I would not recommend this fic to anyone I care for, but here it is. Valencock at the end of the world.
"We could keep this going until judgement day."
Nick had always meant it as a joke, but there was a certain element of truth to be found in the words. He was ageless, synthetic, worn down with crows feet and laugh lines but never a weak heart or lungs. Any injuries he had could be repaired, or even replaced. And they had been, many, many times.
He tried not to think about it too much as the years came and went, watching people with illness and injuries that couldn't be fixed with a wrench and scavenged parts. It was all well enough as long as he had the agency running, or at least that was what Nick told himself. He'd repeat the thought over and over as he lay in bed, trying to rest as best he could without ever really being able to sleep.
It was maybe twenty, forty, seventy years ago that the people of Diamond City first noticed that the Glowing Sea was expanding. First the settlers from Somerville place headed north, complaining that nothing would grow in their soil anymore and that the air was too thick to breathe. Then raiders from Quincy began striking through Boston again, desperately splattering themselves against the Wall while packs of feral ghouls wandered through the alleys nearby. No one wanted to be the one to name the phenomenon, and for a while people lived their lives in denial of the worsening conditions blowing up from the south.
It wasn't until the fog began rolling in from the north that the crowds of the city began to thin.
At first Nick saw an increase in business, friends and loved ones seeking people who turned tail in the night and decided to try their luck further west. That lasted a year, maybe two, but as the crowds thinned so did the clientele. Nick already had enough caps to get him through several human lifetimes, but he quickly found himself missing the distraction. Handiwork was never his specialty, particularly after the plastic skin of his left hand had gone the way of his right, and it was getting harder to keep himself sharp without something to focus on besides keeping his systems running like they should.
The reality of it didn't sink in until he returned to the office one day to find the second desk cleared out.
"Nick, you really ought to come with us." Rosa had offered. While she hadn't been his partner for long, she had always considered Nick to be part of the family. "Everyone's leaving. Diamond City is going to eat itself alive."
He tried his best to smile, a feat made difficult by the wear and tear on his jaw and a heavy drag of self pity. "That's real sweet of you, but I spent a long time building this place. If it goes down, well, it was time. Same goes for me."
"Nick…"
"It's alright, kid. You go. You've got a wife and a kid counting on you." He settled his hand on her shoulder, watching her too bright eyes as they searched his for… something. A crack in his resolve, maybe, a twitch in his mouth or brow that would give him away. He'd figured out by now, after four centuries of living, that he wasn't close enough to human to have tells like that.
She blinked once and her eyes spilled over. "Are you sure?"
He nodded. "I want to see this place through to the end. Besides, I think I'm a few years out of warranty by now. Not sure anyone knows what to do with a model like me anymore."
Rosa laughed in spite of herself, and threw her arms around his neck.
"There never was a model like you."
Nick hugged her back, trying to take in what he could of the smell of her hair and the warmth of her hug with his sensors frayed as they were. Amazing how many generations had passed, and somehow she still looked just like her great grandmother.
She packed her things quietly and made her way to the door, only taking one last moment to glance over her shoulder at the old office and old synth within. That drag of self pity was getting heavier by the minute, but at least Nick could take solace in thinking that the Wright family name had a chance to survive.
All of Nick's noble thoughts of going down with the agency started cracking pretty quickly as the sky started fading green. The mass exodus of the human population left the city mostly deserted, save for Takahashi and the few stragglers with the same thoughts of nobility and honor to which Nick clung. Power Noodles lasted everyone for a while, but the water purifier soon broke with no one left to maintain it and eating noodles boiled in irradiated desert sludge would kill more painfully than starvation. No food and no clean water might not have made a difference to a synth, but watching those last few survivors thinning out and turning grey was… well to put it mildly, it was more than he'd bargained for.
Throwing in the towel after four centuries was all well and good, but here? Alone, no family or friends, in a city of the dead?
When the first feral turned inside the Wall, Nick nearly laughed at the irony. All those years of propaganda, the purges, the slaughters and ridiculous fear-mongering, and here it was a smoothskin who woke up one morning a little worse for wear and turned around to eat his family. He'd missed a dose of Radaway, or so the doctor claimed before he promptly packed his bags and fled.
One dose. One dose missed and he'd shriveled up like an exposed love affair. Nick wandered the empty streets, now tinted green and cloudy grey, wondering how long it would be before the last stubborn stragglers either gave up and turned tail or happened to "forget" their Radaway too.
Nick had to do the honors and put the new ghoul down himself. None of the humans left in the city had the strength left to steady a gun. Diamond city's handyman, indeed.
Nick did the best he could with arranging burials when they were needed, watching as the crowd ticked down, one by one, with no water left to spare for tears. Still he wanted to do what he could, keep busy and pay respects, and ignore the fact that he was waiting to die with the rest of them.
