Sherlock finds her in a water puddle. She's young, weak, unable to stand on her legs. Her coat is russet, filthy, and has hints of pink if the sun is over her, in the right light. She weighs nothing, though she can put up a fight.

He sits with her in the water puddle, clothes drenched, the device on his wrist crackling. It hurts his head, the static shoveling holes into his temples. "It's okay," he tells her, arms around her thin neck as she begins to relax. Her knees tremble, and then she falls, flopping onto her side and splashing Sherlock with more water. His wrist carves craters with its loud, repetitive buzzing noise. He won't leave. He adapts. He can't leave her.

"Rosie," he decides, his thumb rubbing dry mud from above her black eye. "I'll call you Rosie."

Rosie moos.

It's nice to have someone to talk to, while he's traveling. With no clear destination in mind, he often felt lost, trapped—even in this open environment. It changes when he gets a companion, despite her not being able to carry a relatively coherent conversation.

"Look over there," Sherlock says.

Rosie turns her head, hums a noise that seems interested.

"That's a rock," Sherlock says.

Rosie snorts, a push of air through her nostrils, which Sherlock takes to possibly mean something obvious. She trots now, her head held high, her hooves hard against the concrete road they discover. It's hot, burning the soles of Sherlock's shoes. Made of cloth, thin around the top and a tad thicker at the bottom, these are the shoes they are required to wear in the vault. They are not made for outside. They are not designed with the idea of going outside in mind.

Sherlock's feet are covered in blisters. He sits next to a lake, the waves hitting the wooden deck to his left. The boards are falling apart. Rosie is poking around, her head bobbing. Sherlock peels off his shoes, then his socks. As soon as his feet touch the water, his wrist begins to static. Rosie bleats, Sherlock grimaces, and he shoves his feet deeper into the contaminated water.

He doesn't know where he's going. He walks in the grass, his shoes tossed in the bag on his back. Rosie is quiet next to him. Her ears twitch, her nostrils flare.

She notices the dead body first. It's lying on its side, twisted and broken with a shaved head and a busted face. The pack attached to the hip is empty, save for a few bottle caps. Sherlock pockets those.

Rosie bows her head and nudges the body's feet, the boots, the protection.

Sherlock can't bury the body. There are no tools nearby, the dirt is dry, and he thinks he might go into cardiac arrest if he puts forth more effort than his body can handle right now. He hasn't eaten in days. He drinks from puddles they pass. It isn't wise, but there's nothing else. Rosie even laps a bit.

Sherlock gathers a few plants, mostly weeds, and sets them on the corpse's chest. Rosie snaps at them, but Sherlock touches her muzzle, and she stops.

They continue down the road. Sherlock's feet are okay.

It's when they are passing a fellow wanderer Sherlock realizes something might be wrong.

"I hope you're not gonna eat that," he says, tugging a worn-out baseball cap on his head. It blocks the sun. His skin is red and chapped.

"Why would I eat her?" Sherlock asks. Rosie blinks. "Why wouldn't I eat her?"

"It's hell out here," he replies, his hands going inside pockets. "I'd eat anything, but I wouldn't eat that brahmin."

"Why?"

"She's only got one head, mate."

The traveler leaves them. Sherlock pets Rosie. Her fur is tangled again. "I don't care if you have one head, Rosie."

Rosie doesn't care either. She squints at Sherlock. They continue on their way.

He's read about brahmin while he was in the vault. Essentially, they're cows, born of the cattle exposed to the elements during the War. They evolved to the point where they grow two heads and several other abnormal features. The bulls have four testicles, while their female counterparts have udders almost double in size. Like normal cows, brahmin have many stomachs. Unlike normal cows, they have eight. Two hearts beat in their chest, a sound Sherlock wishes he could experience. He had gotten on his knees in front of Rosie in curiosity, wrapping his arms around her neck and pressing his ear to her flank. His own heart was racing, eager, happy, but he found the lone beat of a single heart.

