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Even lacking most of his nose, the distinct smell of machine oil and fried electronics fell over Hancock immediately as he entered the Cambridge Police Station. He didn’t bother to hold back a sneer, stepping gingerly over an open toolbox lying in the entryway.
Like any other long-standing building in the Commonwealth, the police station looked ready to collapse at the slightest provocation. The dingy tiled floor labored and buckled under the weight of the building’s contents and its own decay, grime and debris tucked into corners and divots. Pockmarked walls and overturned furniture painted a clear picture of an endless cycle of occupation, confrontation, and desertion. Ancient, he thought, inspecting a rusted wall-mounted locker as his companion followed their new friends inside.
If Nora was bothered by the smell, she didn’t show it. She hadn’t holstered her pipe revolver yet, instead pointing it deferentially toward the floor, her finger resting firmly across the trigger guard. Hancock watched her and waited, comfortable in his dark corner between the jutting locker and a dilapidated wall, much like he usually did. Unless they knew him, people would typically engage her first, either casting him uneasy glances or pretending he didn’t exist. She took two steps toward the Brotherhood of Steel members now sitting on the ground, hovering awkwardly over their forms. For the most part they paid her no mind, the woman bandaging up the man and fretting over him, the man cringing and telling her not to worry so much. Really, Hancock was cringing himself just watching the two of them. He sniffed impatiently.
The front doors swung open and Paladin Danse stepped inside with all the grace a man could muster wearing full power armor. His footsteps echoed through the empty rooms, and the floor groaned beneath him. He stepped past Hancock without so much as a glance, then stepped past Nora in much the same way. He spoke with his comrades in a flat, steady voice—one that Hancock summarily ignored in favor of studying more of the building’s failing architecture. Although, he realized, if it had lasted this long, the craftsmanship must not have been so shoddy. He tipped an overturned vase back upright with the toe of his boot, stirring up a small cloud of dust in the process. Someone dropped something heavy and the vase fell over again, spreading the spiderweb crack on its lip.
“ArcJet?” Nora questioned, and Hancock started listening to the conversation again. One of Danse’s rugged eyebrows lifted, and he inserted himself into the space between the wounded Brotherhood of Steel members and Nora—a space that seemed far smaller than it had before. His position put him directly beneath a makeshift light, which cast shadows on his face that seemed to only accentuate how, well, handsome he was. The man looked straight out of a comic book, with a perfectly groomed five-o’clock shadow and skin marred only by occasionally fading scars and abrasions. Hancock had long since stopped comparing himself to non-ghouls—it was a lesson in futility at best and a slippery slope to bad memories at worst—but most people of the Commonwealth looked much as he had before he’d become a ghoul: a bit underfed, varying degrees of worse for wear, and always tired. This was all in stark contrast to Danse, who looked well-fed, well-rested, and like all of his filth could wash off with one good scrub.
And who else had he known who looked like they’d stepped out into the wasteland from a world out of his reach?
“It’s nearby,” Danse replied, nodding his head toward their relative southwest. “It normally wouldn’t be an issue, but…”
At the opportunity to help, a smile lit up Nora’s face. She’d been pretty back then, when she’d showed up in Goodneighbor bloody and bedraggled from fighting and running from whatever crawled outside of his city’s walls. Even then, she’d been out of her vault for a good long time, judging by her scavenged armor and the recent-looking scar across her left eye. He couldn’t imagine how she’d looked directly from the vault—ethereal, probably. Fresh-faced and clean, lacking the scars and dirt and under-eye bags that she sported now. A being largely untouched by the pain that had ravaged the world for the past 200 years.
She was still pretty now, he mused, while Danse prattled on, but misery had left its mark on her quickly. War and struggle showed plain on her calloused hands; her sunken eyes; her wild hair. She’d lost about as much as anyone else had, more than some but less than others, yet she still insisted on helping who she could and showing mercy where necessary. She remained kind, if careful, despite the horrors of the wasteland, and strong, and smart, and resourceful, and good. She could’ve looked like a radscorpion at this point and he still wouldn’t feel—
“We can help you get it,” Nora said, her smile turning shy in a way that Hancock had never seen.