Shut down, not die. If he was going to die, he would have done it centuries ago like sentient life was meant to. If he simply fell apart here, piece by piece, how long would his consciousness remain?
No, no, he thought. Only misery down that road. Just keep walking.
So he walked. He walked through the city, collected the dead, killed the feral, placed markers by their corpses when there were no longer space in the farm for proper graves. He walked and walked until he found himself by the doors to Diamond City, and then, like all the other stubborn stragglers should have done in the first place, he walked right out of them.
The other parts of the Commonwealth weren't as bad as he expected. Raiders were long since nonexistent, the last of their brethren rotting against the wall or else turned to ghouls easily felled with a bullet between the eyes. The further east he moved the less frequently the radstorms came, and he even passed a few patches of dirt where corn stalks and mutfruit trees still grew. By the time he reached the waterfront, the Commonwealth seemed almost normal. Maybe it was the sea air overwhelming the rancid stench of decay he'd gotten so used to.
There was an aquarium here before the war, Nick remembered, or didn't. The other Nick had been to it when he was a child, spending hours outside watching harbor seals swim back and forth in the sunshine.
No seals left either, Nick thought to himself, or if there are any, they're smart enough to steer clear of this mess.
The clatter of rubble behind him would have set his hair on end, if he had any.
Unsteady footsteps followed, one slow and soft and the other a hard, heavy clack. The telltale flick of a lighter calmed his nerves some, but these were dire times and even if the limping sneak had all their mental faculties intact, that might just mean he had a smarter opponent to deal with.
"Been a long time since you've come my way, Valentine." The crackle of lit tobacco. "I was worried about you."
The voice alone sent a jump through his system; familiar, still cocky, but roughened by chems and being used for centuries longer than it should have been.
Nick bowed his head. "Hancock."
"You do remember me. I'm flattered." The footsteps stopped to his right. "Guess that means you just decided you weren't gonna visit anymore."
A withered hand offered him a cigarette, and he took it without much time to consider. There was something comforting about this dance with an old… friend? acquaintance? Hancock would likely deck him if he ever tried to call him either of those things.
"Didn't really think I'd be visiting anyone anymore." Nick said after a drag. "Don't you know it's the end of the world?"
Hancock laughed. "Didn't think I'd miss that damn radio 's much as I do."
Nick managed to sneak a glance over the old mayor, taking in what hadn't changed in the past few decades, and what had.
"Ain't polite to stare." Hancock said, as Nick's eyes caught the fragmented wood anchored to his severed left leg. It looked like it was once part of a stool, split in half to give its wearer a better range of motion. "Lost it a while back when the mutants mowed down the wall to Goodneighbor."
Nick softened. "Hancock, I'm so sorry."
"Was bound to happen, wasn't it? No one left to defend the city 'cept me, Daisy, and KL-E-0." Hancock took a long, bitter drag. "And now just me."
Whatever synthetic heart Nick had ached in his chest, guilt and sorrow for the loss of the town overshadowed by the realization that Hancock had been wandering the city alone and injured for who knows how long.
Out of habit he took Hancock's shoulder, turning him to the side for a better look. "Your leg healed around that thing? That can't be good for you."
"What 'm I gonna do, see a doctor?"
"Point taken." Nick finished his cigarette with one long, hissing drag— the benefits of having a bullet hole through his lung. "Thought you'd be heading in the other direction by now."
"I thought the same thing about you."
Nick looked to him in silence, wondering if Hancock had walked the same irradiated streets alone, seeing the same starvation and decay take his city, the city he'd dragged single-handedly from the slums into the new world. If he'd made that same promise to go down with his ship, and if he'd failed the same way Nick had failed the agency.
He had never seen a ghoul die of natural causes before. It was always, always that careful bullet between the eyes.
Nick stubbed out his cigarette under his shoes, trying to ignore the way the soles separated under the pressure. He wasn't much of a cobbler, and his feet were in such bad condition that it didn't much matter.
"Come on." He offered his arm to his…friend or acquaintance. "There's got to be some place around here that's safe to stay."
Hancock eyed the offered arm warily before walking off ahead on his own. "Railroad HQ is still in business. Well, not really in business, but nothin' in there will try to kill you."
Nick watched him limp ahead for a moment, his forsaken arm still extended. Stubbornness would be the death of both of them.
Railroad HQ was well and good for a few nights, and Hancock had even found Tinker Tom's former stash of Blamco Mac and Cheese to keep his stomach from overpowering his head. His leg wasn't in as terrible shape as it could have been, thanks to a ghoulish immune system, but it still took three days before Nick could convince him to sit back and let him check the wound.
Hancock leered. "Come on, brother, if you wanna get me out of my pants all you gotta do is ask nice."
Nick was a bit ashamed that he laughed, and even more ashamed at how foreign the sound of it was to his ears.
"Hancock, you know damn well that I've never been trying to get into anyone's pants."