On occasion, brahmin do give birth to a calf that takes on the appearance of the pre-War cattle, but they are considered mutated.

Rosie resembles the typical pre-War calf: small, one head, one heart, and four stomachs. When she matures, and if she ever becomes pregnant, her udder will not be engorged. She will be, in the eyes of everyone who sees her, a freak.

At night, Sherlock holds her as she sleeps, her ribcage visible beneath his arms. Attachment is bad, but the attachment started when he gave her a name, when he decided to save her. Her mother must have abandoned her, or her owner—if she even had an owner. The traveler they met said he wouldn't eat her, probably wouldn't even drink her milk if it came down to it.

Rosie shivers, and Sherlock shivers, too.

Clean water will never be found. In trunks, toolboxes, packs, Sherlock savages bottles, but the liquid inside them burns his lips and rips his throat. Water was something he never had to worry about when he was a child, whose only fear was radroaches.

"They're everywhere," Sherlock tells Rosie, grinding the head of one of the horrid creatures into the ground. "Why are they everywhere?"

Rosie grunts.

It's hot out here. Sherlock takes to risking his skin as he bathes in a river. Rosie knows it's unsafe. She's pacing along the coast, her head bobbing, her eyes narrowed. Tiny noises come from her nostrils, like scolding, like disapproval. Sherlock ignores her. He ignores the static on his wrist, in his ears, and ducks under the water.

"It's called a Pip-Boy. This is the Pip-Boy 3000. I think this is one of the older models, though… not that it matters. The sound you hear when I get in water is the Geiger counter. You know what that means? You're a smart cow."

Rosie blinks. She looks at Sherlock's wrist again.

He continues, "I got it on my tenth birthday. I didn't want it at first. That was the day I bit off a boy's ear…"

Rosie snorts.

"He was mean to me. He made me be the mutant in Hunt the Mutant. It was my birthday. I shouldn't have to be the mutant."

Rosie leans her head against Sherlock's. Sherlock closes his eyes.

"I don't know why I left," Sherlock says, as they settle down for the night. The shack's occupants are two dead bodies—a man and a woman. The mayor of the small town, Arefu, said their son killed them and drank their blood. At the time, Sherlock didn't necessarily find it shocking to question, but once he and Rosie rest in a bed with the two bodies next to them, he thinks he should have asked if the bodies were removed. He assumed. The mayor mentioned the killing, and that was all.

Sherlock buries his nose in Rosie's coat, feeling bad she's exposed to the smell, but not feeling bad enough to bring himself to face the odor.

"I don't know why I left," Sherlock says into Rosie's fur. "In retrospect, I was happy. Yes, I was bored, but… it was boring down there. I don't think any of us could stand being locked up for much longer. Something happened, and chaos erupted. I hear this talk of some lone wanderer… from the people we meet, the towns we visit… They're also from Vault 101. I don't remember them that well."

The dead bodies don't say anything. Rosie hums.

"Mummy wanted out of there. I wonder if she made it… and my dad, too… I don't care about my brother. He managed to weasel his way up the ranks, akin to an Overseer. He can go to hell."

Rosie moos. It scares Sherlock. He raises his head, eyes wide. "You're right. We're already in hell."

Sherlock and Rosie run into the same fellow wanderer again. This time, his skin is clear, and his blond hair is free to the open sky. It's stuck up in some odd places, wind-licked. When he sees Sherlock and Rosie, he smiles and waves. "Hullo."

"Hello…"

Rosie snorts.

The wanderer laughs. "Still have her, I see."

"Yes…"

He laughs again. Sherlock frowns.

"Well, I'll see you again, no doubt." He has a shotgun on his back, a knife on his belt, and a bag hanging off an arm. The clothes he's wearing are sweat-stained, dirty, but other than that, they look new. He must have ransacked either a dead traveler or an empty house. He looks ready for anything.

As he passes them, the sun catches on a ring through his left eyebrow. Sherlock scratches Rosie behind her ears.

The next time they find water, Sherlock guzzles it down and doesn't think anything of his wrist not letting off static.