—any different.
Something turned uncomfortably in his chest and he glanced to Danse, who was the perfect picture of confidence. Danse’s eyes were trained steadily on Nora.
Hancock had run together with Nora for a long time now—almost constantly since he’d joined her up in Goodneighbor, anyway, and long enough for him to watch her metamorphose from “vault dweller who’d probably end up in a Diamond City gutter” to who she was now—and he’d seen just about every emotion he could count flit across her relatively smooth, expressive face. Apprehension, mostly, and determination, and anger—oh yes, anger, righteous and indignant when she lined up the crosshairs of her sights with a raider’s meaty head—and even sadness and regret on rare occasions. He’d borne witness to a fairly healthy range of emotions, he’d always thought, and he’d even taken a small amount of pleasure in the fact that these emotions rarely bubbled to the forefront when she’d talked with the others of their ragtag group.
Danse returned her smile, all pleased surprise and camaraderie.
But he’d never seen her shy.
“It’s commendable of you to offer, civilian,” Danse said, some stiffness gone from his voice and replaced by a strange note of approval. “I saw how you handled yourself with the ghouls and I’d welcome your help.”
The smile reached the corners of Nora’s lips and she showed teeth that were not as white as they had once been. She laughed on a tiny huff and shifted the long gun cradled against her chestpiece. She said something kind and no doubt witty that escaped Hancock’s notice, because he was too preoccupied with the way her cheeks seemed to color faintly in the dim light. He felt like he was intruding. He felt like he shouldn’t be here, watching this, like he’d accidentally stumbled upon two oblivious lovers in a secluded alcove in The Third Rail. The urge to turn around and leave, at least, was much the same in this situation. He eyed the front doors, wondering if he could slip out unnoticed, but in that moment Nora seemed to realize he still existed. She and Danse were now both staring at him and “…my friend, Hancock,” drifted to his ears.
“Nice to meet you,” he said automatically, nodding.
Danse stared down—way down—at him. “Ah,” he said, “the ghoul, too?”
The ghoul, Hancock repeated in his head, with a shotgun. Could he take this truck of a man? Not while he was in power armor, he decided glumly, squaring his shoulders and crossing his arms.
“He’s with me on this,” Nora said sternly, giving Hancock a small nod. He should have felt heartened by Nora’s solidarity, but his increasing annoyance with Danse was blocking everything else out, making him single-minded and sharp.
Danse accepted this on a grumble of displeasure, turning away from Hancock with no more than a final cursory look-over—one that included his half-empty rucksack, folded arms, and holstered combat shotgun. He was probably wondering much the same as Hancock had wondered, and he’d probably come to the very quick conclusion that putting him down would be no more than a brief distraction from his plans. He said something else to Nora, hard and tight, and then Nora was responding, and on and on it went, and really, how long could they talk about this pre-war technology company?
“Got it,” Hancock announced, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his raspy tone, “deep-range transmitter. We about ready?”
Danse nodded, but it wasn’t directed to him. “Whatever you find is free game,” he said, motioning for Nora—and Nora alone, Hancock noted—to follow him out the door. “I’d like to lead a sweep team to recover supplies, but that’s not possible right now.”
Nora followed Paladin Danse at a distance and Hancock followed Nora at a much smaller distance, slipping his gun into his hands and scanning the surrounding trees as they walked on.
Several dogs and bloatflies later, the group finally neared ArcJet. The building seemed a bit more structurally sound than most buildings, and it looked to still have electricity, which was a very bad sign almost one hundred percent of the time. Electricity meant occupation by something a little more sophisticated than simple raiders or feral ghouls, and he opened his mouth to tell the group this before Danse cut him off in a gruff voice.
