He slept late. The combination of the soft bed, the full stomach and the after effects of too much beer meant he didn't wake up until the sun was high in the sky. When he finally did, it took him a moment to remember where he was. His mouth felt thick and his throat was dry, but his head didn't hurt any worse than a dull ache, so he figured he didn't go overboard the night before. Sitting up, he realised that the room was empty, everyone else having woken up. Climbing out of bed, he pulled his clothes back on and went outside, looking for the others.
"Hey, Mac! Good night?" Nate called to him from the workstation on the other side of the settlement. Preston was tending to the garden again, and Cait was helping this time. Piper was sat on the stairs of Nate's house with her notebook again. The robot butler, Codsworth, drifted past MacCready to a line of small hedges and began trimming them, despite the fact that they looked fine. Dogmeat ran through the settlement, barking as he chased what seemed to be a small grey cat. Nick was nowhere to be seen. MacCready assumed he was at his desk, like Nate had said he would be.
"Yeah. Best night's sleep I've had in a while, actually."
"Good, because we're heading out again today. I got word there's a tribe of raiders living over in Dunwich Borers."
"The old quarry?"
"That's the one. You up for a party?" He grinned that sharklike grin again, and pressed a box of sugar bombs into his hand. "Eat up. You're gonna want to be at full strength for this."
After breakfast, Nate pulled on his armour and retrieved his sword, rifle and handgun. MacCready did the same, slinging his new, improved rifle over his shoulder. He stocked up on ammo and healing supplies, and they said goodbye to the others. Nate turned the radio on again, humming along, and together they set out through the wastes.
Dunwich Borers wasn't miles away. The huge hole in the ground was visible from a distance thanks to the quarried limestone surrounding its edges. There were a few raiders skirting the perimeter of the pit, which they took out easily. Nate did join MacCready in shooting them at first, but when they realised where the shots were coming from and started to run towards them, Nate drew his sword and matched them, running forwards. A few of the raiders had melee weapons, but most had pipe guns which were not very effective at close range, so Nate didn't have much trouble taking them out. MacCready winced a little as he straight up beheaded one of the raiders, blood spraying everywhere.
With the top level cleared, they began to head further into the quarry. Nate always went first, with MacCready following him with his gun, ready to take out any raiders that looked like they might be trouble. They got halfway down, when Nate muttered, "Shit. They got a suit." MacCready was confused as to what he meant for a moment, but then he caught sight of the raider in full power armour.
"What's the plan, boss?"
"Injure him or decommission as much of his armour as possible from here. Then I'll use the holes to take him down."
"You got it." MacCready readied his rifle, aiming it at the suited raider. Through his new scope, he could see the raider close enough to find weak spots in his armour. Unfortunately, this one was smart enough to wear a full helmet, meaning he couldn't just fell the bastard with a headshot. Instead, he targeted joints, aiming at the juncture between the chestpiece and the arms. The first shot he fired sparked off the armour, causing the raider to raise his weapon and look around in the general direction of the shot. Failing to catch sight of the sniper, he was caught unawares several more times. Eventually, one of the bullets hit a vital spot, and the raider's arm dropped, no longer being held up by its internal matrix. MacCready switched targets as the raider swore and ditched the armour on that arm, before ordering a bunch of others up the ramp and taking up a gun himself.
"Alright, keep shooting as long as you can." Nate put his hand on MacCready's shoulder for a moment, startling him a little, before standing up from behind their hiding place and brandishing his sword once more. MacCready saw a few of the raiders shout and point in their direction, causing others to look up. Nate headed down to meet them as MacCready aimed to take out the suited raider's other arm as well. He very nearly switched targets as he watched Nate take on four raiders at a time as they ran up to meet him. He seemed to be taking a few hits, but they were definitely coming off worse, and the power armour took priority.
The hulking steel monstrosity was upon Nate sooner than he would have liked, but he was down both arms and his chestplate was taking damage, plus Nate had dispatched his comrades very thoroughly, so it was a one on one fight. Well, one on two, if MacCready counted.