Sherlock's backpack is full of junk—a teddy bear, duct tape, bottle caps, old shoes, wrinkled casual clothing, batteries, and anything he thought might be useful, but hasn't proved to be useful as of yet.

He has a pistol, too, but it's attached to his hip, and he plans to never fire it. So far, no unwelcome travelers have approached them, and if he encounters a violent animal, he and Rosie take turns kicking it until it stops moving.

For food, Sherlock goes inside buildings and pries open snack dispensers and shoves any consumables into his bag. He sits outside with Rosie after he does this, tearing into potato crisps and boxes of thawed-out Salisbury steak. Rosie likes fruit and vegetables. She doesn't make as much noise as she does with any other food. Most of her noises are… bad, even painful, but Sherlock doesn't know what to do about them. He sits beside her, a box of cereal in his arms, rubbing the back of one of her legs with his palm. Rosie is a good companion. Not often, but often enough, she turns into a bad distraction. While Sherlock is petting Rosie's leg, he fails to notice the two people coming up behind him until he hears the loading of a gun and a gravelly voice hissing, "Give me the box, smoothskin."

The name is unfamiliar to Sherlock's ears. It raises suspicion, interest, and Sherlock turns around to stare at his attacker to hand over the box of cereal he's still holding.

He only sees the barrel of an assault rifle. The sun is bright and obscures everything else. Sherlock squints, but it does no good. Rosie starts to bellow.

"Don't shoot 'im, Barrett. He's no smoothskin."

The gun doesn't leave Sherlock's line of vision, though something is added. A man crouches, his head now level with the gun. Thin brown hair, spectacles, rotting flesh, and all, he's much easier to see down here. Sherlock looks at him, his eyes growing wide. He keeps a hand on Rosie, hoping to calm her down, as his other hand continues to grip the box of cereal. "'Smoothskin'?" asks Sherlock. He is unable to pick apart anything from the man in front of him. Sherlock doesn't know his motivation, his past, his intentions. Fear cuts into Sherlock. It's hard to swallow.

"Human," the man says, gesturing vaguely at Sherlock. "You're not of 'em—at least not anymore."

Barrett lowers his gun. A quick glance at him informs Sherlock his skin is much like the other man's. It's peeling, decaying. Sherlock feels faint. "What do you mean? I'm human. I came from a vault."

Barrett chuckles darkly, then grows silent.

"When was the last time you looked at your reflection, kid?"

Murphy is the man's name. He and Barrett lead Sherlock and Rosie to their home base at Northwest Seneca station—on one condition. "I'll need that box of Sugar Bombs," Murphy says, and shows Sherlock a pouch of bottle caps. "You got the stuff, I got the caps. A match made in heaven."

Inside, Sherlock finally looks at his reflection, and immediately drops the mirror. Barrett catches it before it shatters. He gives Sherlock a scathing look, which is ignored by Sherlock, who is looking elsewhere. His mind is focused on other things—for instance… when exactly did his skin begin to rot? Why and how did this happen? And why is it Rosie is fine with drinking the water, but Sherlock is reduced to a—

"Zombie," he sighs, "I'm a zombie."

Murphy frowns. "We don't like that word."

"He talks like a smoothskin," Barrett says.

Rosie doesn't think there's anything wrong with Sherlock. She nudges him, her black eyes big and an apparent smile on her snout. The sounds she makes are happy, too, high-pitched and relaxing. Sherlock hugs her and hides his tears in her neck.

"You need to learn how to use that gun," Barrett tells Sherlock. "There's gonna be smoothskins out there, just waiting to shoot you in the fucking head."

"Why would they do that?"

"Because we're different. Because you're different."

So, reluctantly, Sherlock learns how to shoot first and ask questions later.

"It's us or them," Barrett says, and Sherlock nods, and Rosie watches, and Murphy moans about Sugar Bombs.

"Do you really need glasses?" Sherlock narrows his eyes and leans forward. "Do they even have glass in them?"

