Tags: F!SS/Hancock, drug use, angst, fluff.

Fill for the Fallout kink meme prompt: Hancock/F!SS - Hancock stops using chems (!)

A Ray of Sunshine

It was never something he'd set out to do.

He'd just noticed it over time: several inhalers of Jet still in his pockets after a long day, a bottle of beer here and there he never quite got around to, even a few unopened boxes of Mentats he'd stuck in his office desk and somehow just… forgot. Which had led to a rather awkward conversation with Fahrenheit when he'd popped open the drawer one day and thought she was trying to be friendly for a change.

The horror, that.

He had been a little concerned after that, admittedly. Not about Fahrenheit, but himself. Namely the whole "going feral" thing. And by "a little concerned," he meant "fucking terrified." He joked about it often enough, sure, but he knew. He always damn well knew. It could happen at any time. A few missing memories at first, then more, and then too many, till it wasn't just hours or days but months, years. Whole parts of himself devoured by the rot, till there was nothing left but another one of the ferals everyone feared.

Not too long ago, he wouldn't have cared much. He'd done some real good with Goodneighbor, and while turning feral certainly wasn't in his top five ways to go, he knew when to hang up his hat. And he'd be lying if he said he hadn't planned for this exact possibility, that Fahrenheit would…

Well, Fahrenheit knew the right thing to do.

But now… Now was different, now he didn't want to lose it all.

He'd kept it on the low for a week, let the lapse cool until Fahrenheit stopped looking at him with a furrowed brow, or at least not in his line of sight. No reason to raise a fuss when it was the last thing he needed. And his sweet sunshine… Damn, he couldn't do that to her. Not until he knew for sure.

The relief he felt when Doctor Amari set him straight was almost a high in itself.

"You aren't going feral, Mayor," Amari said in a hushed voice. It wasn't really necessary; the door was shut and locked, and the Memory Den was always near empty middle of the afternoon anyway. To anyone else, he was just checking in on one of his favorite residents. "Your brain is in excellent health, I assure you, as is the rest of you, barring the usual parts of being a ghoul and such." She smiled and set down her clipboard. "You are quite the resilient one, Mayor. Though, perhaps you already know that."

"Thanks, doc," he replied, and he swore the grin on his face would have ached if he hadn't been so glad. "I really appreciate you keeping this quiet for me. If you ever need anything, just say the word."

Amari let out a soft laugh. "I think I'm quite all right, but thank you."

He tipped his tricorn hat and turned to go.

Then, just as he reached for the door handle, Amari called, "Oh, and Mayor?"

He looked back. "Yeah?"

Amari smiled again, a warmth in the corners of her eyes. "I'm glad to see you cutting back." At his stare, she added, "Your bloodwork. You're cleaner than you usually are for these… visits."

"Oh… Yeah," he replied. "No problem."

Then he stepped out and put the comment from his mind, happy enough to know he could keep riding this little life of his that had turned out so surprisingly well. When he came back to his office to find his Vaultie sitting on his desk wearing nothing but her eyeglasses and a smirk – "Well, aren't you a pretty piece of paperwork," he quipped, and she laughed, "Then shouldn't you being filling me out?" – he was more than happy enough to shove her against a wall, her lips Nuka-Cola sweet on his, and show her just how perfect she made everything.

But, afterwards, as they lay curled up together on the couch, his hand on her back measuring her sleeping breaths and another lazily twining a lock of brown hair around his index finger, it came back. A small, niggling little thing at first, and he brushed it off easily enough with the heavy, glowing daze that only came from great sex. And he had a lot of great sex with his sweet sunshine.

Slowly, though, it grew, until it pressed so hard against his mind that he found himself staring up at the ceiling, unsure of what to think, unsure he was thinking right at all.

Because it was true. He wasn't using as much chems.

He hadn't quit cold-turkey, and even now he wasn't planning to cut out entirely. But now that he knew it wasn't from a slip in memory, the realization sat oddly with him.

He'd dabbled in drugs for years even before Goodneighbor, ever since his teenage years. A bit of liquor to start, sneaking beer and cheap wine at parties, or what qualified for a party in that seaside shanty of a settlement his family used to live in. Then he'd come to Diamond City and discovered the good stuff: cigarette smoke swirling in a bar and a shot of bourbon in hand; hazy streams of Jet soaking in his lungs in a low-lit den hidden down an alley; grape-flavored Mentats floating on his tongue at another of his brother's political galas, drawing women and men alike to him like bees to honey. The risk of a scandal just made the high even better.

But then, after everything with Diamond City and the ghouls… Something had changed. He still found chems good fun, but he was turning to them more often and for more than just the kick. An ale to warm up in a cold alley in an even colder town, watching as the other drifters, just as lost as him, huddled in fear. The day he blacked out and woke up in front of the display, and the chems still singing in his veins, he looked up at the clothes and knew what he had to do. Empty tins of Mentats littering the floor from day after day of being mayor, of keeping tabs on his little corner of the Commonwealth, the drudgery of budgets and the strain of ferreting out every little plot draining him until there was nothing but the buzz of drugs between his ears.

He'd always had a pretty good tolerance to chems, and that had only grown since becoming a ghoul himself. Oftentimes it took him several hits to even reach a real high. It worked out well for him, he thought. Like another sort of running, but one he could keep up with.

With chems, he didn't have to see how things were. He just had to see enough to know when to lend a hand and when to shoot.

But now something had changed again.

He looked down at his ray of sunshine, sprawled across his naked, ruined body. She was still asleep, her chest slowly rising and falling under the hand he had on her back, a rare expression of real peace on her face. He traced the curve of her jaw with a fingertip, careful not to wake her. He swallowed thickly around the warmth that bloomed inside him, as hot and heady as a good glass of gin.

You… You're the best thing I got, he'd told her, and he still meant every word of it. Even now, after all the time they'd been together, he wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve her.

And it wasn't just her. It was what he'd seen with her.

A ghoul kid reuniting with his parents after two long, lonely centuries apart. Cast-out drifters founding a new settlement, a place they could call home with a new family who accepted them as a whole instead of just the bits that sparkled in the light. The Silver Shroud sweeping in on a grand appearance to kick Sinjin and his crew right where the sun didn't shine. Raiders, slavers, and the other scum of the wasteland getting the justice they'd earned at the end of a loaded barrel. A hundred more little moments, each one breathing life back into a part of him he hadn't even realized had died.

And then he realized just how small-time he'd been thinking.

He watched his love, the flutter of her eyes as she slept, the stubborn lock of hair at the edge of her face that always curled just so. He thought of the days of taking it easy at Sanctuary, of laundered blue dresses and smiling at the smallest of things. He thought of the world outside, of clear skies, the laughter that rang out from Daisy's shop, a whisper of one of Magnolia's songs through the floorboards. He thought of the people, of all their lives and little oddities, their hopes and dreams.

He thought about her dreams. His dreams. Their future, a brighter, real tomorrow.

There was no high better than that.

And, as his eyes slipped shut, he thought:

Perhaps it's nice enough just seeing the world as it is.

xxx

Author's notes:

I know Doctor Amari doesn't actually offer services in-game. But considering her specialty and how many ghouls live in Goodneighbor, I imagine she probably does check-ups on the side for anyone worried about their neurological health. Hope no one minds that head-canon too much. :)

Thanks for reading!