“Our recon tells us the premises is probably guarded by synth,” he said, eyes narrowed. “But I don’t think it’s anything we can’t handle.”
Nora nodded, smiled, and even before she said anything, Danse was smiling back. “We’ve got this,” she agreed. Hancock thought he might be sick.
If he thought he might’ve been sick before, he definitely was going to be sick now. The oil and electronics smell inside ArcJet was nearing on overwhelming, and though he attributed some of it to the synth patrolling the place, there was more to it. Something down in the bowels was stinking up the place, leaking long-standing, stagnant motor oil. Nora voiced her displeasure at the smell out loud, but Danse didn’t respond, opting to lead the charge silently and stoically.
The synths didn’t prove them much of an issue, and even the stray protectrons were swiftly dispatched by the walking arsenal that was Paladin Danse. Hancock hardly even got the chance to get close; beams of energy zipped past him and hit synth vital points long before he could get a shot off. If Danse was smug about this, he didn’t act on it, and Hancock certainly would not bring it to his attention that he’d spent approximately zero shells in this whole endeavor.
On the upside, he had found a small stash of Mentats that he could tuck away for later.
He tried to keep himself between Nora and the synths, not for any delusion that she couldn’t handle herself, but because he knew where her talents lay. If any enemy got close, she was generally in for a bad time, with her long-range weapons and their slow reload times. Facing feral ghouls with her was normally a bit nerve-wracking because of this; they could be awfully sneaky when they wanted to, and hearing her startled gasps and grunts of pain were not exactly high on the list of Things He Liked to Hear from Nora.
This list, he decided, kicking some rubble out of the way as Danse inspected the locked door before them and Nora looted a defeated synth, was frighteningly long and growing longer by the day. He liked to hear the way her tone shifted when she addressed him. He liked hearing her whisper “Hey,” in his ear—or the place where an ear had once been—while they crouched in the shadows. He liked hearing her say thank you, you’re welcome, please—please, oh, please, the places his head could take him with a single word—and he loved hearing her say his name. The absolute number one thing on his list was hearing Nora laugh, any kind of genuine, happy laugh.
From a few feet in front of him, Nora graced him with one such laugh. When he picked his head up from staring at his boots, he saw that she was pulling some stray synth innards—wires, mostly—out of the collar of Danse’s power armor.
But only when she laughed for him.
Danse, to his credit, feigned some unabashed look and nodded his head in thanks. Nora may have been oblivious to it, but Hancock wasn’t. He could see in the stiffness of Danse’s limbs, even with the heavy armor, what was happening. And as they picked their way through the facility, Hancock saw every backwards glance that Danse sent Nora. She was a pretty girl and Danse was a pretty boy and it was natural for them to behave this way, especially considering how high-tension their situation could get, but that only made the growing knot in Hancock’s gut tighten.
For the entire duration of a twenty-minute firefight, one which held him effectively pinned behind a ruined console while Danse dispatched everything in sight, Hancock tried desperately to convince himself that his emotions were not what they seemed. He cared for Nora; she was a close friend, someone he trusted and admired, and he wanted to see her acting like this with someone that was trustworthy, not some narrow-minded meathead in a metal suit that they’d literally just met. She was so open and caring and beautiful and he just wanted someone that could appreciate that.
He would appreciate that every damn day if she’d have him.
And there it was. At the realization, Hancock leaned out of cover to take out a synth wandering dangerously near to him and Nora’s positions. He didn’t retreat back behind the console, though, searching further up ahead with Danse for a place where he could be useful. So the feelings weren’t just admiration and respect. So they’d morphed into something a little scarier.
So what?
Danse looked at him like he was suicidal as Hancock bashed a synth’s pitted skull with the butt of his shotgun. So what? So what if he liked her? He was an adult man with a pulse and she was a pretty girl who could handle herself. Of course he liked her.