"Do you really need a mutated brahmin?" Murphy shakes his head. "To each their own. Now go out there and get me some more Sugar Bombs. I almost got enough to make another batch of ultrajet."

After giving Rosie's ear a rub, Sherlock and her head out.

Northwest Seneca station isn't that bad of a place when compared to others. Sherlock remembers sleeping with corpses, in abandoned houses with busted-in windows and missing doors, among dried grass and docks and water that tastes so good to Sherlock and like poison to Rosie. Before meeting Murphy and Barrett, Sherlock only has Rosie. After meeting Murphy and Barrett, Sherlock still only has Rosie, but it's nice to fall asleep to the two ghouls bickering.

They like the word "ghouls" or "necrotic post-humans", but nobody actually says that one.

"As long as it isn't 'zombie'," Barrett says.

"Or 'shuffler'," Murphy adds.

"Or 'brain-eater'."

"In folklore, ghouls are associated with graveyards and consuming human flesh. Is that any better than 'zombie' or 'brain-eater'?" Sherlock runs his fingers along Rosie's neck.

Barrett grunts. Murphy shakes his head.

Sherlock doesn't know how to feel. He avoids looking at his reflection, though he doesn't need a mirror to notice the way his body is reacting to the radiation. Most of his nails have decayed, fallen off early in the morning or late at night during slumber. Clumps of his hair appear on Rosie whenever he gets up for the day. Her russet fur and his black locks don't look good together. Sherlock brushes off his hair, off his makeshift pillow, off Rosie, and doesn't think about it. Murphy and Barrett both have hair, albeit not as much as a human, but hair all the same. They seem to have the same haircut, as well, which Sherlock isn't too thrilled to discover. He worries if ghouls are required to have the same haircut. Sherlock hasn't seen a ghoul before Murphy and Barrett.

"Will I…?" Sherlock chews on the inside of his cheek. "I don't want…"

"Will you look like us? You don't want to look like us?" Murphy finishes, arms over his chest. "Over time, you'll rot like us. You'll smell like us. You'll talk like us. Maybe you won't if you stay away from the rads. Maybe you will regardless if you stay away from the rads. It ain't too bad."

"That's… uh… I wondered if I would be able to die." Sherlock presses his palms together. "I don't want to live forever."

"Tough shit," Barrett says. "Get used to it."

Sherlock travels farther and farther each day. Some days, and even some weeks, Sherlock doesn't talk to Murphy nor Barrett. He has Rosie, and Rosie has him.

"Fancy a trip to Rivet City?" Murphy says, stretching a map over a table. "Heard there were four boxes of Sugar Bombs there—if you don't mind getting your hands dirty."

"I have to steal."

"You've done it before. Is that a problem now? Have you had a sudden change in character? A shift in your karma?"

Sherlock is on his way to Rivet City. Rosie trots next to him, humming, eyes squinty and happy. Sherlock keeps a hand on the pistol on his belt and keeps watch from most, if not all, directions. He doesn't want to encounter anyone. On expeditions such as this, it's expected that he run into strangers. It's happened more times than he would have liked. Many of them were nice, even offered him some supplies and given sympathetic looks at Rosie. Despite thinking she was mutated, they were quick to pet her when Sherlock allowed.

And sometimes, the strangers were not so nice, and Sherlock had to shove bullets in their heads. He didn't like it when that happened. Rosie didn't either. On those nights, she would bellow and refuse to sleep. Sherlock stayed up and held onto her neck and sang her songs, told her stories about his time in the vault. Soon, he would give a bellow of his own. The sun rose all the same.

For the third time, Sherlock and Rosie cross paths with the fellow wanderer. He's wearing the baseball cap from their first encounter. The shotgun is in his hands this time, holding it, his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot, ready to fire.

"Oh," he says, his shoulders slacking. "It's you."

"Yes…"

"Hullo."

"Hello…"

He laughs and returns the shotgun to his back. "I'm impressed, you know? You still have that brahmin."