The frame of the power armour was still there, even if the armour itself wasn't, so Nate couldn't straight up slash at the raider's exposed skin. Instead he played a risky game of jabbing the blade into the holes in the armour, leaving bleeding gashes all up and down the raider's arms. The raider fought back, forgoing his gun for what looked like a large wrench, and attempting to bash him over the head with it. For all his strength, though, Nate was much faster without all that metal encasing him, and as a consequence he managed to find an opening to thrust his sword into the gap in the side of the man's armour, dealing a fatal blow. The suited raider fell to the ground, his armour making a deafening noise as it hit the stone ground. Nate heaved a breath as MacCready stood and ran down towards him.
"You alright? That looked rough."
"Yeah, I'm fine." The taller man had a graze on his cheek which was weeping blood, and he had a hand pressed to his side.
"What happened to your side?"
"Took a bit of blunt trauma. Good news is it doesn't hurt to breathe so I probably haven't broken anything."
"That's... Reassuring." MacCready frowned. "Are we done here then?" He glanced around. There were no more raiders to be seen. But Nate laughed.
"Not even close. See over there?" He pointed his sword at a tunnel in the side of the quarry. "I'm betting there are more of them in there. And even if there aren't, I want to see what's in there."
"You're nuts, you know that?"
"Mac, I was trapped in an icebox for more than two centuries. That does things to a man." He wiped the blood from his sword off on a dead raider's clothes and sheathed it again.
"Fair point." He helped Nate loot the corpses, taking anything that could be considered valuable, and then followed him into the tunnel. It was crudely sectioned off with a scrap fence and shoddy lock. Nate pulled out a screwdriver and bobby pin. He had it open in seconds.
Inside, it was dark as hell, save for a few cracked lanterns here and there. The tunnel led straight down. MacCready didn't like it; something about the stale air and the oppressive darkness made him feel more than a little claustrophobic. From time to time, MacCready caught sight of a skeleton, which wasn't a rare occurance by any means, but from time to time they were joined by a raider corpse, from far more recently, which was vaguely unnerving. It was a little way before they encountered their first live raider, standing lookout atop some metal scaffolding. MacCready felled him with a headshot before he saw them. Nate stopped to hack a terminal and loot the body. MacCready noticed Nate frowning a little as he read the messages on the terminal.
"What? What's on there?"
"Nothing important." Nate stated. "Just that the guys working here back in my day really seemed to care about safety." His tone was laced with sarcasm.
There were a few more raiders as they went further and further into the tunnel, but they seemed to be few and far between. There were a couple more terminals, which seemed to say roughly the same thing as the first. They had been moving for about ten minutes when they felt the first rumble. It seemed to have no source, and it was little more than a low noise in the background, but MacCready grabbed Nate's sleeve.
"What was that?" In his head, MacCready had thoughts of rockfalls and the tunnel caving in, being trapped down here in the dark, choking air until they either starved or suffocated.
"I'm sure it's nothing." Nate said. "Besides, it sounded like it was far away, whatever it was."
MacCready nodded his head and let go, but still felt a growing sense of unease as they progressed. This feeling was increased tenfold when they stopped at the next terminal, which contained one message which was simply one phrase repeated over and over- I'm safe in the light.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" MacCready asked, trying to keep his voice steady and failing. "I'll tell you what it means. It means we need to get out of here."
"Mac, hey." Nate turned to him, his voice betraying mild worry. He rested his hand on MacCready's shoulder and smiled comfortingly. "This message is two hundred years old. Whatever it meant, it's irrelevant now. The raiders live here, so it can't be that bad. Breathe." MacCready hadn't even noticed that his breathing was uneven, but he closed his eyes, matching the sound of Nate's breaths, and tried to calm his nerves once more.
