Phew! Just in time. I'll be having a busy rest of the week so I think this is it until next week at least. BUT! The good news is that from this chapter on, we have Hancock to entertain us (and Betty). Enjoy and thanks for following!
Betty walked toward the winding staircase, hell-bent on getting to Hancock before word got out about her foolishness. Would he be ruthless enough to shiv her like he did Finn? She didn't doubt it; out here in this insane, blood thirsty world, a leader must be vicious and unforgiving to secure the title. One of the mayor's guards tried to block Betty's path, but she ducked beneath his arm and went ahead regardless.
"Wait! Don't go up there, the Mayor's bus-" another guard began to say.
"-Get out of my way, I need to see him!" she shouted, pushing the muscle aside. She rushed up the staircase to his office but discovered that he wasn't there. The entire floor was empty, or so she thought, until she heard a pair of groans and moans coming from the bedroom across the hall along with loud, squeaking springs of an aging mattress.
"Mayor Hancock!" shouted Betty. No time for manners now.
Hancock thought he heard someone come up the stairs but figured it was Fahrenheit dropping off some paperwork for him to look over, until he heard the new softskin's voice instead.
"Shit!" he whispered to himself, "Right when I was gonna pop too, god damn it!"
He shoved his bed mate aside, but not before he shoved her underwear into her mouth to keep her silent. He paused for a second and whispered, "You're the dame that likes that, right?" The woman gave Hancock the finger as she pulled the bit of cloth from between her teeth.
"Mayor!" the softskin shouted once more and the ghoul winced, searching the bedsheets for a shirt before he gave up and rushed out to greet her, his pants sagging around his carved hips. He flashed the new girl a wide smile and her eyes drifted across his ruined skin, not with disgust, but with the unmistakable guise of curiosity.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...sorry for this too, shit. Today's clearly not my day," Betty said. She rested her hands on her hips with a sigh, enough to lift up a few strands of hair from her face.
The corners of Hancock's mouth wrinkled into a smile. The softskin may have caught him with his pants down, but he was pleased to see her nonetheless.
"Just takin' care of some, uh..business is all, nothin' important. Have a seat, softskin," said Hancock, motioning towards the couch beside his desk. The softskin seemed desperate and although it wasn't desperation in a way that he'd enjoy, he would hear her out as he did for any of his citizens, new or old.
Betty sat on the couch furthest from Mayor Hancock, just in case he was in a shivving sort of mood again. Nearly every flat surface of his office was littered with drugs. She picked up a syringe filled with a bright violet liquid with her fingertips, wondering what effect it'd give her. The ghoul sifted through a liquor cabinet and pulled out two old-fashion glasses along with a bottle of bourbon as the muscles etched into his back stretched and grew taut. She admired that he was so brazen, and it was obvious he wasn't hurting for attention from the fairer sex. He swaggered over and handed her one of the glasses with a wink as he sipped from the other.
Hancock sat across from Betty at his desk and propped his boots up. Betty still didn't say a word but continued to study his figure until the ghoul said, "Can't help but stare, can ya? I don't blame you, lots of dames find me interestin' enough to wonder what's beneath the coat. They usually ask me to keep the hat on, though."
"I'm not trying to, it's just..." Betty focused on her drink, swirling its contents before she looked up at the mayor and blurted out, "I screwed up."
A female voice shouted, "Hancock, come back to bed!" and he cringed at the sound, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. There went his chance with the softskin, right out the fucking window.
Betty smiled and said, "This is usually the point when I'd say 'I'll come back later' but I screwed up pretty bad and it can't wait."
Hancock groaned and threw his head back as he said, "I don't gotta kill you, do I? I ain't in no mood to snuff a broad." He finished off his drink before adding, "Stuff one? Fuck yeah. Kill? Maybe tomorrow, next day for sure if I'm hungover. Run away now and I won't chase ya, because it'd be a damn shame to kill a softskin as fine as you."
Hancock leaned on his desk, raising what would be his right brow had there been any hair left. His attempt to appear dashing only served to pull an amused smirk from Betty. He was charming, she'd give him that. With a laugh, she drained her glass and answered, "Well...you did shiv someone for a lot less, so yeah, there's a pretty decent chance you'd kill me for this."
"Hancock! If you don't come back to bed-" the woman in his bedroom shouted.
"-Gimme a sec, softskin," Hancock said to Betty in a low voice. He turned toward the bedroom and shouted, "Would ya quit with the whining already? It ain't nothin' you never had before!"
"But you're so good at it!"
Hancock turned back to Betty with a shit-eating grin and said, "I swear I didn't tell her to say that."
"Uh huh."
"She ain't lyin', though."