"Yes…"

"She looks healthy, I suppose. It's nice to see you taking care of… something." He notices Sherlock and his skin, his awful skin, his missing nose, his missing ear, his hair, oh, God, his hair. "Did you get caught in one of those mushroom clouds?" the wanderer asks, gesturing vaguely. "No… I guess not. She would have been affected, too, wouldn't she? She doesn't leave your side—kind of like a dog."

"If you didn't know already, don't drink the water." Sherlock smiles. "Sherlock."

"John," says John, and holds out his hand. He isn't bothered by Sherlock's affliction. "On your way to Rivet City?"

"Yes…" Sherlock narrows his eyes. "I don't think they'll allow me in."

"You're probably right."

"Could you do something for me?" Sherlock shows John his map, at the marked locations. "Four boxes," he explains, "in there. Can you get them?"

John shrugs. "Maybe. What's in it for me?"

"The… ghoul I'm getting these for, I've managed to get thirty caps a box from him. I'll give you the one hundred and twenty caps from this trip."

John doesn't look interested. "I'm not interested."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "What could you possibly want? Caps are good. You always need caps."

"That's true."

"And Rosie… you don't want her, do you?"

Rosie blinks.

John laughs. "You named her Rosie?"

"Yes, and you can't have her."

"I didn't want her, mate. You can… keep her. A match made in… well, not exactly heaven." John scratches his chin. "I was actually wondering if you… might want to…" John licks his lips.

Sherlock's mouth drops, stammers. "Oh. I… I'm flattered, but I don't think—"

"No, I wasn't… no." John shakes his head, then frowns. "Okay, maybe I was, but if you don't want to, then pretend I didn't… just say that."

"Yes."

John furrows his brow. "Hm?"

Sherlock smiles, a small thing. "Yes."

John smiles, too. "Good."

They set up camp.

"Make yourself at home," says John. "This shouldn't take too long."

And it doesn't. In and out. John rattles a box in Sherlock's ear to wake him up. Rosie doesn't appreciate that. She huffs.

"Why does he need these anyway?" asks John, settling next to Sherlock, an arm behind his head. "Had a craving for cereal?"

"He's making ultrajet." Sherlock scans John, his cheek against Rosie's flank. "Have you ever tried it?"

John shakes his head, scrubbing his hand over his face, fiddling with the ring through his eyebrow. "My sister has. I don't know where she is… Last I saw her, she was sneaking out the tent with most of our food and some girl's lipstick on her cheek." John sighs, smiles softly. "I hope she's okay."

John knows a quicker way to Northwest Seneca station. "Do you live here? With them?"

"They haven't kicked me out. Does that mean I live there?"

"Where did you live before?"

"In a vault. I escaped. And no, I'm not that lone wanderer they keep talking about on the radio."

John laughs. Sherlock likes it when John laughs. "I didn't say you were."

Barrett takes none too kindly to John. "Get away from me, smoothskin."

"You know there's a whole city of ghouls?" John nods. "I went there after I visited Andale. I much preferred Underworld."

"One hundred and twenty caps." Murphy passes the pouch to Sherlock. He drops it into his bag. "I marked more places on your map. Leave whenever you want."

Sherlock leaves that night.

"Has no one really tried to kill Rosie?" John passes his palm along her back, down her spine. Her tail swings. "In fights, during gunfire, does she really not get hit? How does that happen?"

Rosie moos. Sherlock hugs her. "I don't know."

John takes Sherlock and Rosie to Underworld. Sherlock meets Tulip, Winthrop, Doctor Barrows, and Snowflake. Sherlock likes Snowflake the most. He's a hair stylist—or so he says—and is dying to work on someone with a full head of hair. When John doesn't step forward, Sherlock realizes Snowflake is talking about him. It takes everything to not burst into tears.

He gets a trim, nothing too severe. Snowflake is even happy to cut Rosie's fur. Rosie is delighted, too.

They're staying in Carol's Place tonight. The owners, Carol and Greta, direct their disgusted grimaces at John rather than Rosie.