He grit his teeth and drove the synth to the floor, shooting it point-blank in its mocking, sarcastic face. “Look at you, buddy,” it seemed to say, probably laughing while it did so, “you’re a wreck. And it ain’t just your ghouliness that’s the problem.” He stomped its head into bits of fragile circuitry and roping wires. “Even if she could get past that mug, what the hell makes you think she’d stay?”
He holstered his shotgun and moved on, ignoring the taunting remarks from the dead synth behind him. The questioning looks from Nora were a little harder to ignore.
After two hours of fighting through the hellhole that was the ArcJet facility, Danse finally announced that they were getting close. “The basement,” he said, opening a door that led to a series of catwalks spiraling around one central, strange-looking machine-beast.The basement, Hancock thought glumly, wishing not for the first time that becoming a ghoul meant permanently losing his sense of smell. The smell had been getting worse and worse the further into the facility they descended, and though he’d gotten somewhat used to it, it still was not pleasant by any means. He thought he might kiss the irradiated dirt when they finally got out of this place and into the fresh air.
“You two head down to the control station,” Danse said with an authoritative glance back at him and Nora. “I’ll stay here and cover you. Call for help if you need it.”
So he and Nora obediently descended the catwalk, him keeping a close eye on what parts looked rusted beyond salvation and her still giving him those confused looks every once in a while. She was going to ambush him, he knew, as soon as they were out of eyesight and earshot of Danse. She was going to ask what was wrong and he’d have to lie, and boy, the thought of lying to Nora just did not sit very well with him. But it was better than the alternative: spilling his guts to her in the belly of a smelly, dilapidated, synth-infested building with Paladin Prettyboy Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel waiting for their swift return. He almost entertained himself with thoughts of how she’d react, but he swiftly stopped that train before it could even leave the station.
His feet hit solid ground beneath him, and he extended a hand toward Nora, who was still climbing down a particularly rickety set of stairs. She accepted it graciously, her palm warm and rough against his, though he knew this action was more of a nicety than anything. He’d seen her scale a ten-foot fence in the rain with just one hand; some old stairs would definitely not cause her any problems.
She led the way into the control room, going immediately to an old terminal and allowing him some extra time to stew in his thoughts and scout the perimeter. He walked slowly, mechanically through the halls behind the control room. He checked the stalls in the bathroom, peeked into the hall closet, and scanned what looked to be a break room with no power. Nothing out of the ordinary. Knowing he had a few moments to spare, he leaned against the wall at the end of the hall, around the corner from Nora and well away from the worry and questions in her eyes—had his outburst against the synth been that obvious?—and nestled between an old radiator and a stack of crates. He pulled a single crumpled cigarette out of his coat pocket and then his silver flip lighter, and in the flickering light of the hall, he lit, took a drag, and then sighed.
He relaxed almost immediately, letting himself enjoy this small pleasure while he could. He could just tell her he was annoyed by the smell—which was true—and that he was anxious to get out of this awful building—which was also very true. He just didn’t know if she’d accept that. If he indicated he was done talking, he knew she’d back off, but he really didn’t want to resort to that. He continued down this line of thought, happy to have a distraction from the way Danse looked at Nora and the way Nora smiled, and finished about half of his cigarette before he heard some shuffling in the control room. He took one last drag, picking himself up from leaning against the wall, and was ready to snuff the cigarette before he heard a shout of surprise and the distinct sound of Nora’s revolver firing.
His shotgun was already out and aimed as he rounded the corner back to where Nora was. It took a fraction of a second for him to see that a feral ghoul—one that had either been hiding or that he had missed—had pinned Nora to the ground and was currently attempting to dig a hole through her chest cavity. It took less than a fraction of a second for him to shower the room in the ghoul’s brain matter, and then even less than that for him to be on his knees in front of Nora, assessing her injuries.