They reached the end of the raider territory just a little while later, indicated by another badly made door, this one sectioned off with heavy chains. Nearby were a desk and another terminal. Nate took another bobble head from the desk and, once more, read the messages. MacCready examined the door, too freaked out from the last terminal to want to know what was on this one. From this side, they were easy to remove, like it was things on the other side that they needed to keep out.
"I'm not sure we should go down there." MacCready stated as Nate pulled them off and wrenched the door open.
"Why not?"
"Raiders are dumb. If even they figured out they needed to chain themselves off, whatever's in there can't be good."
"Raiders are also weak. Whatever it is, we can take it." MacCready didn't respond, but kept a hand on his rifle as they moved forward. The way forward was dark, and he couldn't stop himself mentally repeating the mantra I am safe in the light. I am safe in the light. I am safe in the light.
The next enemy they encountered was a group of ferals. MacCready pulled out the pistol Nate had given him, given barely enough time to react as one rushed at him. They moved too fast to hit with a rifle. He felt an all too familiar tightness in his chest as it bore down on him, but he emptied his gun into it as it scratched at his chest, and it collapsed, gurgling unpleasantly. He looked up, expecting more, only to see that all of them seemed to be dogpiling on Nate. He watched in horror as his boss disappeared beneath flailing limbs and rotting flesh.
"Nate!" He reloaded his pistol as quickly as his shaking hands could and began firing blindly into the mass. He heard inhuman shrieks of pain, and was incredibly relieved when a blade emerged from the back of one of them. One by one, they were hacked to bits from within, and Nate emerged, splattered with black blood.
"Ugh. Those things are disgusting." He saw MacCready, face white as a sheet, death grip on his gun. "Hey... Are you alright?" MacCready took a shaky breath, lowering his gun. "Uh... Yeah. I... I don't like ferals." Something flitted across Nate's face, but he didn't press the issue. Instead, he just nodded. "I'll take the lead. Don't worry, I can handle myself."
The ominous rumbling occurred a few more times as they headed on, but each time Nate ignored it and MacCready did his best to do the same. This place seemed tailor made to freak him out, MacCready noted. He could swear he was hearing things, wet footsteps, squelches and unpleasant noises. He put it down to the ferals, of which they did encounter more, and true to his word Nate took them out, though every time one leapt on him MacCready found himself cursing Nate's up-close and personal fighting style, wishing the man wouldn't put himself so heavily at risk. He did seem to be sustaining wounds, even though he assured his companion that he was fine. MacCready noticed an angry set of scratches on the side of his neck, and his hands were bloody. The merc was grateful that the rest of him was protected by armour.
The air down here felt, if possible, even more oppressive, warm and humid. MacCready was beginning to feel lightheaded, and he swore more than once he saw people in the shadows. His every nerve was set on edge already, so when another, louder rumble shook the cave, he jumped, breath coming hard and heavy. Even Nate, who was still disturbingly calm, seemed startled.
"Okay that definitely did not sound good. We should get out of here."
"Come on, we must be nearly at the bottom."
"Nate." MacCready pleaded.
"It's just a little background noise. Probably just the rock settling."
"Nate, I think there must be some kind of gas leak or something in here. I think I'm hallucinating." MacCready jumped as he caught another flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye.
"I have gas masks, if you want one." Nate replied. "Took 'em off the raiders." The fact that Nate didn't press him for details or call him nuts for seeing things suggested he might have been experiencing them too. That... MacCready wasn't sure if that was reassuring or not.
"No... I want to be able to see properly." It was hard enough already. Nate had switched on the light of his pipboy, casting a creepy green glow over everything, but that was the only source of light there was at this stage. Putting a mask on would render him almost blind. In the ghostly light, MacCready could see the sheen of sweat on Nate's face. Nate was the only familiar thing in this place, and MacCready took comfort in his being there, in the confidence of his smile. It was the only reason he hadn't bolted.
Fortunately, it was only a little further until they reached the end of the cave. It was a round cavern, not much larger than the pathway down, and the majority of it was taken up by a pool. As Nate approached it, his pipboy clicked softly. He looked down into it, but the waters were black.
