A/N: Hey again! Sorry this chapter is shorter than the previous ones, but seriously, I had to stop it or the thing would have been monstrous, even more so than the last one. The second part (of which was supposed to be after Part One) was way too enormous and so I apologise if this seems a little small and… cut off? Oh well. That part will be next chapter!
Hey, look! A new character! Everyone's favourite ghoul!
I think this story is becoming a little confusing with names and stuff. So:
Skinny Malone – leader of the Triggermen. Not skinny at all.
Marowski, aka The Boss – drug kingpin of the Commonwealth. Mr. Do-Not-Fuck-With-Me.
Eddy Hart, aka Chuckles – raider gang leader who had the monopoly on chem sales to the downtown raiders, selling them for Marowski. Daye blew his head off.
Both Skinny and The Boss and Chuckles and Hancock and Daye have ties, of course. All the seedy fuckers do.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think!
Part One: In Which This Chapter is a Little Shorter, Sorry, But a New Main Character Gets Introduced and Is, Unfortunately, Having a Really Shitty Day
John Hancock, extremely good-looking and deadly ghoul mayor of the upstanding town of Goodneighbor, was having a really shitty day.
But it was about to get much shittier.
The dull sounds of scuffling outside his office door pierced his thoughts. Boots on hardwood and flesh against cloth, and mumbled fucks and shits and open the goddamn door –
"Open the goddamn door you fuckin' zombie prick!"
Hancock grumbled. Always the same shit. Shit in the morning, shit after lunch, shit every fucking afternoon. Hell, he couldn't even take a shit without shit getting in the way.
Granted, most of his days were shit lately. Hard to go back to filing papers and pencil-pushing behind a desk after running with the boys –
Hm. He smiled a little at that.
Ha.
Boys.
Nah, Daye wasn't that much younger than him. Mac, maybe. Still wet behind the ears in everything but sniping. The guy was a fucking deadeye.
Hancock had seen him shoot the nuke out of the hands of a mutant suicider from a whole click away, once. In one try. He was shitting his pants, in all honesty, and was pretty sure Daye already had. The fucking brute was charging headlong at them, right out in an open field, and sure, they had a good mile or so between them, but you've never seen a mutie book it when he's real pissed at you. Scary shit. But the kid just pulls out his sniper rifle, aims it, and casually shoots the fucking nuke right out of his fucking giant green hands. Vapourised the poor bastard into a cloud of red mist. It was beautiful. Made the cold lump in his chest he called heart beat wilder than it ever had before.
Hancock sighed, the sound scratchy and ragged in his rotted throat, ignoring the ruckus outside the door. He shuffled through the endless stack of yellowed papers and crinkled folders before him. Complaints and suggestions and some rather – ahem – personal shit, if you must know.
A request to upgrade the slums behind the Rexford. Irma bitching about rowdy guests again. Some drifter named Craig looking to sell his –
Fuck. Hancock hissed as the edge of a paper slid along his fingers, slicing a fingertip and spattering a few drops of sparkling blood onto the papers.
You'd think his wrinkly, decaying hands would've been too tough and leathery for that shit anymore. Nah. If anything, his fraying flesh just managed to catch the edges of things even more.
He pressed his fingers together to stop the bleeding and took his hat off with a sigh, leaning back in his chair to wait. No sense in continuing if he was just going to bloody up the place.
The place. The Old State House. His home, his office. A poor excuse of one, if he was being honest.
The old books on the shelves were for show – he'd never even cracked one open. The old filing cabinets were jammed shut, always had been. Also for show. The old hardwood floors were clean and the old dust was gone but it still smelled like… old. Like everything in the New World did. And Hancock didn't give two shits about the Old World, but he'd hung up ratty flags and fading maps and flaking paintings of long-dead presidents just so it looked like he did.
A lot of shit in my life is like that, he thought. All show…
The door hammered again. "Open this fuckin' door!"
Hancock ignored that.
…And it was bearable before, this mundane stuff. His mayoral possessions. His mayoral duties. He did it – he hated it, mind you – but he did it for the little guys. Because it all made a difference. Somehow. Those drifters down in the streets had a home. Well, a place to run to from wherever they'd run from. Somewhere to crash and eat something and walk down the street without having to constantly watch their backs. A place to shoot up without the risk of being offed or raped by some greasy gang of raiders. That had to be better than before.