"What if I ask nice?"
"No."
"Well, can't blame a ghoul for trying." He stuck his finger into the can of Cram, trying to salvage any remaining bits that might have been lost. "And if I remember correctly, you were pretty damn okay just watchin' the show."
The stab of remembrance didn't hurt as much as Nick thought it might, but when everything ached and rusted and fell to pieces, he supposed not much would hurt anymore. There were three of them in bed, late nights and lazy mornings with Nick pretending to sleep while the two others dreamed, or his snide comments about their yelping and moaning when he was really just happy to see them come together with love in their eyes. Then afterwards, with sticky sheets and thin, rough lips on his as an apology for creaking the bed and keeping him awake. Softer, delicate fingers would pull him close, slipping off his tie and turning his chest into a pillow.
"Yeah, well, tastes change when you get older." Nick kept his eyes on the floor.
Hancock's smile faded. "I took the hint when you stopped comin' by. Twenty years and no hello paints a pretty damn clear picture."
Nick hadn't administered a stimpak on anyone in a long time, and he was careful only go as deep as necessary. "It's not personal."
"Well that just makes it all better," said Hancock. "Two lifetimes worth of history, but shit, it's 'not personal.'"
Nick glanced up. "John, that's not what I mean."
"'s John again now?"
"Hancock." Nick clenched and unclenched his jaw, hoping he could adjust whatever loose connection thought it was necessary to give him a headache right now. "I'm sorry. You deserved better."
Hancock was quiet for a moment. Nick felt dark eyes burning into the back of his head but tried his best to focus as he worked. Pulling the stool out of the wound had restarted some of the bleeding, and even though the stimpak headed off the worst of it, they needed to figure out how exactly Hancock was going to navigate the Commonwealth like this. Holing up in Railroad HQ might work for a while, but the sugar bombs would run out eventually and waiting to die under the church seemed about as appealing as waiting to die in the ruins of Diamond City.
Hancock grumbled. "Thought I was supposed to be the one doin' the runnin'. You ever gonna tell me why it ended up bein' you?"
"If you hold still while I patch this back up, maybe." Nick fished through an old pile of ballistic weave for scraps the right size, a feat made much more difficult by the lack of grip on his thin, metal fingers.
Hancock snorted. "You look like shit, Nicky."
"Says the ghoul with one leg." Nick pulled a strip loose from the pile. "Wasn't that a punchline to a joke somewhere? A synth and a one legged ghoul walk into a bar…"
"There'd have to be a bar left for that to work."
Nick spared him a glance, looking up just in time to catch Hancock's dry smile. He always one to laugh at his own jokes, even if he had told them a million times before.
It only took a little more effort and an extra hand on Hancock's part before Nick had the makeshift bandage secured. The old stool still lay a few feet aways, crusted in dried blood and worn with nuclear fallout. Strapping it back on seemed cruel, but how else was Hancock gonna get around?
Hancock stood, hopping forward. "I got it from here. Thanks."
Nick sat back on his heels as Hancock leaned over, fastening the busted wood to his leg with more practiced skill than Nick expected. He stood, testing his balance before stepping forward with less of a stagger than before.
"Like I never lost it."
If Nick didn't know him so well, it would be easy to miss that sharp edge to his voice.
"Ghouls ain't meant to live underground, Nicky." Hancock moaned, not for the first time that day.
Nick grumbled, setting down the turret he had been tinkering with moments before. "Pretty sure you're wrong on that front, and if you aren't, well, you're gonna have to adapt."
"It's fuckin' boring." He lay back on an old mattress, tricorn hat drawn over his eyes. "You tellin' me we can't even go up there for a little target practice?"
"Only things left up there for target practice are deathclaws and some of your more mindless friends, and neither of them are gonna take well to being made into swiss cheese."
"Into what?"
Nick clenched and unclenched his jaw. "Never mind."
The two of them sank back into the uncomfortable silence that had plagued them for the past week. Whenever Hancock wasn't flirting he was sulking or trying to make do with the chem station and the few supplies they had, and it made the day to day all the more exhausting. Nick had to admit this was wearing him down too, and he was probably for the better that they decided to share the company in relative silence.
Well, until Hancock started humming.
Clench. Unlench. "You're no songstress, you know that?"
"I like to think I got a rough around the edges kinda charm."
Nick clicked his tongue, a feat that only got easier as more of his cheek wore away. "I miss Magnolia."
"I miss you."
"Mmm."
Whether the monotony, the decay, or the flirting wore him down first, they had to come up with some other plan before Nick snapped and charged into the wasteland on his own.
How they actually had decided to pack their bags and brave the wasteland was a bit of a blur, but the decision was unanimous. Hancock was running low on food and more importantly, on fertilizer and plastic, and Nick didn't think he could handle Hancock's constant pestering about the state of their relationship, or about what had changed under his coat.