"That's... That's it?" MacCready felt cheated. "We came all this way, all the way to the bottom of this freaking creepy ass cave for a bit of radioactive water?" He found himself glancing over his shoulder. For a second, he thought he heard a voice... chanting? But all he could see was darkness, and when he listened closely, he heard nothing.
Nate was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "We have radaway, right?"
"What? Nate... Nate no. You can't be serious."
"I'm going in."
"No you're not. You're really not. Nate, that's a really bad idea." But he was already stripping, laying his weapons and armour to one side.
"There's gotta be something down there. There has to be. Something to make it worth it."
"Jesus Christ, Nate, we don't even know how deep it is! There might be some man-eating radioactive fish down there!" MacCready's mind conjured images of blind, scaleless slimy things lurking at the bottom, ready to strike.
"I doubt it." Nate stood before him in just his boxers and pipboy, shining the light down into the water. MacCready could see scars on him, his skin white in the cold light. He dipped his toe into the water. "Good news is it's warm. Must be heated by geothermal energy."
"Geowhatnow?"
"Energy released from the Earth's core."
"Uh..." MacCready wasn't sure what to make of that. "Okay?" He heard his voice break a little on the last syllable.
Nate sat down at the edge of the pool, dangling his legs in the water, then pushed himself in. MacCready winced as he went under for a moment, then resurfaced. He half expected the man to go under in a mess of blood and bubbles, dragged down by some carnivorous thing. When he treaded water for a moment and nothing happened, MacCready let out a breath.
"Okay. Look after my stuff, I won't be a minute."
"Nate no!" He scrambled to the edge, but Nate had already taken as big a breath as he could and dived. MacCready watched in horror as the green light faded into blackness, leaving him alone in the dark. The cavern was utterly silent. He could hear his own shallow breaths, but that was the only sound. Fighting down panic, MacCready waited. Surrounded by darkness, and with nothing to mark the seconds as the passed, he had no idea how long Nate had been down there. He tried counting, but he had no idea how accurate he was. It must have been a minute already. No, two. Maybe even three. Nate couldn't hold his breath that long, he couldn't. He'd gotten stuck down there. He was drowning. Something had caught him. MacCready was stuck in this nothingness forever, alone and with no light to be able to find his way out, surrounded by ghostly shapes, sounds that he didn't really hear and his mantra, I'm safe in the light. But he was not in the light. He was in pitch black darkness, and he was going to go crazy in here, if something didn't get him first. Whatever it was that got the prewar workers, whose skeletons littered the whole mine, and the raiders whose bodies hid in dark corners and at the bottom of pits. The tightness in his chest returned, and his head spun with distress. The silence in his ears became a rush, and he swore he could feel his own heart beating painfully in his chest. Still, his fingers gripped at the rock at the water's edge and he stared into the blackness.
He was beginning to hyperventilate when he saw a faint glow from below the water's surface. At first, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him, but the light grew brighter, and suddenly the silence was split open as Nate broke the surface of the water, gulping at air like a man half drowned, clawing at the side. MacCready almost screamed, laughing in relief and holding out a hand to help Nate out of the water. Nate grabbed at it, and MacCready pulled him to the side, and he threw something to one side, where it clattered noisily. He clung to the rock, still gasping, coughing and spitting out water.
"I think... I think it's in my brain..." He finally managed to say, his voice hoarse. He pressed a hand to his forehead for a moment, then hoisted himself out with MacCready's help. MacCready felt water seeping through the arms and chest of his jacket as Nate collapsed practically on top of him.
"You nearly gave me a heart attack!" MacCready hit the man's shoulder, too flooded with relief to react to their close proximity. "I thought you'd drowned and I was going to be lost down here forever! Never do that again!"
