Hello readers! I would like for you all to know that this is my first ever FanFic so I don't expect it to be extremely popular but I'm still proud of it. The only reason this story ever got written is because of three encouraging, inspiring, and ass-kicking sets of people. First: my parents who always noticed that I had some pretty good ideas for a story. Second: my best friend who would always either tell me I need to get my ideas written down or chew my ass out for not doing so already. Finally: Red Slayer and his story "The Girl with the Blood Red Hair" for, if I had not read it, I never would have had the inspiration to actually hunker down and start writing. Now, this story is rated M for mostly cussing and bloody violence, I may have some sprinkle of romance later on but not too much since I suffer from LOE. For those of you who don't know what LOE is, it is a very deadly disease called Lack Of Experience. :P For all you suing addicts out there, I do not own Fallout New Vegas nor any of the characters, except for Damian and my friend owns another one. So, without further adieu, on with the story!

Chapter 1: Ain't That a Kick in the Head

"Son of a bitch that hurts!" a man, who looked to be in his early thirties, said as he reached up to his head, which is covered in bandages and some even reached down and covered his left eye, some champagne-colored hair was peeking between the bandages as well. He looked around to find himself in an unfamiliar bed in a house just as foreign to him as the bed.

"Ah! A sign of life! Well isn't this good news, I was beginning to worry. You've been out for a good two days now." a voice sounded from his left. When the man looked over, he found an elderly, balding man, who looked to be in his late sixties.

"Huh? Who are you and where the hell am I?" the man inquired who was feeling extremely irritable because his head wouldn't stop throbbing for some unknown reason.

"I'm Doc Mitchell and you're in a friendly little town by the name of Goodsprings," Doc Mitchell explained, "and, like I've said, you've been out for a while now. You should probably take it easy for a little bit before you- hey slow down!" While the Doc was talking, the man began to try and sit up. When he actually got up, he realized he might have gotten up too fast and almost fell back down, if Doc Mitchell hadn't caught him.

"Okay, ow... Now my head hurts worse. You got any Med-X Doc?" The man was in a considerable amount of pain from his attempt to sit up.

"I'd give you some but I'm afraid you would overdose. I've already got you on three doses of it." Mitchell informed the man, "If you don't mind me askin', what's your name? Do you remember your name?"

"It's uhh... It's Damian, Damian Winchester." Damian replied as he rubbed his forehead, "What happened to me?"

"We found you up at the cemetery in an exceptionally shallow grave with two bullet holes in your... head." Mitchell reluctantly answered, "And good thing we found you when we did, any longer and I doubt you would've made it."

"Oh... WHAT?" Damian was just a little surprised at this bit of information that he couldn't remember, for obvious reasons.

"Yep, and somehow, you were still kickin', and so you were brought here for me to fix ya up." explained Doc, "I had to go rootin' around in your noggin to get all the bits of lead out. I take pride in my needlework but you better tell me if I left anything out of place." He handed Damian a mirror, "How'd I do?"

Damian looked at himself in the mirror, seeing his mustache and goatee combo referred to as the Mephistopheles was still there, he began examining himself left and right and noticed that, while his right, hazel eye seemed okay, his left eye was throbbing a bit, "Everything looks about right but..." he began to lift up the bandages covering his left eye, "... why are these covering my-"

Doc interrupted him "You might not want to do that."

Damian stopped, "Why?" he queried.

"That's where you were shot. There was so much damage to your left eye, there wasn't any possible way to save it"

Damian sat there, staring at his covered eye, "Oh... I see." He thought about that for a moment, "Heh, no pun intended." But then his face had a sad, mournful look on it, "I think I should see it," he finally said, "just in case someone asks, ya know." He then lifted up the bandages and instantly felt a wave of nausea come over him. Under those bandages was a blood-red eye with a blackish hole to the (mirror's) right of the pupil and part of the top eye lid was missing as well. Damian quickly pulled the bandages down as he felt himself nearly vomit.