"Come on, you tellin' me I lost a whole goddamn leg and you look exactly the same?"
"I'm not telling you anything."
So they put together the limited supplies they had, hoping that it would cover them as they left the safety of the church for… whatever it was that was up northwest. Nick had considered steering them towards Acadia for a while, thinking that they might find a refuge in the haven his brother had carved, but the already empty observatory only seemed worse after a fog crawler attack that had left it without its leader. Funny how after so much meddling, the one variable DiMA forgot to consider was as simple as local wildlife.
Nick should have gone to visit more often when he still could.
"You got any sort of plan on where we oughta go?" he asked, hoping to get out of his own head before it got dangerous. "Cause I have to say, if we wanted to make it out west I think we missed our chance."
Hancock tensed at that, and Nick had to wonder if he was having his own troubles looking mortality in the eye.
"I got a plan." Hancock answered. "Not sure if you're gonna like it, but I ain't changin' it. You can come with me or not."
"What's the plan?"
"Sanctuary."
He knew that would be the answer, but it didn't much prepare him for hearing it. Neither of them had visited Sanctuary in years, as far as he knew. They tried, for a while, tried grieving and bringing flowers to graves and carrying on like widowers should, but in the end it hurt too much to stay and the both of them had been cowards.
Maybe one of them more than the other.
"Sanctuary, huh?" Nick tried his best to sound nonchalant. "You sure you don't want to remember it the way it was?"
"Nothing's the way it was, Nicky. Not you, not me, definitely not her." His voice was thick with something. "But I don't wanna die alone, and if I can't have you then it's gotta be her."
Nick's first instinct was to reassure him, to promise him that he wasn't going to die and that he'd keep living a long happy life surrounded by new people who would fear him or love him or both. But instinct faded with the realization of where they were, and when they were, and the limited set of options left for either of them. When Nick's self pity was just a shackle dragging with him through the day, realizing that this would be Hancock's last few days on this irradiated hellhole hit like a bullet through the gut.
Twenty years of missing someone was a lot to catch up on in just a few seconds, and Nick's systems were overloading in the process. When he didn't respond, Hancock stood and slung the pack over his shoulder.
"Guess that's my answer." He said, not daring to look behind.
Nick cursed his loose connections, delayed reaction times, whatever mortal or mechanical failure it was that held him back until the last possible second. He took Hancock by the arm, steadying him even as he fumbled for balance on his peg leg. Under different circumstances, Nick thought Hancock might find it funny how much he now looked like a pirate.
It took a few moments for Nick's mouth to catch up to his mind. "You're not going alone."
Hancock looked down to the hand on his arm, spindly, metallic, and long since having lost any tactile sensations beyond warm and cold.
"It's Northwest from here, maybe a day's walk." Hancock said. "Or it was. Between me and the deathclaws out there, I got a feelin' this might be slow goin'."
"Then we make it in two days." Nick answered.
Hancock grinned. "Just cause you said that, it's gonna take three."
Nick had forgotten just how warm Hancock was, but remembered all too well as he let his hand slide from his arm. The cool air stung Nick in ways it hadn't before, and he pulled his trench coat tighter to ward off the chill.
Ammunition was getting to be scarce. Nick was sure he should have anticipated this problem coming alongside the hundreds of others they discovered day to day, but somehow this one had snuck up on him. In such a violent world it only made sense that bullets and shells and portable nuclear arms would be lying around ripe for the taking, but with fewer people came fewer stores, fewer supply caches, fewer corpses to loot, and it wasn't like deathclaws needed bullets to kill. Fact of the matter was, either he was going to learn to fight with whatever was available to him or he'd end up as ghoul bait.
Hancock had adjusted well enough, he supposed, but Hancock seemed to adjust to everything. Lose a leg? Grab a stool. Out of shotgun shells? Grab a hammer. Grab a machete. Grab the junk jet left behind by a lover who died centuries ago. Nick had once berated him for his nostalgia in hauling such an enormous, heavy weapon with them at all times, but now its sentimental value was outweighed by the fact that it was the only projectile weapon either of them had with more than twenty shots left.
And there were more than twenty things left in the Commonwealth that needed killing, though a glance around wouldn't suggest it these days. So here they were, Hancock propped up by his good leg and Nick's shoulder while he rained a hellfire of typewriters and ball-peen hammers down on the last surviving fauna of the commonwealth.
As it turned out, the only omens worse than the live deathclaws were the dead ones.
The first corpse they encountered just outside Graygarden. Hancock nudged it with his broken stool before crouching beside it, checking the body for wounds and useful items. Deathclaw hide, once sought for leather, was all but useless in a world where most workstations had eroded down into scrap metal, and neither of them saw much appeal to lugging raw deathclaw meat in their packs.
Nick scanned the creature once, optics providing some barrier to the oppressive green fog.