"Look, Bobbi No-Nose had me break into a strongroom. YOUR strongroom. I had no idea, she told me it belonged to that asshole mayor of Diamond City and with everyone in town getting all riled up at the mere mention of him...I thought he deserved it. I'm so sorry. Please, don't kill me, at least not until I've found my son."
"You're fucking kidding'me." Hancock took to his feet with a furious glare and Betty flinched as he stomped towards the bedroom, knocking his coat rack into a stack of papers. She heard him shout, "Get the fuck outta here!" and much to her surprise, it was no ghoul woman in his bed but a human one who scurried out, clothes in her arms. Two of the guards craned their necks to check out her bare backside as she left.
The ghoul barreled back into his office, red coat thrown over his shoulder and shouted, "Fahrenheit?!"
"She's still back at the strongroom," Betty explained. "...I may or may not have caused the floor to cave in."
Hancock threw his coat onto the desk and shouted at Betty, "What the hell else did you do?"
"That's it!" Betty said, shielding herself with a pillow.
The ghoul laughed and said to himself, "'That's it', she says, Jesus fuckin' Christ."
"I don't have much money, but please, just take it and I'll bring you more whenever I earn it," said Betty before she pulled the caps from her bag and held them out to Hancock.
He waved the caps away and said, "I ain't takin' what little ya got. Keep 'em; I got more than enough to cover repairs without hurting the 'ol wallet."
Betty stood up and began to say, "Mayor, I really am sorr-"
"-Please! For the love of jet, stop apologizing! This is Goodneighbor. No hard feelings, yeah?" said Hancock as he leaned across his desk and clamped a hand over Betty's mouth. She nodded with wide eyes and sat back on the couch, trembling a bit. Hancock let out a heavy sigh and picked up a med-x before sitting on the couch across from Betty. He held up the syringe and asked her if she minded his using, to which she shook her head. Hancock pulled his belt free and wrapped it around his bicep a few times before he shot up. As the med-x kicked in, he leaned into the cushions and said to Betty, "Sorry about the shoutin'. I promise, I ain't angry with ya. How the hell would you know Bobbi's bad news...speaking of which, what'd you do with her?"
"I was going to...kill her. She pistol-whipped me before I could and we fought over her gun for a few minutes before someone shot her in the head."
"It wasn't you who snuffed her?" Hancock asked and Betty shook her head. "You turnin' on her, whether you killed her or not, was a wise decision. Let's celebrate that wise decision of yours. I don't mean to disappoint my newest fan, but I gotta put a shirt on first. Last time I ran naked through the streets of Goodneighbor, I mixed six different chems into one giant batch, but uh, I can pencil you in for a more...personal session later. Dinner and everything; I like to spoil my women."
"I'm married- um...was married," Betty answered.
The grin on Hancock's face disappeared and he said in a low, much softer voice, "Sorry to hear. Bad terms?"
"He was murdered by the same people who kidnapped my son and left me to die in that vault."
"Holy fuck." Hancock grimaced, leaned across the coffee table and rested the tips of his fingers on her knee. "If you need anything, and I mean anything, let me or Fahrenheit know. Don't you hesitate, I insist. Ammo, guns, armor, you name it and I'll get it. Hell, I'll join ya if you want someone to hold down those assholes while you beat the shit outta them."
There was a quick knock on the door before a handsome, dark-blonde man strolled in, cap under his arm, sniper rifle at his back, and a beer in his free hand. He bumped fists with Hancock and smiled at Betty as he drained the last of his beer before he set the empty bottle down on the desk.
"Betty, this is your guardian angel, RJ MacCready, in case you were wonderin' how the hell you survived that fiasco without a bullet in your brain," said Hancock. "Best damn shot I've ever seen. Your tab's clear as promised, kid. Go drink it up and enjoy."
"F and I got a head start on that," said MacCready as he leaned against Hancock's desk, eyeing Betty with a sly grin. "Sup, vault girl."
"Thanks for watching my back," Betty said. "Especially with Bobbi at the end."
"Oh, it was a pleasure watching you-over you!"
"Out, RJ!"
"Sorry, mayor. Forgot you called dibs," said MacCready with a grin. Hancock took a stack of papers off his desk and threw them at the hired gun.
"Don't make me triple that tab instead," Hancock said with a hint of a snarl. "Or worse, make you Charlie's errand boy. You know he'd love that."
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving!" said MacCready. "Just wanted to let you know that repairs on the strongroom floor are gonna start tomorrow. Cool?"
"Very. Thanks again, kid. Drink six for me." Once MacCready went down the stairs, Hancock sighed and said to Betty, "This classy little tricorner hat of mine is gettin' heavy. I spend all my time putting down people I would've been proud to scheme with just a few years ago. I need to take a walk again, get a grip on what really matters: Living free. Let's go after those motherfuckers that did you wrong. Together. I get to live, and you get your revenge."