Right?
But now – now all he could think about was getting back out there in the wastes with his friends. Walking the dusty roads, not knowing where he was going to sleep that night, or what he was going to eat, or if he'd even be alive the next hour. Shooting and drinking and fucking, really living.
For a guy who's pretty much a corpse anyway.
A jolting thump against the door. "You zombie bastard!"
See?
All this… organisation – it just ate away at him. Like a lot of things, really. Guess that's why he shot up all the time, just like the drifters.
To get away. To find himself. Or lose himself.
Always running from something.
To forget. Or remember, maybe.
Fuck if he knew any more.
But Mac and Daye… they knew.
Well, Daye did. Mac was too big a pussy to try anything harder than Jet. But Daye. He'd been through some tough shit. Same as himself. He supposed that's why they got along so well, had some pretty fucking awesome times.
John Hancock would be the first guy to tell you he was a Grade-A Piece of Shit, but you know, he'd learned a lot from everything that happened. And this is one little nugget of his infinite wisdom, so shut the fuck up and listen closely:
You can run from a whole lot of shit in your life, but you can't run from it all.
Hancock knew he had to go back to Goodneighbor one day.
And here I am.
They'd huffed six stalks of Jet and stuck four tubes of Psycho between the three of them the night Mac blasted the mutie into oblivion. Then they had the brilliant idea to go swimming in the harbour. Daye vomited from the rads for two whole days after that.
He smirked at the memory. Then he squinted.
Fuck. He had a really bad headache.
Nothing like a migraine and a hearty dose of self-pity to put you in a fucking cheery mood.
So, yeah, you could say John Hancock's day was shit.
"Open this fuckin' door you rotting sack of molerat shit!"
He sighed again and ran his hands over his face, feeling the pocks and grooves and leathery strips beneath his tattered fingertips. "Sack of molerat shit?" he mumbled, peeking between his fingers at the woman by the doorway.
Fahrenheit shrugged as she leant against the wall, smoking a cigarette casually in the shadows by the hole he'd punched through the lath and plaster during one of his real bad chem trips. He could've sworn on his shrivelled ghoul cock there'd been a Vertibird about to crash through the fucking windows.
She was completely and utterly and kind of annoyingly unperturbed by it all. "What do you expect?"
"Who is it?"
"One of Skinny's little toadies."
Perfect. Fucking perfect. Just what he needed.
He reclined in his chair again, rubbing his temples. "The hell that fatass want with me now?"
"Dunno. Want to find out?"
"Not really."
"He's a stubborn ass, I'll give him that."
"How'd he get in here? Weren't you making sure the guys were on the lookout for Skinny's sneaks?"
"Like I said. Stubborn."
"Right."
"He keeps threatening to burn the place down if we don't let him talk to you."
Hancock snorted. "That all?"
"Among other less subtle means of getting your attention."
Hancock really did not have time for this shit today. And he had less patience for dumbfucks than usual – which is saying a lot, considering he normally just shanked said dumbfucks before they spewed their verbal diarrhea all over his streets.
"Get rid of him," he growled. "However you want, I don't care. But do it quietly. I don't want people seeing."
Fahrenheit didn't move. She just stood there in the dim light as if she hadn't heard him. Weird. Normally his bodyguard was off doing his bidding before he even got it out of his mouth. That's why he liked her so much. She understood him. Didn't question things. Never mentioned specifics.
Hard to find people like that.
She wasn't a very beautiful person by any means – well, not that Hancock could judge shit like that – and the scars and burns on her face worked wonders disguising her emotions and true intentions with the poor bastards they sometimes – ahem – interrogated, but he'd known her for far too long to be fooled by her anymore.
"What?"
She glanced down at her cigarette – Grey Tortoise, it was, though Hancock preferred Lucky Strikes, same as Daye – and then put it back in her mouth. "He keeps saying something about a drug bust down by the docks."
"And?"
"And Trish. She's dead."
Hancock's heart – well, that rotten lump of flesh dangling in his shrivelled body – dropped heavily like a brahmin bull's balls during rutting season.