“Holy shit,” she said, sounding dazed but otherwise unharmed. “I didn’t even hear it. Where did it come from?”
Hancock bit down on his tongue hard. It could’ve come from anywhere, really, but something told him it had slithered out from that dark break room that he didn’t check thoroughly enough. “I don’t know,” he admitted, gently undoing the knotted strings of her leather chestpiece. “You okay?” He was surprised at the evenness of his own voice when he could feel his heart hammering against his ribcage. She’d never been in any real danger, even if he and Danse weren’t here, and he was sure she’d been in similar situations a hundred times, but damn if it didn’t scare the hell out of him every time.
She winced as he pulled the front of her armor off. The ghoul had managed to shred the leather and tear the shirt beneath that, even, but so far he didn’t see blood. “Yeah, I’m alright. Just a bruise and a good shock.” She smiled at him in a way he was sure was meant to be reassuring, but pain made it look weak. “Is Danse still okay out there? I almost got this terminal unlocked.”
“Haven’t heard gunshots or screaming yet,” he said, pulling his pack off of his back and rummaging for his trusty box of medicines and drugs.
She seemed to catch what he was doing, because she shook her head and pulled herself into a sitting position, teeth bared and jaw clenched around a pained hiss. “No, don’t worry about it,” she said, brokenly, extending her hand to touch the arm he currently had elbow-deep in his bag. “I don’t need anything.”
He hesitated. He’d never push it on someone if they didn’t want it, but she looked like she was hurting a fair amount. He watched her unbutton her dirty flannel shirt—it looked like it might have been red, but hell, who knew at this point—and inspect the damage to her chest. There was some tight cloth there covering her breasts, and she lifted it from underneath, showing him both the bruise forming just under her left breast and a surprising amount of skin.
“Okay,” she admitted, sounding a little deflated, “I think I cracked a rib.”
He gave her a pointed look before pulling out a stimpak and a vial of Med-X. “You don’t have to take the Med-X,” he said carefully, rolling the medication toward her, “but it’s just a strong painkiller. It’ll help a lot.”
She picked up the stimpak readily, greedily, even, and slipped two fingers through the plunger’s holes, positioning the syringe right above the fatty part of her thigh. She always used her stimpaks slowly and watched intently, as if worried she might somehow be doing it wrong. The stims helped with the healing process, but it did nothing for the pain. He watched her furrow her brow and struggle not to gasp as she shifted her position, attempting to stand with no small amount of effort. Her first attempt failed and she placed her left palm on the floor, bracing herself for another try, but he placed his hand over hers before she could start.
The look she gave him was withering.
“Listen,” he said, desperate to backtrack and show her he wasn’t trying to goad her into anything, “I’ve cracked a rib before and it ain’t fun. Paladin Dense might need our help out there, and you can’t do much when it’s hard just to stand.” He removed his hand to grab the neglected Med-X vial, holding it toward her in offering. She would never say anything, but the look on her face spoke volumes of the choices warring inside her head. “You’re not going to get addicted from just one hit.” And, just in case she ended up being a special case: “And if by some miracle you do, I’ll be around to help you stay off it. I promise.”
She came from a different time, a different place, he knew. Even the most straight-laced of wastelanders wouldn’t bat an eyelash taking a bit of Med-X to ease the pain; drugs like this were just a part of living. When life was this tough, you had to find pleasure or relief where you could. He’d always seen her hesitate in similar circumstances and he’d long since stopped offering her some Mentats or Jet when she seemed on edge, because he’d always find them dropped off in the community cooler back at Sanctuary at the end of the day, unused and essentially untouched. Back in the time that Nora lived most of her life, before the war and when things were good—or, if not good, then at least much better than this—there was probably little to no need in her life for this kind of thing.
She relented on a sigh. “Alright. It’s just painkillers, right? I’ve taken them before.”
“You have?” He kept the Med-X extended toward her, waiting for her to take it.