"Not that I don't want you to, because I could sure use the help, but why do you want to leave so badly?" she asked. "I thought you loved this place."
"Because, Betty, you might just be the right kind of trouble."
"So you and Fahrenheit aren't...you know..."
Hancock spat out the last of his drink and howled with laughter. "Wait, you think me and the girl are screwing? She's gotta hear this, hold on." He rushed to the doorway and shouted down the stairwell, "Fahrenheit! Get in here!"
Moments later, his body guard jogged up the stairs and into the room. "You yelled, my liege?" she asked with a roll of her eyes.
"All right, Betty, tell Fahrenheit what you just told me." Hancock elbowed his body guard and whispered, "This is good."
"I, uh, thought you and Hancock were...together," Betty explained, "and I didn't want him to travel with me if it would upset you."
Both Fahrenheit and Hancock burst into hysterics, with the ghoul sinking to the floor as he wiped the tears from his eyes with the hem of his body guard's shirt. Fahrenheit couldn't even look at either Hancock nor Betty without cracking up all over again.
"Girl, you can have this piece of brahmin jerky," Fahrenheit managed to spit out. Hancock stood up, reaching for his old pack on a shelf above his head until Fahrenheit brought it down for him. He snatched it from her hands and tried his best to keep a straight face.
"Fuck you, it's deathclaw, not brahmin jerky. Jesus, get it right, makin' me look bad over here," said Hancock as he dug through a set of drawers, tossing whatever clothes didn't suit his fancy over his shoulder. Finding nothing that spoke to him, he went to his bedroom to try his luck there.
Betty felt a bit foolish that she even mentioned anything at all but after being on the receiving end of Fahrenheit's death glare back at the strongroom, she figured she'd rather be safe than sorry.
After she gained some of her composure back, Fahrenheit said to Betty, "When I say Hancock is not my type, I mean it in every way possible. Nothing personal, of course; he's my best friend and he saved my life but-"
Hancock returned to his office, sporting a leather trench coat from his drifter days and said, "-What Fahrenheit's tryin' to say here is that she loves to," the ghoul made a V with his fingers and stuck his tongue out between them, wriggling it about, "more than I do. I'd be worried about gettin' cornered by this super mutant after she's had a few. I saw her makin' eyes at you, Betty."
Fahrenheit swatted the back of Hancock's head, knocking his tricorn hat to the desk.
The ghoul laughed and said, "I'd fire your ass for that if I wasn't making you mayor in my absence. Gonna help the softskin here find her kid and live it up a little outside these walls."
"Good, I thought you'd never leave," Fahrenheit said to Hancock with a grin. She reached out to shake hands with Betty and pulled her closer instead with a wink and a bite of her bottom lip. "If you get tired of his shit, you know where to find me, doll face."
Betty had never been hit on by a woman before, especially one as beautiful as Fahrenheit. She couldn't remember the last time she blushed so much so that she could've sworn her face was aflame, but she managed to say, "You really are lovely, you know. If I ever played for your team, you'd be the first girl I look up."
"Aren't you just the sweetest little thing?" Fahrenheit murmured as she twisted a lock of Betty's hair between her fingers and added, "You'd never go back after a night with me.."
"Wait, you believe the softskin and not me when I tell ya you look good?" Hancock interrupted as he gathered chems for his pack. "That ain't fair."
Fahrenheit laughed. "Because your way of telling me I look nice is along the lines of, 'You don't look as huge in those pants, I like 'em', and my personal favorite, 'Why you gotta suffocate the girls?'" she said, pointing to her breasts.
"Well, why do ya? How's any girl gonna know how great a rack you're sportin' if you keep it under wraps?"
Fahrenheit looked at Betty and whispered, "Please take him far, far away for at least a month, would you?"
Hancock tossed his full pack on the desk and announced, "Ready for some action. Let me just have a little chat with my community first, give 'em the news, and we'll be on our way. I'd like it if you two beauties joined me on the balcony."
The ghoul offered both arms and a growl of satisfaction escaped as both women looped their arms through his.
"Do you always have to be so dramatic?" asked Fahrenheit.
"Ain't no other way to be. I got another shot at life and I'll live it any damn way I please," he replied. He turned to Betty and added, "Same goes for you. Frozen in time and waking up in a whole 'nother world. That's a new life, if I ever heard of one. So let's live a little, starting now."