Nate laughed that hearty, warm laugh and rolled off him, lying on his back. "Not gonna lie, I thought I was gonna drown too for a moment there. I think that might be the longest I've ever held my breath." He took a moment longer, then sat up, looking for something. He scrabbled around for a bit, then picked up the thing he had thrown aside, holding it up to inspect it. It was a sword, about as long as MacCready's arm and with a machete grip. From what MacCready could see in the half light, it was made of a dark metal, and it was the strangest shape the merc had ever seen, twisted and curved, with holes in the blade. It ended in a vicious, sickle-shaped point.
"What... What is that?"
"I have no idea." Nate inspected it closely. "Whatever it is, it looks wicked sharp."
Something in MacCready's mind didn't sit well with this. "I don't think we should take it with us."
"What?" Nate looked at him incredulously. "Mac, like you said, we came all this way. I'm not leaving without a prize."
"I just... I don't like it. This whole place reeks of trouble."
"What are you, some superstitious guy who crosses himself every time a black cat walks across his path?"
MacCready grimaced. "Fine. Take it with you. But if something bad happens, you can bet I'll say I told you so. Now get dressed. And take a radaway before you get sick."
Not once in MacCready's twenty-two years of life had he ever been happier to see sunlight. The trip back hadn't been half as harrowing as the trip there; all the ghouls were dead, and the cave's periodic rumbling seemed to have stopped, but even so, MacCready hated every minute of it. Nate had tucked his prize into his belt next to his sword, and followed MacCready out of the cave. When they reached the area lit by lanterns once more, MacCready had breathed a sigh of relief, but he wasn't truly at ease until the tunnel, and all its disturbing contents were far, far behind them. He was still shaking when he and Nate pitched up later, the sun setting on the horizon.
"Hey." Nate sat beside him, having started up a fire. He passed the younger man a box of snack cakes and a canister of water, which MacCready broke into eagerly. "I'm sorry."
MacCready stopped mid bite, looking over at the other man. "Wha' for?"
"For making you follow me in there. Right from the start I knew you weren't comfortable with it. I have to admit, it creeped me out too, but I pushed forwards because I'm as crazy as everyone thinks I am, and because I was painfully curious about what went on in there. I just... I have to remember that not everyone is as insane as I am. So I'm sorry. And I won't blame you if you don't want to travel with me anymore."
"Are you kidding me?" MacCready had said the words before he even thought about it. "Nate, you're the best thing to happen to me for a good long while." He knew he was probably saying too much, but his nerves were shot and honestly, he didn't much care.
"You mean that?" Nate seemed genuinely surprised, which struck MacCready as strange, since so many others seemed to think the same.
"Don't get your hopes up, you haven't got much to contend with." His voice came out a little more bitterly than he intended. Nate laughed.
"Well, I do try. Even if I know I'm not the best company sometimes." He stared into the fire for a moment. "I've been meaning to ask..."
Warning bells immediately sounded in MacCready's head. He'd said too much. Nate was going to ask something personal. Something he wasn't ready to tell him.
"...What's your first name?"
"Wait, that's it?"
Nate smirked. "What, would you rather I asked something harder?"
"No! No, I just..." He tailed off. "Robert. My name's Robert Joseph MacCready."
"Huh." Nate nodded. "Can I call you RJ?"
"Sure... I guess." It sounded weird. No one called him anything but his last name. But he liked it. "Um... What's your last name, then? I assume Nate's your first name."
He chuckled. "You would be right. My last name's Delaney. Nathaniel Elliott Delaney, if you want my full name. But I absolutely forbid you from calling me Ned." He grimaced. "I hate that name." MacCready laughed.
"Nate it is then. Oh, and whilst we're on the subject of stupid questions, why do you wear your hair like that? No offence but it looks dumb."
"Psh, you can talk, hatman."
"Hey." The merc touched his hat a little indignantly. "My hat looks fine."