"No wounds." He said, as Hancock turned the body. "No wounds, no nothing. What out there could take down a brute like this without leaving any kind of mark?"
"I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess radiation."
Nick shook his head. "Deathclaws thrive on radiation. More likely it was some bad eggs."
"Rotten mirelurk." Hancock smirked.
"Our combined secondhand smoke."
Hancock actually laughed at that one, and Nick tried to ignore the flutter of pride it brought about.
"Hey, Nicky?"
"Yeah?"
"…You think this means there won't be cigarettes lyin' around for the takin' anymore? Because lemme tell you, I ain't ready to start payin' for 'em."
Somewhere around day four of travel Hancock started to stumble. Nick was surprised it had taken so long for the wear and tear to set in on an organic body, but Hancock was almost as good at hiding pain as Nick was and had a bit more time to adjust to his new center of gravity. What surprised both of them more than anything was the gasping.
Hancock collapsed against his side, Nick's arm slung around his waist to keep him upright as he heaved and retched. He tried to quell the wave of panic he felt as Hancock's noises became more pitched, more guttural, as if the fallout itself was clinging to his throat.
Don't you dare, Hancock.
Hancock retched again with a snarl, fingers clawing for purchase in the faded trench coat.
Don't you dare turn now. We're so close.
Nick kept his arm around Hancock's waist as his shaking right hand reached for his gun.
Please.
As if Hancock had heard him, he coughed again and retched up watery bile before staggering back to his feet. Nick checked his eyes— lucid. Lucid, pained, and sad.
"I ain't giving out that easy, Nick." His voice was weak, but the dry wit was always there. "I said we got a plan and I'm not gonna eat you 'till it's done." He smirked. "Not unless you want me to."
Nick's mind never quite caught up to his mouth, the heavy flood of relief at seeing Hancock, smirking and sane and warm against him taking over. Neither of their lips were made for this, and the kiss seemed to be as desperate as it was chaste and clumsy.
Twenty years of amends Nick had to make, and mistakes that he couldn't possibly fix, but he hoped that when words failed him, something like this would so.
Hancock's hand settled along his jaw— warm, always so warm— and Nick hoped that maybe, maybe he was understood.
Red Rocket came before Sanctuary, that giant spaceship shadow in the green sky looking more and more like a friend as they drew closer. Neither of them had talked outside of casual exchanges of snark, but when Hancock stumbled Nick would catch him, and after he righted himself Nick wouldn't let go.
The dog, that poor, sweet, loyal animal who lasted barely a fraction of either of their lifetimes lay buried somewhere nearby, the marker of his grave buried under ash and sand and glass. The solid concrete of the shop floor was hot enough to give the soles of their shoes an unpleasant sizzle, though Nick was vaguely relieved to find the mattresses in the office almost intact.
One bed had never been enough for three people, so a few centuries back they'd found spring mattresses and pushed them together. Back then this place was a launching point for adventures, with Nick packing his bags and emptying them of all the chems Hancock would try to sneak inside. It was also the place he would go to watch in worried silence as the other two disappeared along the path.
Nick's throat locked up at the memory.
Hancock settled on the bed without comment or question, worn down by days of travel with one leg and one stool. Protesting crossed Nick's mind briefly, but his jaw was still tight and he was sorely in need of a few diagnostics. They shared a bed once, they could do it again.
He took his seat next to Hancock, taking in the dust that had gathered and the fog that still crept through the cracks in closed doors, and thanked whatever was looking out for him that the pain receptors in his knees had dulled over the years. That cracking noise when he sat wasn't boding well, but all Nick felt was a blooming ache through his leg.
"Let me look at you." Hancock mumbled through his exhaustion. Four hundred years alive, and the damn kid still couldn't figure out when he'd pushed himself too far.
"I'd rather you got some sleep before you started trying to take me apart. For both our sakes."
Hancock grunted some sort of response before flopping down heavily and scooting over to Nick's side.
"…should keep watch." Hancock mumbled, losing the fight against sleep. "Me. You. One 'f us."
"I don't think there's much left to keep watch against." Nick answered, voice softer and hoarser than he'd meant it to be. "All we'll see is green and fog."
"Mmm." His smile was sad. "Can't stop the fog."
It didn't take him long to drift off, and Nick sat with him in quiet envy. Hancock was calmer when he slept, worn red coat faded to dirty brown in the irradiated haze. His shoulders rose and fell, shallow, strained breathing after what must have been a much harder day of walking than he'd let on. They hadn't had another feral scare since the one the day prior, but Nick knew that in this sort of hellhole with this sort of toxic air, it was just a matter of time.
That was one probable ending to this miserable journey that he wasn't sure he could handle.
Half-asleep, Hancock reached his hand out for Nick's, and Nick took it with only a moment's hesitation.
This is why I left you, he thought. This is why I never came back, and now look at us.