Eugh. Maybe that was too specific.
"Trish?" he croaked. "Dead?"
"That's what he says."
Fuck. Trish. Marowski's right-hand bitch. Tough as nails, dangerous as a broody deathclaw on Psycho. If she was dead…
Hancock rubbed at his temples again, his headache magnifying tenfold.
There was only one informant good enough to catch a lead like that – and only one scarred, mad sonofabitch who could afford his tips.
"Fine, fine," he grumbled, motioning his bodyguard to the door. "Yeah. Let him in."
Fahrenheit, in no apparent rush, sucked the last little bit of her cigarette and put it out in the ugly gold ashtray on the side table before unlocking the four bolts on the door – hey, you can never be too cautious, alright? – and with a grinding metallic thud, swung the heavy wooden door open.
"You fuckin' shuffler!" some young guy screeched as he barrelled through the doorway, nearly colliding with Fahrenheit. He seemed a real Mr. Prick type with a clean tan suit and fedora, someone Hancock had never seen before but instantly knew as a Triggerman.
Fahrenheit was right, as always. One of Skinny's little toadies. The kid struggled and kicked to get out of the iron grips of Hancock's two door guards, one of which was sporting a mean scowl and a bloody nose, bright blood staining his teeth pink and dripping onto the hardwood floors that just got cleaned.
This fucking kid already signed his death warrant.
"Boys, boys," Fahrenheit crooned, looking uninterested as always. "Let him go. Boss's orders. Wants to –"
"You fuckin' bitch! You're the one who tossed my SMG to that fuckin' assaultron!" Mr. Asshole hissed, teeth bared and hurling daggers with his eyes.
Hancock forced back a smile. Good old Fahrenheit. Disarming thugs and supporting local business owners. He couldn't wait to watch her rip this guy a new asshole.
"– interrogate the bastard personally," was all she said, a nod of her head making the guards loosen their grip on Mr. FancyFuck and taking sentry, one on each side of the doorway. Big bastards, and mean-looking, too. Exactly why Hancock chose them.
The kid ripped his arms from them, looking pissed and about ready to murder someone. Hancock's doorguard with the fucked-up nose wiped at his face angrily, practically planning the kid's quiet murder, staining the sleeve of his suit a dark wet.
"You!" the Triggerman pointed at the ghoul behind the desk, thick Bostonian accent making it hard to take him seriously. "You're Hancock, right? You know how long I've been trynna talk to you? Malone's gonna have your ass for this!"
Hancock could play the game, too. I practically invented it.
"Me! I am Mayor John Hancock of Goodneighbor, correct," he said with sarcasm so thick you could have spread it on toast and eaten it. "I don't give a fuck how long you've been wanting to see me, and I couldn't give less shits about what Fatass Malone thinks of this whole situation. Have a seat."
Clearly this guy was new at the whole mobster shtick cause the irritation on his face was clear as Bobrov's moonshine. He stared at Hancock's outstretched hand, wrinkly and brown and peeling, and sat down only a little hesitantly in the chair across the ghoul, the one opposite his desk.
The kid was decently good-looking. For a smoothskin, anyway. Clean pressed suit, sharp fedora, blue eyes set in a young face round and bare as a baby's asscheeks.
Oh yeah. I could have some fun with this guy.
One quick glance up to Fahrenheit was all he needed. She motioned the guards outside again, then shut the door loudly, moving the entirety of her rusty-armoured, grim-faced bulk to stand in front of it. A clear message to this kid if ever there was one.
He put his hat back on his head.
Alright. Show-time.
Hancock winced as his head throbbed viciously but he covered it up as a smirk, reaching into his desk drawer to pull out a pack of Lucky Strikes.
"Listen here, Mr. Upitty-Fuck," he began, relishing the way the kid flinched at his rough, wheezy voice. "I'm a ghoul. You know, zombie. Shuffler. Whatever the hell you kids call it these days. I'm sure you can tell by my devishly good looks. Smoke?" he offered, holding out the carton. The kid just frowned at it. Hancock shrugged, pulling himself one, then putting the pack back in the drawer. "I've been around a while. I have a good memory. I know things." He tapped the side of his head to stress the point. "And I can tell you're fresh out the pressed suit and tommygun school of thuggery. Itchy trigger-finger and all."