With a kick of his combat boot, the doors swung open and Hancock led the three of them onto the balcony. Out of the corner of his eye, he met Fahrenheit's knowing gaze and smirked as he pulled Betty closer to his side. The softskin didn't seem as nervous as usual, which surprised him considering the ordeal she went through with Bobbi. He didn't expect Betty to take up his offer of joining her in her search for her son either, but there was no hesitation on her part. The ghoul thought he had his whole life planned out. Lead Goodneighbor to greatness, screw a lot of women, and ingest or shoot up as many chems as humanly possible. The moment Betty stepped through the gates, she unknowingly threw one hell of a curveball at him, one that he never realized he wanted. If he didn't figure out what it was about her that gave him that undeniable churning in the pit of his stomach, he'd go feral. Thankfully, now he bought enough time with her to unlock this particular puzzle.
Hancock let out a shrill whistle and shouted, "Gather up, everybody! C'mon, this one is short, but you should hear what I gotta say." It took a few minutes for the crowd to gather and he began with, "Look everyone, I'm takin' a walk. It's time for your fearless leader to get back out there. Mix it up in the dirt before I forget what that feels like."
"You can't leave, Hancock, we need you!" a man shouted from the crowd.
"Hey, I'm always gonna be here in spirit, my man. Goodneighbor and I, we got a connection. But like any hot-and-heavy relationship, sometimes you gotta spend time apart. Let things cool off, remind yourself who you are. That's why I'm leaving. I'm still your mayor, I'm always gonna be here when you need me, but it's time for me to stop living so damn comfortable. Because as we all know, no one in power deserves to be comfortable for long! Fahrenheit here is gonna watch your backs while I'm gone, and I know she'll take real good care of you all. Now, 'cause I gotta hear it one more time before I leave this place: What's the best god damn town in the Commonwealth? Where can someone live free with no judgments?
Everyone in the square, including Fahrenheit and Betty all shouted, "Goodneighbor! Of the people! For the people!"
Hancock climbed onto the railing and stood with his arms raised as the people of his town shouted his name, others tossed their hats high into the air, and a few of the guards shot a round or two into the darkening sky.
Betty reached for Hancock, worried he would fall but Fahrenheit rested her hand over Betty's with a warm smile and whispered, "Trust him. I do."
And Hancock threw himself from the railing. Betty leaned over the balcony, terrified she'd see his head cracked open on the concrete below but instead saw Hancock lifted by the cheering crowd, fists in the air.
Fahrenheit snaked an arm around Betty's waist and said, "Hancock's been like a father to me. He's a lot to take in, I get it, but trust him with your life and you'll live long enough to get your kid back. Maybe even long enough to see some grandkids. C'mon, I'll walk you downstairs."
Betty stopped by the office on the way down to grab Hancock's pack while Fahrenheit rooted around in a safe by the doorway before grabbing a double-barreled shotgun from a shelf. The ghoul met both ladies at the bottom of the staircase, and he took his pack from Betty's arms.
"You ready to get this show on the road, softskin?" Hancock asked Betty. Fahrenheit handed the ghoul his shotgun and a bag, the tinkling of caps hardly muffled through the cloth, before he blew a kiss for his bodyguard.
Betty smiled and replied, "Sure thing."
The three walked together to the gates of Goodneighbor and just before the ghoul crossed the threshold, Fahrenheit swiped the tricorn hat off his head, plopped it over her own head, and replaced his with a captain's hat.
"I'm the mayor now! Get outta my town, heathen!" Fahrenheit teased.
"Whole town's full of heathens, two less ain't gonna matter."
"Hey!" Betty said with surprise.
"I heard you cheer with the rest of them at the end of my speech so now, you're really one of us."
Fahrenheit wished them well and made sure to shove Hancock through the gate first before giving Betty's rear end a light swat. With a wink, she disappeared behind the gates and only Betty and Hancock remained. The Sole Survivor was back on track, only now she gained a charismatic, junkie ghoul as a sidekick. If someone told her this is how she'd end up in life, she would've had them committed.
"I'm not going to make this trip easy for you, you know," Betty said to Hancock, amused at her luck.
"Oh, I like a challenge. Give it to me, lemme hear it."
"We're going to Diamond City first. There's someone who can help me find my son, so I'm told."
"Oh, you mean Nicky?" he said. "Man, haven't seen him in a few years. Wonder if he's still pissed at me?"
"Who's that?" she asked.
"Nick Valentine. Detective for Diamond City. He's your man...err...yeah, let's go with that for now. Lead the way."
Betty took a few tentative steps forward when she heard the short rush of an inhaler. She turned to see Hancock tossing a jet inhaler aside and he ran ahead, whooping loudly and shooting off a few shells of his shotgun. Not even a minute had passed and the ghoul was already having the time of his life.
"He did say to live a little," Betty said to herself before she ran after the ghoul, who by now had climbed to the top of a rusted truck cab and was taking a piss, still cheering at the top of his lungs. "Thank god he's doing that with the wind. Hancock, wait up!"