Hancock slept, and Nick wished he could. Instead he turned to the empty space on the mattress where Nora would have been, and wondered if she would be more upset if he put a bullet between Hancock's eyes or his own.
By the time Hancock woke the next morning, more of the fog had seeped into the room. It didn't matter much, considering they were maybe a half hour from Sanctuary on foot, but the clean air had been a nice break and Nick had been enjoying the heavy warmth of Hancock across his lap.
For one split second Nick considered delaying, putting the trip off another day. It would hardly make a difference considering they were living on borrowed time, but Nick had an idea of the kind of ending they were drawing toward and he wasn't exactly eager to meet it.
Still, there was a dame there who deserved his respect and a man here who needed his support.
Hancock stretched, opening the door and looking to the sky. For all his complaining about fresh air and sunshine, Nick never thought he'd seen Hancock look at the sky with such disappointment.
"We oughtta move before this whole place caves in." Nick said as he lit a cigarette.
"Don't waste those." Hancock snatched the cigarette from his hand, taking a deep inhale before passing it back. "And don't talk like that. That big old phallic heap of metal is gonna be standing even after you and I are radroach food."
Nick liked that idea, even as he counted the cigarettes left in his pack. Four more to split between them.
"You noticed even the roaches ain't movin' anymore?" Hancock said.
"I try not to think too much about it. Think you should do the same."
Hancock laughed. "Wise words from the old man."
"You've been calling me that since you met me, you know." Nick smiled. "It's lost some of its panache."
Hancock kissed him, stealing the cigarette back from his hand. "'S always been true."
They stayed like that for a moment, looking at one another with Nick's cigarette burning down in Hancock's hand, waiting for either one of them to say no. No, we should stay. No, we should leave, head west and pretend we still have a chance. No, we should look away and act like we aren't afraid until we fall apart.
But Nick slung his arm around Hancock's waist and Hancock set his over Nick's shoulder and with three working legs between them, they kept moving.
"You ever gonna give me an answer about why you decided not to show up for two decades?"
Nick stumbled a bit, barely catching himself before either of them dropped. They were dragging the junk jet now, with Hancock lacking the energy to keep it up by his hip.
"It's a garbage excuse, you know," said Nick. "Not sure you want to hear something so dumb on doomsday."
Hancock shot a sharp elbow to his side, where his pain receptors hadn't decayed quite so heavily. He flinched.
"Alright, alright." Putting it into words wasn't something Nick had been looking forward to, but he'd wasted enough of both of their time and he wasn't about to go down with regrets. He took a deep breath, more for show than anything.
"Four hundred something years is a bit too long to be alive, you know. Everyone else comes and goes, and you stay the same."
Hancock stared straight ahead, quiet. Nick continued.
"Piper and Nat, Deacon, Ellie, DiMA… and Nora." Nick tensed, waiting for a reaction. When none came, he continued. "You stopped seeing new people after her, too. Don't think I didn't notice."
"Yeah, no one new." Hancock said. "But I wasn't about to walk out on the one I had."
There it was, that drag of guilt. But with the timer counting down, better to let it out than weigh him down.
"Guess that shows who's the real coward here." Nick gave a dry smile. "After Nora died, well… I didn't know if I was ever coming back after that one. And then it hit me, that sooner or later…"
"….sooner or later it was gonna be me, too."
Nick nodded.
"Ain't a good reason to cut me off."
"I know. I warned you, it was a garbage excuse."
A few minutes silence left Nick uneasy. Hancock never much liked keeping his mouth shut unless he knew he could bother someone more with quiet than with words.
"I'm sorry." Nick said again, looking to break the silence. "I'll keep saying it 'till you believe me, even if we both know it doesn't make anything better."
Hancock still stared blankly ahead.
"Leaving you behind was a rotten thing to do, no two ways about it. I know that, and I knew it at the time, but I did it anyway. I've got nothing else I can say."
Still silence. The broken stool caught across an old tricycle, now mostly buried in dust and dirt, but Nick caught them both and they barely broke pace.
"…You know something? I'm glad you ran into me back by the waterfront. I'm… glad I got to see you again. Woulda been a hell of a mess, trying to navigate this place without you."
Hancock said nothing, but Nick saw even through the thick fog how the set of his jaw changed.
"I hope you know, I really did love you."
"Did?"
Hancock had stopped walking, and Nick couldn't carry them both by himself. The faded silhouette of run down houses loomed in the distance, just barely visible through the thick wasteland air.
"…Do. I really do love you."
And that did it. Hancock cracked, a lazy grin splitting his face as he reached up to pat Nick's cheek.
"Atta boy." He said, eternally smug. "I was wonderin' how long it would take you to come out with it."
Nick cocked an eyebrow at him, thankful that his face remained intact enough to do so, but ever-insufferable Hancock just kept that grin plastered in place. He kept it even as they turned eyes to the road, as they finally hobbled past the Concord Minuteman and into Sanctuary.