He flicked his lighter on, igniting his cigarette. Sucked it in. Held it for a second, the bitter, stale smoke burning his raw throat. Blew it out into the man's face, making him blink. "So I'll give you a piece of advice from the Mayor of Goodneighbor himself: don't cross the lines. This," he said, putting a rotted finger on the wood near the ashtray at the end of his desk, "is where you were coming into my town. This," he said, moving his finger over a foot or so to the left, "is where the line is. And this," he said, stretching his hand all the way to the other side of his desk, "is where ya are now. Got it?"
Hancock leaned back in his creaky chair, blowing out another mouthful of smoke.
"So. I welcome you into Goodneighbor. I let you into my office. Give you a nice comfortable chair to sit in, even offer you a smoke. All out of the goodness of my mummified, cold dead heart. And all you can do is call me zombie and shuffler and give my guy out there a bloody face? Tsk tsk tsk," he tutted like an old lady. "Not very appreciative of you, Mr...?"
"Snail," the guy huffed.
"Jesus, is that a nickname or the real deal?"
"The fuck's it matter to you?"
"That's the worse name I've ever heard, friend. You should really think about changing it."
"I ain't your friend, asshole."
"Again with the name-calling. You know what I do to people who're disrespectful?"
Snail's eyes narrowed. "Is that a threat?"
Hancock smiled sharply. "I'm gonna give you another pointer here, kid. Two things count in Goodneighbor – style and bodycount. I'm already the handsomest motherfucker you can find within fifty clicks of here. And I've probably killed more people than you've ever even met. But I can always do better. So," he continued, eyeing his cigarette casually. "Take it as you will. Now tell me why the fuck you broke my door down and demanded to see me and threatened to raze the State House to the ground and gave my guard a bloody nose. It better be real good, pal, because I have a fuckload of shit to do and a pounding headache and I really, really would rather be literally anywhere in the world right now than entertaining your sad, pathetic excuse for a mobster, you sycophantic fuck."
He reclined even further and – goddamn him, he hated cleaning this up afterward – put his boots on the desk, one over the other, his hands behind his head, smoke dangling from his lipless mouth. The right picture of asshole but hey, who was he kidding?
"Well? I don't got all day. Spit it out, Slug."
"Yeah. Ah," Snail swallowed, cleared his throat. "Yeah. Right. So. A few days ago The Boss asked Skinny to send some've our guys on a chem deal with his right-hand. Trish. She –"
"C'mon, kid, you can do better," Hancock grumbled, blowing smoke up to the ceiling. "Already told me this shit."
He frowned a little but went on. "The Boss and Trish had a new buyer, didn't trust the kid yet. He wanted a fuckload of chems, though. Six or seven crates. Enough to kill a brahmin. Figure Trish and our boys might scare him into spilling who he was, why he wanted so much junk. So they go. But they don't come back."
"So?" Hancock grunted.
"So we send someone to find out why. What we found ain't good. Four of our best guys are dead and all the chems are gone. So's Trish. The buyer's dead, too, but that ain't our business – it's Marowski's. But Skinny ain't too impressed he lost some men and the money from that job. And The Boss ain't happy all his chems and right-hand are gone."
Right. Yeah. Good reasons to be pissed, I suppose.
"So? What's this got to do with me?"
"Skinny and The Boss been wonderin' who's gonna pay for that. And he's wondering if you know anythin' about it all."
Hancock rolled his eyes. Again, always the same shit. A chem deal goes wrong, someone dies, something comes up, and the lardass sends someone charging into his office, throwing blame around. But he was quick enough to be all buddy-buddy when he needed something. "I don't know anything."
"Bullshit you don't."
"I've got more important things to do than take candy from you goons."
"Nah. Skinny ain't thinkin' you did it. He's thinkin' you know the fuckers who did. And are keepin' them safe here."
Hancock sucked the last little bit from his cigarette. He took his boots of the table, slowly, just slow enough to let the kid remember he was in charge here, and then leaned forward to butt it out in his ashtray. "That's a pretty big accusation there, friend."
"I ain't your friend."
