September second was the day he died again.
He awoke to screams outside his window. Triggermen were racing to get outside, and someone was shouting out his name. He pulled his jeans and left his shirt, taking the spiral stairs down two at a time to kick open the door.
In front of the Hotel Rexford, a crowd of people were gathered, but the air was unbelievably uneasy. The guards were shooing people away, some shouting about getting Dr. Amari out here and some shouting for people to get back.
Hancock shoved his way through the crowd, and the first thing he saw was a young boy, about eighteen, with a bullet hole through his leg. The next was his lover, covered in blood.
He froze. People reacted to his presence, locking their eyes to him to see what he would do. He drops beside his sunshine, pushing the triggerman that was examining her face aside.
He almost vomits. He hisses, scrunching his eyes shut, hoping, praying, this was another bad chem dream. A nightmare. But the smell of burning flesh assaults his senses, and he knows it's real.
"Where's the fucking doctor?" he snaps, and people scatter to the sides, away from him. He places a hand gently on her chest, feeling the rapid rise and fall of her lungs. She was shivering, whiteknuckled on the ground.
Her face was a burning mess. From her hairline to her neck, the right side was still smoking. Someone had held her face over the fire, maybe heated up something large and branded her. Her face, her wonderful cheekbones, everything was white and weeping and dripping to the cement and the smell stuck to his throat as he hissed out orders to the people around him.
He felt dead.
When Amari showed up, eyes tired and her labcoat hanging off of one shoulder, she covered her face from the smell. She said she wasn't that kind of doctor, but when Hancock turned crying eyes to her, she ordered the triggermen to pick her up and take her to her Memory Den.
In an hour, Nick Valentine and Dr. Sun had made their way to Goodneighbor.
Hancock sat outside the Memory Den, cigarette firmly held between his lips when the old synth took a seat beside him. Hancock didn't think the robot could look any more tired.
"She'll be okay."
Hancock exhales, his entire body shaking, his head sinking into his hands. Nick begins to rub his shoulders, and he wonders how many grieving widows he's comforted before. The two sit in silence for so long that his cigarette burns away into nothing.
"I need your help," is the first thing the ghoul manages to get out. Nick, now propping his elbows up on his knees, looks to him. "I know who did this. I need to find them and kill them."
The synth sighs heavily, looking out into the streets of Goodneighbor where people were trying to clean the sidewalk of melted pieces of skin.
"We'll kill them all like dogs."