"Yeah whatever." Nate reached up, tugging lightly on the little ponytail on the back of his head. "I wear it like this because of this." He pulled the band out of his hair and shook his head. His hair fell in his eyes, looking even stupider. MacCready snorted into his water. "See, I used to wear it up like this," he ran his fingers through his overgrown fringe so it sat up in a sort of quiff, looking actually not half bad. For a few seconds maybe, before it fell back over his face. "But that requires hair products and the Commonwealth seems to have a disturbing lack of those." He pulled it back into its ponytail, redoing the band.
"Why don't you just get it cut? There's a hairdresser in Diamond City, you know that right?"
"Eh, I'm kind of fond of it. Yeah it looks a bit odd but that matches my personality. Maybe I'll cut it when it gets a bit too long, but until then, the dumb ponytail stays, I'm afraid."
MacCready tried to imagine Nate without it, and found that he didn't think it was quite so stupid after all. "I'm sure I'll manage."
They took it in turns to sleep, and MacCready found himself lamenting the soft, warm bed back at Covenant, where he was sure the others were just about settling down after another good meal. He wondered who cooked in Nate's absence, and how Nate knew how to cook so well. He imagined Nate back before the war, living a domestic life in a clean, safe house with a wife and child, like the pictures he saw in magazines and on adverts for old cleaning products. He still had trouble believing that this was true, and the battle scarred, bloodstained man sleeping before him didn't look like he would have fit in at all with that kind of image. Still, he held himself differently from everyone else in the wasteland. He didn't have as much fear in his eyes, and he spoke with a diction that didn't quite match anything MacCready had heard before, except maybe on prewar holotapes, and, now he came to think of it, Nick Valentine's voice. The old detective was a synth, so maybe it wasn't too much of a stretch to believe he might be prewar as well, especially since he looked so beat up.
His thoughts turned back to Nate. The man was snoring, sprawled out on the dirt in a way that might have kidded someone who didn't know better into thinking it was comfortable. He had started the nap with a jacket draped over him for extra warmth, but since then he had moved enough for it to fall off. He didn't look cold though, so MacCready let him be. The redhead had a scar over his left eyebrow, MacCready noted with mild interest, as well as on his upper lip. There was also a rough patch on his right jawline where his stubble didn't grow through as thickly. A burn scar maybe? MacCready wondered how he'd gotten it. Some raiders had flamethrowers, he knew, or it could have been an accident at his workstation. The fresher marks of the graze on his cheek and the scratches on his neck were scabbed over now, and they would probably heal without leaving permanent marks of their own, but even so the man had an impressive collection. Those, coupled with what MacCready had seen back by the cursed underground pool suggested either a man who didn't know how to defend himself or a man who was blindingly reckless in his endeavours. Obviously with Nate it was the latter. Honestly it was probably a miracle that he was still alive. MacCready wondered where he'd learned to fight, because he seemed to be pretty damned good at it.
Lost in thought, he almost nodded off and was startled awake when he leaned slightly too far to one side and nearly fell over. Checking the time, he realised he'd been on watch for nearly four hours. Realising that he wasn't going to be much use as a watchman whilst he was this tired, he nudged Nate with his foot.
"Hey." The redhead didn't stir. "Nate." He tried again. The man muttered something indistinguishable under his breath. Changing tactics, MacCready reached out and shook his shoulder gently. Nate groaned. "'M awake, 'm awake..." And rolled over onto his side, nestling his head against MacCready's leg. MacCready wasn't sure how to react to this, so he cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Uh, Nate?"
"Mm?"
"It's... Uh... It's your turn to watch."
Nate yawned, finally opening his eyes and looking up. If he felt weird about his current position, he didn't show it, simply glaring at a slightly red-faced MacCready before sitting up, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "Already?"
"Afraid so."
"Alright, fine." He watched as MacCready yawned. "Get some rest. I'll keep the deathclaws off you." He grinned, and MacCready gave him an unimpressed look as he lay down, wadding up his jacket to make a passable headrest. The dirt was cold and hard, and MacCready curled up, shivering slightly. Still, he was tired enough that his thoughts blurred quickly enough, and he only vaguely registered something being placed over him as he fell asleep.