"No, you're not. We've never met. And because you're new to the club, kid, I'm gonna give you another tip. Listen real close now." He leaned forward even more, up out of his chair and hands splayed on the desk, so close to the kid he almost pulled back from the ghoul's ghastly, raw face. "Don't ever threaten. Blame. Accuse. Or blackmail. Me. Got that?"
"Eddy's dead too."
Hancock nearly choked on the goddamn air at that curveball.
"Hart?" he coughed. "Eddy Hart?"
"Yeah."
"Shit."
That was what he said.
What he thought was more along the lines of: Sweet Jesus Daye. What the hell were you thinking?
And he could almost see the smug bastard's scarred face smirking at him. I wasn't.
Well then. That's always been your problem.
Hancock sat back in his chair. "Listen to yourself," he said, quickly regaining composure. "Do you even know me? Who buys pretty much all the Mentats and Jet in Goodneighbor from Marowski? Who lets you suit-fucks into my town? Why the hell would I want to screw with him? Or Skinny? Kill The Boss's right-hand ghoul? Skinny's minions? Fucking Eddy Hart?"
"Again – he don't think it's you. You ain't stupid enough to fuck with us. But you know plenty of sleazy fuckers who are."
"Sleazy fuckers?" he smirked. "Fahr, you hearing this? Snail here just called you a sleazy fucker."
His bodyguard picked at her nails without concern. "Yeah. I heard alright."
"Watch your tongue, kid, or I'll get Fahrenheit here to cut it out."
Snail ignored him. "Skinny's got his eye on some guys here. Southie and his gang, maybe. Or Bull. Jacobs?"
"Again – pretty big accusations there."
Snail eyed him a moment. "It's those two mercs you buddy around with, right? Nate and that MacCarthy guy."
Fuck. Hancock covered his surprised squeak with a raspy clearing of his throat. This kid really loved catching him off-guard. Keeping him on his toes. Maybe he was a worthy adversary after all.
More reason to kill the fucker.
"MacCready and Daye," he coughed, giving his chest a little thump. "Don't let Daye hear you call him that, friend. He'll shoot you in the fucking throat. Seriously. I saw him do it once."
"I said I ain't your friend, ghoul!"
"Well. We're getting somewhere, at least."
Yeah. Too fucking close to the truth. Time to end this.
"It's been a grand ole time chatting with you, Slug."
"Snail."
"But I think we're done here. Get out."
Snail rose from the chair without hesitation, making a beeline for the door. Hancock rubbed his temples again, breathing out a heavy sigh.
Fucking Daye.
He had to tell Mac, of course. The poor kid probably had no idea. He'd have to send a few guys down to the Third Rail to watch out for him. No telling what The Boss or Fatass Malone would do to the guy if they got their greasy fingers on him.
Before the Triggerman got to the door, he paused, turned around. Forced a grim smirk.
"If Skinny or The Boss find out you know something, ghoul…" he sneered, voice surprisingly even-toned despite the fear practically dripping off him. "Well. Bad day for you."
It was Hancock's turn to narrow his eyes. "Is that a threat?"
Snail shrugged, a smug smile creeping its way up his face. "It's like you said, Mayor Hancock. Two things count in Goodneighbor – style and bodycount. Skinny and The Boss have nicer suits than you. And they've probably killed more people than what's in your entire town, each. But they can always do better. Take that as you will."
Hancock just about stood up and shanked the fucker right there. Seriously. He'd done it before. Too many times, probably, but hey. Grade-A Piece of Shit, remember? Though honestly his headache was too violent and really, he didn't want to get blood all over his desk and papers again. He hated cleaning it up afterward.
"Alright. We're done here. Now get the fuck out of my office and my town," he growled dangerously low, standing up again and thrusting a finger at the door. "Don't ever come within a hundred clicks of this place again. Tell Skinny to keep his enormous nose out of my business from now on. If I find out you ignored any of that, I'll personally gut you and hang your head from the railing of my balcony for the whole town to see. Bad day for you."
Snail glared at Hancock for a moment longer before straightening his fedora, sneering at Fahrenheit as she heaved open the door, and strutting out the door past the guards, his clicking footsteps echoing off the old crumbling halls before disappearing down the staircase.
