Hallelujah: Part One (Hancock)
Notes: This was written and edited in an insane twelve-hour Christmas-happy fervor this afternoon. I hope you all enjoy, and happy holidays.
The room is dim, as always. The boarded-over windows let in a bit of brilliant neon from the streets below; the fractured pink light from the Memory Den sign casts a shadow on Magnolia's limp body on the bed.
Hell of a gal, that one.
Hancock reaches one withered, leathery hand out to the inhaler of Jet that sits on the table beside his chair and lifts it to his mouth. One long hit later, and he's flying on rooftops, his skin aflame even as his heart is a piece of ice. Or maybe it's the other way around; perhaps it's his heart burning a hole through his chest even as his skin freezes over.
He looks down at the supple curve of Magnolia's hip, at the smooth skin of her naked thigh, pale under the pink light, and wonders why he still feels so alone. He ought to feel satisfied, if nothing else. The broad came up to him that night for the first time - usually he's the one dealing with her capricious nature, but this time she came after him, all red lips and bouncing breasts and since when has he been one to say no to...well, anything?
He sighs; the jet inhaler drops from his hand and lands on the floor with a clatter. He can see it down there, the pink handle - it's only a few inches away but also miles, and instead he slumps in his chair, his mind singing and his fingers fumbling in his coat for the half-smoked pack of cigarettes he knows are in there.
Eventually, he finds them and pulls one from the crumpled pack. Lighting it is another struggle, but somehow he finds his lighter and flips it open. It lights on the third try, and then he's sucking the harsh smoke through his ratty lungs. The tumors on the left one irritate when the smoke hits them but - well, that's one of the perks of being a ghoul. It's not like they're going to kill him, at least not any time soon.
The smoke wafts towards the ceiling in lazy circles and curlicues, dissipating before it reaches the cracked and graying plaster.
Once, he was a boy. A human boy, and not even that long ago, just thirty years past. He remembers Christmases in their shack by the water. His brother - that asshole - was always disappointed by everything. If their parents gave them any type of gift, no matter what it was, guy found a way to turn it all to shit. He'd pitch a fit, screaming for more, better, now.
And now he's in charge of Diamond City, that lying prick.
Hancock pictures his brother's smile, the ugly one he saw the day that Carl finally forced all the ghouls out of his little fiefdom. The grotesque way it curled up the sides of his face, and it made John's skin break out, it made his skin crawl. This was back when he had skin, of course - and how he regretted it, then.
The ghouls, their families - he tried to save them, but none of them took to Goodneighbor. They wandered out into the ruins. Some of them made it to settlements, but he's found the bodies of some of the rest over the years, broken and tragic in destroyed buildings, or hanging from super mutants' nets. The thought of it makes him ache, inside, deep in his heart, where he hopes no one can see.
His swagger, it's a joke, a cover. It's a disguise for what's underneath.
Hancock takes another lazy drag on his cigarette and looks up at the ceiling, at the interesting pattern the light makes through the cracked boards over the window.
No wonder he took that drug when he did, just a month after his brother expelled the ghouls from Diamond City. It had been just two days after he found the first bodies. A family - two parents, a grown child, grandma. All four of them, ghoulified since just after the war and now dead, their corpses on his brother's hands.
He'd held the drug in his hand, had wondered idly if it would kill him. Decided it didn't matter.
And now, instead of being dead, he's this.
He looks at dessicated flesh of his hand, at the plume of smoke from his cigarette, and wonders. Why does he blame himself for his brother's missteps? He remembers Carl killing mole rats and bloatflies down by the river when they were kids, his face intense and satisfied whenever he could keep one alive long enough to see its insides with it still wriggling. He remembers the year their parents brought them a kitten for Christmas. More accurately, he remembers what happened to the kitten.
The thought makes his wish for more Jet - this isn't something he wants to think of; he wants to be high, to forget. He scrabbles under his chair for the inhaler and Magnolia rolls over with a soft exhalation at the noise. He pauses, aching, until she settles, and then resumes his search. When his hands find it, he breathes a sigh of relief; he puts it to his mouth and presses down, and the familiar foul scent of methane followed by the release, and a sigh drops out of him, soft and comfortable.
His chair is soft and for a moment is swallows him as he rides out the initial rush, the moments when each second lasts an eternity. He looks at Magnolia, still exposed, her creamy skin flushed under the neon. Somehow the pale cast of her exposed ass doesn't entice him; he feels lonelier than ever.
He wonders why he feels so alone; he has everything he's ever wanted. Goodneighbor is doing well, he has more chems and caps than he knows what to do with, he has women like Magnolia taking him home. It's too much to hope that he'll find someone for forever and he knows that. He may be a closet romantic but he's no fool - nobody's going to look at his withered and skinless face and fall in love.
There was a book he read once, or most of it, at least - he doesn't remember the title or the main character's name. What he does remember is that the man in it kept a painting of himself in the attic and whenever he did something ugly or unhealthy, he become more beautiful and the portrait became more grotesque.
He thinks back on that vial of the radiation drug, of that fateful moment when he considered the ramifications of taking it. It glowed orange, an unnatural and deadly orange, and the needly glinted dully in the candles around him. He considered not taking it, then thought of Carl's smile, of the family of dead ghouls, and he knew that he didn't care to keep living in this world.
Magnolia's hip is too enticing, the way it curves into the firm contour of her ass, and he stubs his cigarette out into the ashtray on the dresser beside him. He doesn't want to think anymore, he doesn't want to consider whether he's worthy of love or whether his brother is an asshole (he is). All Hancock wants for Christmas, as he wants most days, is to forget. The Jet isn't working, and the tempting gash between Magnolia's legs is the next best thing.
Hancock leans over her, tracing the line of her body with one hand. His fingers might not have much in the way of nerve-endings anymore, but he can still feel the way her skin puckers and she lifts one of her legendary breasts towards him. He ignores it for now, lifting the blanket and ducking his head towards her middle.
There are more distractions under the sun than anyone ever considered, he thinks as he parts her legs and opens his mouth.
Tomorrow he can start wondering about all this; Christmas is a time for miracles, and he's going to have one if it kills him.
