She didn't say that though; the secretary, Ellie, seemed to genuinely care what happened to her boss, and plus it would have been mean. Someone in this world ought to have manners, even if she was screaming with frustration on the inside.
The search for the detective led to another Vault: Vault 114, Valentine's prison or grave-she wouldn't know until the end. And reaching the end took a while. This Skinny Malone character had employed an army. Some were normal men, but others were bald, skin ropey-looking and raw, no noses and black eyes. Oh, these must be the regular ghouls Garvey had mentioned. They may not be ferals, but they still gave her the willies, even if they did die screaming and pissing their pants like regular humans.
Level by level, she and Dogmeat cleared the Vault. Her weapon of choice: a razor-wired bat—courtesy of Moe's Swatters—and just as deadly in her hands as the submachine guns were in theirs. Before the Vault, she'd used the darkness of the subway to her advantage, creeping up and then attacking. Remember, honey, head, eyes, and throat, advised her so helpful dead husband. And inside the Vault, where the fluorescent lights illuminated every cobwebbed corner, she would take a hit of Jet—the Mama Murphy special—and barrel toward them with hyperspeed, yelling and swinging with all the savagery of an enraged cave woman, crushing their skulls like overripe mutfruit, her psychotic dog mauling the shit out of what was left.
There was something satisfying about getting blood all over the creamy walls, dirtying Vault Tec's pretty white towels and linen, knocking over shelves, denting lockers, and shattering the glass windows. She was merciless, reckless, and unstoppable, the reflection in her victims glazing eyes showing the same image again and again. Shaun in his crib, his chubby little arms reaching for her, and all the times she let Nate or Codsworth take her place. She didn't deserve to find him alive. She didn't deserve to find him at all. But she was here and Valentine needed her because who the fuck else was coming to rescue him? His bawling secretary? Mad Hatter Piper? Garvey and his band of not so-merry-men?
Last chamber, the centerpiece of the upper level a round window framed by the horizontal bars of a Vault Tec logo. The Overseer's office. A lone guard, some moron in a slick top-knot taunted someone inside, asking if the prisoner wanted snacks. Top-knot got a smart-ass barb in return that almost made her smile. So Valentine had sass.
She told Dogmeat to stay at the bottom of the stairs. Top-knot was hers. She crouched near the wall of the office, forming a battle plan. Though Valentine didn't know she was there, he did a good job of distracting his guard, got him all worked up over cheating at cards and his name being crossed off three times in Skinny Malone's black book. Something in Valentine's voice tugged at her, the thick Boston drawl sending a pleasant sensation through her lower half. He didn't sound old, but not young either. Maybe somewhere around Nate's age—the age he had been, rather. So hard not to think of Nate in that cryopod, a ring of bloody ice crystals around the small hole in his temple. Her hands clenched the bat, imagining what remained of baldy's face stuck in the razorblades. Top-knot whined about smoothing things over with Skinny Malone and jogged right toward her hiding place.
Top-knot would have breezed right past had she not uttered a wild yell and even wilder swing, exploding from her crouch, catching him under the chin and snapping his head back. Blood gushed from his bitten lips, tongue, and what remained of his chin. But he didn't go down. The hard-headed bastard staggered back, bumped into the window, leaving a bloody handprint on the glass. Dead silence from the room. No shouting of "What the hell?" Or "Who is that?" Or some other inane comment. Her respect for Valentine went up a notch.
Top-knot pawed at his holster. She threw herself at him, using the momentum to power the swing. His hand crumpled, two of his fingers tearing off. He howled and she slapped his mouth shut with swift undercut to his bleeding chin. He crashed to the floor, twitched once and died.
Her reflection in the window should have scared her. Fuck, she was a Neanderthal. She'd be picking hair and brains off razors and barbed wire for days. Blood covered the left side of her face, arterial spray from some ghoul in the first hall of the Vault. Still no sound from the Overseer's office. Past her reflection, a figure in shadow. Face hidden beneath a brim of a some sort of hat. But his eyes…she squinted, trying to make sense of it.
"Hey you. I don't know who you are, but we've got three minutes until they realize muscle-for-brains ain't coming back. Get this door open." Already Valentine was ordering her around. Well, she'd let it go. Who knew what these goons had done to him for the past two weeks.
His eyes stayed in her mind as she hacked the terminal to the door. When it opened, she hesitated. She had bulldozed through this Vault to reach this guy, so what was she afraid of? His eyes had glowed, right? No, they hadn't, stop being stupid. Valentine could be a ghoul, though. Not all of them had black pits for eyes. Those feral ones she'd avoided on her journey had eyes so bright they rivaled Valentine's sign.
She took a breath, steadying herself, then entered.