"I thought more people would give Rosie looks here." Sherlock kicks off his shoes.

"Have you forgotten where we are? Underworld. A home for ghouls." John sits beside Sherlock. "They see Rosie as an extension of them. And me? I'm a trespasser. I'm a no good smoothskin. It makes sense."

Rosie turns in circles, nesting in the corner of the room.

Sherlock closes his eyes. "Right."

John doesn't sleep. Sherlock doesn't sleep. Rosie sleeps. She snores. Sherlock is on his stomach, plucking stuffing from the pillow and listening to John. John is talking about wanting to be a doctor, about wanting to join the Brotherhood of Steel. "I don't know if they would even take me, though."

"Why wouldn't they?"

"You know."

Sherlock doesn't know, but he acts like he does. "Right."

"Besides, I quite like hopping place to place with you and that bloody brahmin. Hunting down cereal is something I didn't picture myself doing." John tilts his head, his cheek resting against the pillow Sherlock is currently ripping apart. "What do we do when we can't find any more Sugar Bombs?"

Sherlock shrugs. "Look for something else?"

"I met this girl who wanted… thirty bottles of Nuka-Cola Quantum. We could do that. Forty caps each."

Sherlock shrugs again. "Sounds okay."

"Or we could do this."

And John kisses Sherlock, taking the side of his scabbed and burned and rotted face, and kisses him and kisses him some more. Sherlock's lips are still attached. He's so thankful for that. He's even thankful for his head of hair. John is cupping the back of his head now, holding him close, so close, and Sherlock climbs on top of John and kisses him and kisses him some more.

John breaks into a fit of giggles during this. He hides his face in Sherlock's neck, peppering wet kisses and laughter there. "Do I need to pop a RadAway now?"

And Sherlock giggles, too. He has to, he has to.

"Have you tried removing that?" John points at Sherlock's Pip-Boy. "Can it be removed?"

"It used to tell me if I was near radiation. It doesn't work too well now."

"No, I suppose not." John sticks out his tongue in thought, scratching his eyebrow. "Can I try?"

It takes an entire evening, but Sherlock's wrist is freed. It feels as if Sherlock has lost a limb, but then John rubs his thumb into the skin, into the human skin, and Sherlock kisses him, and John kisses him, and Sherlock forgets what it means to be a freak for the night.

With packs full of Sugar Bombs, guns loaded, and Rosie with a leash made of old clothes around her neck (she's leading them more than they're leading her), they pass a full set of armor. It's shiny, freshly polished, and oozing of authority. "Hello there, travelers," the power armor says. "How are you doing?"

"Fine, we're fine." John is in charge of Rosie. He twists the leash through his fingers, playing, absent-minded. "Are you part of the Brotherhood of Steel?"

"Yes," they say, and move their attention to the cargo behind them. Another power armor is marching along, lifting crates onto a brahmin—a proper brahmin, two heads, normal. Rosie watches it, ears flicking.

"What are you doing here?" Sherlock eyes the crates. "What's in the crates?"

The helmet hides the face. If they're shocked to see a ghoul within their presence, they don't show it. Even their voice is steady. "Water," they say. "We're visiting each settlement and passing it out. It's recently purified. Have you heard? The Lone Wanderer saved us all. Project Purity was a complete success."

John falters. "Are you—are you serious? No more radiation?"

"It will take a while for all the water to be purified, I will admit, but giving out bottles of it now is the least we can do. Would you like some?"

"God, yes."

Sherlock gets the first bottle. He holds it for Rosie. She drinks and drinks, and the sounds leaving her are some of the happiest she has ever made. Sherlock cries and wipes away the tears before anyone can see.

As the exchange continues, the power armor next to the pack brahmin turns to Sherlock. The helmet moves up and down, like the person inside is scanning Sherlock. They snort. "Maybe the purified water won't do so well for you now."

John drops a case of six bottles onto the ground. He grips his knees and laughs and laughs and laughs.