Things had held up better than Nick had expected, though the bar for his expectations couldn't have been lower. The walls surrounding the settlement had grown and then fallen since Nick and Hancock had left, with a few working turrets still chugging away against the hum of radioactive energy. The houses within had mostly collapsed, save for one yellow house with a beaten up workstation and a few others that still had a roof. Nora's old house was long gone, imploded into a pile of steel and rubble that would have been a scavvers wet dream, if there were still scavvers anywhere out there. As it was, Nick was glad to see the ruins left mostly untouched.
Nothing but time should be able to take anything from this place.
Hancock's grin faded as they reached the massive tree, surrounded now by shards of glass scattered from the strings of lights Nora had loved so much. Once upon a few canisters of jet he'd climbed that tree in nothing but his undershirt and hat, shouting pre-war battle songs to the starry sky while Nora blushed below. A dare, he'd said, something about Deacon and chems and a working record player. Nick had smiled to himself at the time, shaking his head at the foolishness he wished he wasn't too worn down to participate in.
Two hundred years later the tree leaned slightly, roots poking through the cracked ground, but still it stood to the sky. Hancock released his grip on Nick's shoulder, sliding down to thread his fingers through the rusted metal of Nick's own.
At the base of that tree sat a marker, carefully carved from scavenged remnants of marble and glass. Sculpting wasn't an art many people had time to practice when survival was at stake, but like Hancock once told him, Nora wouldn't give a shit about the art of it.
It might not have been as much as it should have been, not that anything would be enough for a woman like Nora. But the simple plaque was striking enough, a clean white block against green and grey and brown, though it seemed so lonely without the flowers that once grew.
A leader, a lover, a mother, a friend.
For a moment Nick wished he could dull the sensors in his mind the way time had dulled the sensors in his knees, wished he would stop feeling nausea in the stomach he didn't have, or the prickling of tears that would never fall.
Hancock was the first to kneel, tracing the weathered fingers of his free hand against the words.
"Hey there, sunshine. We came back."
The prickle behind his eyes grew stronger, and he was never more ready to be rid of this synthetic body.
"Missed you. Nick was a bit of a tool about it for a while it but he came 'round. You know how he is. Anyway, it's… well, 's not looking too good out here. Think you'd be pissed if you could see the state of this place, but with the world bein' what it is there ain't a whole lot left to be done. Doesn't mean I'm not glad be home.
"You know, I ain't ever really been good with words, and we've all done our fair share of runnin' since you been gone. Just wanted you to know that when I saw judgement day roundin' the corner on me, I knew. I knew that when it came I wanted to be at your side."
Hancock glanced up, barely catching Nick's eyes. "At both of your sides."
Nick brought Hancock's hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against scarred knuckles. His rusted skeleton still couldn't feel much in the way of pressure, but the incredible warmth of Hancock's hand was still a comfort.
It was with a small smile that Hancock finished.
"Don't worry about us, sunshine. We'll see you soon."
They made do sharing the one surviving bed in Sanctuary, hats and shoes off and tucked under the rickety frame. Hancock curled with his back against Nick's chest while Nick closed his eyes and tried to rest. Dust filtered through the cracks in the walls with every strong gust of wind, and every cough, every deep, guttural hack Hancock loosed set sparks of panic through them both. The time had come, and Nick knew now that it was just a waiting game to see who was about to go first.
Hancock turned, setting his head under Nick's chin even as his chest strained with shallow breaths. Would tomorrow be the day?
But every time Hancock tensed, he would relax again, and Nick was always relieved. Sure it was borrowed time, but Nick was happy to borrow as much of it as he could.
Their second day in Sanctuary, Hancock found a hand. Small, too small, probably human, poking its way up and out of the rubble of Nora's old house. Nick was amazed to see that it hadn't burned away entirely in the heat, or he was until he saw the plastic skeleton poking out from the severed elbow.
"Hancock, dig. We have to dig!"
With an urgency neither had felt since leaving the church, Hancock and Nick fell to their knees and began sifting through the rubble. The deeper they got the more intact the junk became— paintings barely faded, a trifold flag with no holes, all tossed over their shoulders unceremoniously as they struggled to pry through heavy beams and shingles. Nick could feel his heat level rising, fans whirring from deep within his gut as another crack echoed from his shoulder.
His left arm wouldn't bend anymore.
It didn't matter, not anymore. One handed, he continued, hearing Hancock hack up a lung as they frantically helped uncover the rest of the small body, broken but shielded by the fallen walls of what should have been his bedroom.
"Oh, kid…"
Shaun was limp in Nick's arms, crows feet and laugh lines out of place on the still body of a ten-year-old. Nick offered to take the kid to Diamond City almost as fast as Hancock offered to take him to Goodneighbor, but Shaun had insisted that he wanted to stay home and that at the ripe old age of ninety-one, he was old enough to look after himself. He'd joked at the time that he was old enough not to need a babysitter.