As Damian sat there, Doc looked sympathetically at him and thought that maybe he could lift his spirits a little if the topic was changed. "Now, how 'bout we see if you can stand up, hmm?" and so Damian started to get up, hung on to Doc Mitchell's arms for balance, and only felt a slight bit dizzy this time. Now that he was standing up, Doc could get a much better look at him. Damian seemed to be about six feet tall, where he was only about five and a half, and he seemed to have a bit of muscle on him as well. "Well, you're quite the large man now aren't ya?"

"Huh? Oh, yes. Though, not as big as deathclaw I think." Damian has heard that line a few times to many, but what can you do? "Hey Doc, you know who it was that shot me?"

"No, I don't rightly know. But I'm sure someone else in town might know though." Doc thought about this for a minute but it seemed he decided to give up and switch the topic, "How about you try walking across the room, over by that vigor tester machine."

Damian looked across the room to the vigor tester and saw that it was less than 10 feet away. He stood there thinking about how he felt. His legs, sturdy as they were, were still a bit shaky. "Hmm... Alright I'll try." he decided, uneasily, and took a step. Seeing as it was not as hard as he thought it would be, he took a few more steps until he reached the vigor tester which said "Vit-O-Matic" in big flashy, metal words on top.

"Go ahead and give the handle a squeeze." Doc encouraged. Damian grasped the handle and squeezed and all of his stats popped up. His stats showed he was 'Barrel Chested' for strength, a 'Big-Eyed Tiger' for perception, 'Stain-Resistant' for endurance, a 'Cheery Salesman' for charisma, 'Omniscient' for intelligence, 'Under Control' for agility, and had '13 Pitch-Black Cats' for luck, at which he grimaced. "Look at that! Maybe them bullets did your brain some good!" Doc was in awe at how intelligent Damian was.

"Maybe," Damian started, "if only I wasn't so dang unlucky."

"Yes, but, by the look of it, you've got experience, and with experience comes skill. Now, we know your vitals are good but that doesn't mean them bullets didn't leave you nuttier than a bighorner dropping." Mitchell said, "What do ya say you take a seat on my couch and we go through a couple o' questions. See if your dogs are still barking."

"Alright..." Damian's mind was elsewhere, reminiscing of the days of 'experience' for him, in a hole in the ground, back in Arizona.

As Damian took a seat on the couch, Doc Mitchell sat in a chair across from him and began the test. "Alright, I'm gonna say a word and you say the first thing that comes to mind. Dog."

"Train." Damian answered.

"House."

"Shelter."

"Night."

"Dream."

"Bandit."

"Vaporize."

"Light."

"Flash."

"Mother."

"Caretaker."

"Okay," Doc continued, "Now I got a few statements. I want you to tell me how much they sound like something you'd say. First one: 'Conflict just ain't in my nature'."

"Strongly disagree." Damian replied without hesitation.

"'I ain't given to relying on others for support'."

"Disagree."

"'I'm always fixin' to be the center of attention'."

"Heh," Damian scoffed, "Strongly disagree."

"'I'm slow to embrace new ideas'."

"Ehh..." Damian contemplated this statement for a moment, "... Well, I only hesitate because I grew up with a family that was stuck in the past but I'll have to say disagree."

"'I charge in to deal with my problems head-on'."

"Most definitely, strongly agree."

"Almost done here," Doc confided, as he pulled out a few Rorschach test cards, seeing the bored look in Damian's eye, "What do ya say you have a look at this. Tell me what you see."

Damian examined the splatter for a minute and said, "Hmm... A broken chain I think."

Doc took the first card down and gestured towards the next card as he asked, "And this?"

Damian looked slightly intrigued at this card and answered, "It's some piece of space-age technology."

Mitchell took the second one down and said, "Okay then, last one."

Damian saw the third card and answered confidently, "A light in the darkness."