Valentine chose that exact moment to light a cigarette. In the dim office, the flare of the match threw his features in sharp relief. The effect was like a punch in the gut. She gasped, her hand fluttering to her mouth like some fucking damsel about to faint. Her cheeks swelled with instant heat. Why hadn't Ellie told her? Warned her? Did she think she wouldn't have come? Hell, had she known, she would've sprouted wings and flown here.
They stared at each other. He took a long drag, his radiant eyes appraising her, lingering on her vault suit a moment before settling on the dripping bat in her hands. His eyes, the iris an inverted horseshoe on the verge of closing, the shade between citrine and topaz. The whites of his eyes were some sort of textured metal, glinting embers where the light of his cigarette touched. His tan trench coat, two shades lighter than his worn fedora, hung open to his waist in a patchwork of repairs and frayed hemlines. His pants needed a good mending, as did his drab white shirt and dusty tie.
The silence lengthened and grew awkward. The cigarette switched hands, going from his undamaged hand to the metal framework of his other. A bubble of hysterical giggles welled in her throat, but she clamped her lips shut. Smoking…he was smoking. Like a person, like a human. Then he spoke to fill the silence, said something her fogged mind didn't quite comprehend.
"Gotta love the irony of the reverse damsel-in-distress scenario," he said, his voice heavy with wry humor. The subtlety and nuances of his accent couldn't have been programmed. Then again, it had been two hundred years. Tech had certainly advanced beyond Mr. Handy or the protectron. Whomever had made this creature had outdone themselves. Valentine then mused out loud, his gaze penetrating and cautious. "Question is, why did our heroine risk life and limb for an old private eye?"
"What are you?" It came out as a squeak. Nothing makes a memorable first impression quite like hysterics. He cocked an etched eyebrow, all-too-human mouth lifting in a lopsided smile, then he stared past her and grew solemn again. The bloody handprint on the window. Her violence to free him. She would do it again in a heartbeat.
"Look, I told you," Valentine said, somehow sounding both patient and irritated, as if he'd explained this one too many times, "I'm a detective. I know the metal and plastic parts ain't comforting, but that's not important right now. What matters is why you went to all this trouble to cut me loose."
Metal and plastic parts ain't comforting...oh if he only knew. "A baby," she blurted, trying to look everywhere but at Valentine's face. On either side of his cheeks, a wide jagged crack revealed the metal skeleton beneath, and a glimmer of golden eye socket. Her own cheeks went molten. "I need help finding my baby. He was taken, by people"-shit, of course he had been taken by people-"I mean, by a man, and a woman...I think. At least the other sounded like a woman, I don't know. He—my husband…is gone. He's dead. Shot by the man who stole Shaun…my baby. That's his name." She had killed over a dozen men and here she was, blubbering, but whatever level of pathetic she appeared and sounded like, it seemed to work. Valentine smothered his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray on the Overseer's desk, voice low with sympathy.
"Oh, damn…I'm—that's awful. I'm so sorry," he said with such sincerity it brought tears to her eyes. "Listen, don't worry about the details right now. I've taken cases with less. If we get out of here alive, you have my word that I'll do everything I can to find your boy."
She nodded. Twisting the bat had become a nervous tick. Dogmeat nudged her leg with a whine. She had forgotten he was there. Valentine chuckled, a gliding sound that did all sorts of things to parts she didn't want to think about right now.
Maybe old Valentine here has a windup key, why don't you ask him to take off his pants so you can check. A nasty edge to Nate's voice, vindictive, intent on sabotaging the one thing that had finally started to go well.
Shut up, I don 't need you anymore.
Oh right, you have a shiny new toy to play with. Well that 's swell, honey. Real swell. Just remember, when he rejects you I'll be here.
"Well hello again, boy. You keep good company." Whether he meant her or Dogmeat, she couldn't tell. Valentine hunkered down to scratch Dogmeat behind the ears with his framework hand, the metal sliding though the thick fur, the dog whining with pleasure and thumping his tail. What she wouldn't give to trade places right now. "This one is a bit picky who he runs with," Valentine said. "But once he's made up his mind, he's loyal to the end. Aren't ya, boy?" Dogmeat gave a soft woof, as if reminding them danger still lurked nearby. Valentine straightened and doffed his fedora at her. "And does my heroine have a name?"
From the tantalizing glimpse under his hat, the cracks from his damaged cheeks hadn't quite touched his smooth, bald head. They tapered into the thicker line that fused the back of his skull with the front. Her fingers curled around the bat, already tracing those edges. He was like a living doll, a beautiful, broken doll. And then she was a child back in her bed again, all those nights of dreaming, hands roaming, pretending something like him existed.
A robot. And a man. Perfection.
She hid her smile behind the curtain of her dark hair, her name like a promise.
"Nora."