Fahrenheit shut the door with a resounding finality.
"Once he leaves town, kill him."
"Not a good idea, boss."
"What?" Hancock growled, barely believing his – well, holes in his head where his ears used to be. "I ain't just gonna let him call me names and threaten me and let him walk out this town alive! That's not my style, Fahr."
"The only thing that's not your style is losing, Hancock. Trust me. You could lose a lot if you fuck with Skinny or The Boss."
Hancock blew out a rush of air through his nose holes, rubbing his face, trying to ignore his thrashing headache and the smell of old and the thought of letting that twiggy little fuck just walk out the gates alive.
And what that twiggy little fuck really meant.
Being a Grade-A Piece of Shit, alright, he could just sell out Daye and Mac to either Skinny or The Boss.
Yeah.
Wouldn't be the first time I let someone down like that.
Fucking with those two would really be asking for it. Hancock enjoyed getting his hands dirty – it was a hobby, really – but Skinny? The Boss? Fuck.
Could save himself a whole world of trouble. Because trouble was all Daye ever gave him.
He glanced sideways at the old globe on his desk, over by the ashtray. Brown and stained and blue metal base all rusted out – trash, really – but it had been a gift from Daye. By gift he meant, of course, that the guy had found it while rummaging through the corpses of some Gunners holed up in the library and tossed it to him.
"Here," he'd said, his strange green eyes darting from his Psycho high. "That's the world."
"The world?"
"Yeah. The whole fucking thing."
Hancock's mind had been blown. The world was way too big. So he'd kept the thing.
Daye gave him a shit-load of trouble, alright. But he also gave him some good times. Some things to really think about. Some place to go, when he ran away from it all again, from everything he built here. If he was gonna get sappy, okay, he could say he'd given him the world. Literally.
He sighed deep. Long. Right down to the bottom of his shrivelled-up lungs.
Time to stop running.
"Yeah," he groaned, tearing his eyes away from the globe. "Yeah, you're probably right, Fahr. What did I ever do before you?" he smirked.
She shrugged. "Doing drugs so hard they turned you into a ghoul?"
"Ouch."
"So. You know who did it?"
"There's no doubt in my mind it was Daye. No other bastard would've been crazy enough to try that. Kill them, get away with it, the whole shebang."
Fahrenheit lit herself another Grey Tortoise. "You stick your neck out too often for that asshole, you know. One of these days someone's gonna come stomp on it real good and break it."
He smiled. "Yeah, well. I'll let you know when that –"
A rapid wrenching, tearing, enormously violent explosion shook everything in Hancock's office – the old globe, the burned-out books, the lampshades, everything. The ground beneath his feet swayed violently, back and forth, and crumbling plaster sprinkled from the ceiling in white dribbles onto his desk and shelves and papers and floors. The grimy windows behind him throbbed and clattered against the stress, threatening to shatter, and mingled with the deafening uproar of the blast he could discern people's frenzied cries and whoops of alarm in the streets below.
"What the fuck?!" he hissed, clutching his desk for support. Fahrenheit had her hands gripped around the doorknob, nearly failing to keep her heavily armoured bulk upright.
The centuries-old wood and brick of the Old State House groaned and creaked around him and beneath him and through him, the tremors vibrating in his chest, the place threatening to fall in on its enormous bulk, and then just as suddenly as it began, everything ceased.
Silence, except for the crumbling sounds of cement and brick deep within the bones of the old building.
"What just happened?" he growled, straightening up slowly and brushing plaster dust from his coat.
"I don't fucking know," Fahrenheit hissed, releasing her iron grip on the door.
Hancock made his way over to the window, legs a little shaky still, and peeked past the yellowing curtains and out over his town, over the people scurrying and gawping at the fucking gigantic burst of black smoke and fire in the distance, off away to the south by the waterfront.
"Holy shit," he groaned, a lump the size of the globe dropping deep in the pit of his withered stomach.
Hancock's day just got a whole lot shittier.
A/N: Sorry for the lack of Daye and Cait and action and blowing people's heads off, but Hancock! Who doesn't love Hancock! And Fahrenheit! And threats! And blackmail! Yay!