"Alright then, I guess that just about does it. I'll see you out." said Doc Mitchell as he got up and walked towards the front of the house and Damian followed after him. As they reached the front door, Doc Mitchell went to a footlocker by the door and started pulling out an assortment of objects and a set of clothes, all of which he gave Damian and said, "Here, this all that we found on you when you were brought in. I looked through the note to see if I could find the next of kin, but it was only about a platinum chip."

Damian examined the pile of stuff handed to him. In the pile of assorted things was a .44 magnum revolver with 42 rounds, a laser pistol with 30 shots worth of electron packs, sunglasses, a broken trail carbine, a Mojave Express note, and a large satchel with some gun holsters in it. The clothes were known to the wastes as a bounty hunter duster and a rattan cowboy hat. Then Doc handed him a large electronic device that looked as if it went on a person's arm and an eye patch. "The eyepatch is for obvious reasons and that electronic device there goes on your wrist. See, I grew up in one of those vaults and everyone got one of those. I ain't got no use for it so you can have it. Also, you should probably put those clothes on before you leave so folk don't poke fun at ya for lacking modesty. You can use my bedroom in the back if you want."

It wasn't until now that Damian became slightly self-conscious about what he was wearing, which was next to nothing besides an undershirt and some boxers. "Thanks, I will." Damian accepted the offer went to the bedroom. It didn't have much in it, not note-worthy at least, just a bed, a coffee table with a chessboard, and an old wardrobe with broken-in glass windows on it. He put his stuff on the bed and looked over his duster. Damian has owned this duster since before he came to the Mojave from the south, so long, in fact, that he had added a couple additions himself. There were holsters on the inside of each flap of the duster. Damian would usually have his trusty trail carbine underneath the left flap, the handle of which was cracked and split, rendered it useless, so he just put it in his satchel. Damian then went to his laser pistol which was given to him by his father before... the incident. He stuck that in the satchel as well. Damian threw on the bounty hunter duster, picked up the eye patch, walked over to the wardrobe, and hung the eye patch on the corner of the wardrobe. Looking at himself through the reflective surface of the broken glass on the wardrobe, Damian began to unwrap the bandages around his head. After they were off, he stuffed them in an inside pocket on his duster and looked back at the glass. He kept his left eye shut in fear of vomiting in the good doctor's house, but he still tried to examine what was left of it. Seeing that, well, there wasn't much left to see, he grabbed the eye patch and wrapped it around his head, atop which sat champagne-colored, short hair that he parted on the left, and placed the patch over his left eye.

Damian proceeded to put on his rattan cowboy hat, slip on his sunglasses over his eye patch, and clip on his two pistol holsters underneath the outer flap of the bounty hunter duster. He then put the .44 magnum in the right holster, put each type of ammunition he had in separate pockets on the duster, slipped the Pipboy 3000 on his left wrist, and slung the satchel strap over his head so the actual satchel was resting at his left side and returned to Doc Mitchell at the front door.

"There, you look much better!" Doc exclaimed as Damian rounded the corner.

"Yeah, thanks for all the help and patching me up, Doc." Damian replied.

"No problem, its what I do." Mitchell said with a smile. "If you ever need supplies, go see Chet at the general store in town, or if you need a drink or somethin' to eat, Trudy at the Prospector Saloon will set you up, and, if ya ever get yourself banged up, come see me and I'll fix ya right up."

"Yeah okay, thanks again."

"Yep, I'll be seein' ya, and try not to get yourself killed... again."

With that, Damian opened the door and walked out into the bright, scorching hot sunlight of the wastes.

Phew... That took forever to do. I know most of you will think that this chapter was pretty slow but I promise it will get better because I was just trying to let all you readers out there know what kind of person Damian is personality, statistically, and physically-wise. Anyhow, constructive criticism and comments would be very welcome, but no flaming. Also, I will try to update this story as soon as possible, but it will probably only be on weekends and maybe a chapter a week, two if I'm on a roll. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you liked and will like it.

**Update**

I have changed the tense of my story because it just didn't sound right in present tense and I corrected a few errors.