Nick clung to him, shielding what was left of his body from the heat and fog. If he'd held on tighter, if he and Hancock weren't cowards and had just stayed with him…
Or if the dumb kid could have left with the others, instead of waiting forever for his mom to come home.
"Oh, kid." Nick murmured it into his hair, struggling to hold him with one arm that refused to listen. Hancock rushed to his side, helping or hurting Nick wasn't sure, but his desire to scream faded as Hancock brought his head under his chin. Thin, wiry arms wrapped around two synths, bringing them close against a chest that still shuddered with coughs and the threat of something more sinister.
They lay Shaun to rest near his mother, any delusions of a proper burial gone now that they had six functional limbs between them. Nick debated ripping his useless left arm from his socket, pausing only for fear of the pain receptors that hadn't quite given in and the worry that he would be out of balance. Instead they placed Shaun as best they could by the foot of the tree, arms folded neatly over his chest. Lacking flowers, they arranged splintered glass and lights around him in to catch the green light like stars. Under other circumstances, the display might have been considered beautiful.
But it was like Hancock said. No one gave a shit about the art of it.
"Hey Nick, you awake?"
"You gotta be pulling my leg."
"Right, sorry… you think ghouls have souls?"
"Come on now, go to sleep."
"Don't lecture me. You ain't that much older 'n me anymore."
"I don't have to be older than you to know when it's past the time for talking."
"I guess, but… I dunno." Hancock shifted against him, struggling to get comfortable. "When I go feral, you think some part of me's gonna be stuck under all that mess? I don't want to be lyin' out there wonderin' when the hell someone's gonna put me outta my misery."
Nick turned to face him. "That won't happen."
"I ain't gonna ask you to promise that."
"I know." Nick said, voice tight. "But I— you deserve better, and I never gave it to you. I won't be the coward this time."
"You're a good man, Nick. Always have been."
Nick smiled. "High praise."
"Don't let it go to your—" Hancock stopped mid sentence, overwhelmed with the most violent fit of coughing either of them had seen yet. Nick rubbed his back with his one working hand, hoping to soothe even as he thought he might short circuit from fear. Hancock retched, a small trickle of watery bile hitting the floor as he shook so violently the bed frame began to creak. Nick could only watch in helpless terror.
It took minutes for Hancock to steady himself, collapsing back against Nick's chest with a wheeze. Nick had only one good arm left to wrap around him, but they'd always made do with what they had and Hancock still seemed to ease at the contact.
"It won't happen." Nick murmured, placing a kiss just behind Hancock's ear. "Not to either of us. You promised we were gonna see Nora, remember?"
It was Hancock's turn to fall to silence.
Nick wasn't sure how long it took him to realize that Hancock was cold.
It was what they'd come here for, he tried to remind himself even as he begged his broken down body to let him cry, just this once. This was the best possible outcome. No gunshots, no teeth, no final moments of kill or be killed. No goodbyes said to a mindless beast who may or may not have still been the lanky smoothskin brat he'd met in Diamond City.
Four centuries, maybe even five, and Nick had spent at least three of them stuck in Hancock's orbit. The two of them in a love song, hand in hand, ending as quietly as anything in the wasteland possibly could. Quieter than their relationship ever had been, between the fights and the laughter, two of them creeping out of their home cities to meet by the shore, share a kiss, argue Ella Fitzgerald versus Five Stars. Nick loosed a dry laugh.
He'd manage to escape his last awful promise. Of the two bullets he saved, he would only need one.
His trench coat, more patch than coat by now, hung underneath the red duster on the side of the bed, just within reach. In the pocket was his old pipe pistol, ready and waiting for its time.
He traced the weathering and scars over Hancock's shoulder, rigid and chilled and familiar but not, before pulling his friend or acquaintance to his chest one last time. Nick set his chin over Hancock's shoulder and closed his eyes.
He'd told himself when Rosa left that this was it, that he was ready and he wasn't afraid, and back then it had been a lie. The burials, the decay, the smell of rotting and constant hum of radiation, the fog rolling in to remind him that his only living kin was gone… he was horrified. He was waiting for someone to take his hand and remind him of the good he'd done.
The wasteland would claim everything in time. Homes, friends, lovers, families, enemies, worn down old bots, it was all the same.
And Nick would finally get the chance to get some sleep.
Goodnight, my dear
Lay aside songs of spite and fear
We lovers are bound
Completing the circle and waltzing around
Your words soothe as fire
Roaring and washing the tinsel from liars
And with every kiss, solace and bliss, will not seem so rare
Our rebel's embrace, shall give us a taste
Of truth that is masked by a sly poker face
Our spirit is well and alive
Live and we will survive.
-A Rebel's Romance, Mischief Brew