“Well, never like this. They were pills. And a doctor had to prescribe them.”
“No need for that anymore, sister.” He rolled the vial in his upturned palm, impatient. “And the faster you take this, the faster it’ll start working.”
“Do it for me.”
And he did, without question, swiveling the vial until his fingers were under the grip and his thumb rested atop the plunger. “Pull down your pants a little,” he said, eyes trained on her left thigh and nothing else. “This needle is more delicate, can’t go through clothes.”
She did as bid, showing him the curve of her hipbone as well as a number of dark, jagged lines there—stretchmarks, maybe, or a nasty old deathclaw wound. At this point he wouldn’t doubt it for a single second if she told him that was what they were. But, being polite, he ignored the intricacies of her body, the parts of her bare skin that he’d never seen before, including the tiny round mole near the inside of her thigh and the few wisps of hair he could see peeking around her panties. He held her thigh still with his left hand and slid the syringe into her skin with his right hand, going slow, like she had with the stimpak, hearing her sharp intake of breath and seeing the way she bit her lip against the burning. “It’ll do that,” he said, smiling, feeling oddly closer by just this—by her allowing him, trusting him, to make her feel better in one of the only ways he knew how. He pushed the plunger down languidly, knowing she was watching, and in his left hand, he felt her thigh twitch. His middle and index finger tapped her twice, softly, until she stilled.
Her eyes were half-lidded, and she looked lazily fascinated by what he was doing. He was drawing this out much longer than was necessary, but she didn’t need to know that. “Hancock,” she said, her voice low, heady, making his heartbeat skip and start pounding again with renewed fervor.
He tried not to swallow, sure she’d be able to hear if he did. “You doin’ okay?”
She licked her lips. They were dry and chapped, but he hadn’t noticed it before. “Thank you.”
And then it was done. He pulled the Med-X syringe out and watched a shiny bead of blood dot her leg. The urge to wipe it off with his thumb and then taste it, or to just bend down and lick her clean, was a physical ache in his limbs, but he let it go, knowing now was not the time—not when Danse was just in the other room, not when she was hurting, not when a dead feral ghoul was lying maybe ten feet away, the contents of its head splattered all around the room. Not when he had no idea how she felt. His excitement at her proximity, at the touches they’d exchanged, turned sour in his stomach as images of her smiling, laughing, flirting with Danse came rushing back.
It was at that moment that Danse was ambushed by probably more than a dozen synth, and Hancock decided yes, all of this would just have to wait.
The cold evening air made Hancock’s skin feel dry and stretched too tight. Some wind had picked up while he’d been sequestered inside his room at Sanctuary, and now it was blowing right through him.
He fumbled with stiff fingers for his damaged pack of cigarettes and then managed to pull out his lighter. The pockets of his new plain black winter coat weren’t quite as deep or large as his those of his old colonial frock, but changing outfits became an unfortunately ever more insistent necessity as the weather turned bitter. He’d even set aside his tricorne for now—very, very reluctantly—in exchange for a furry ushanka that kept his naked head cozy.
He stuffed his free hand inside his warm pocket and took long, slow drags of his cigarette with the other as the sky bled red into twilight. Down near the bridge, someone switched on the spotlight, and he watched it sweep lazy lines around its perimeter. He could hear the distant noises of clinking cooking utensils and could smell the stirrings of a campfire. Sanctuary had grown considerably since he’d first stepped foot here, and though he had been adverse to the idea of spending his time here instead of in his comfortable, well-insulated statehouse, it grew on him quickly.
It was the people, really. The Minutemen were honest, good folk who helped others unquestioningly. It was no surprise that Nora had been able to recruit so many more settlers and friends in the short time Sanctuary had been in operation. They had their own radio broadcast now, clean water, several plots of corn and tatos and any other kind of crop, and even two fat brahmin who strolled their pens leisurely throughout the day. Nora had been able to provide the main building—the one which housed the majority of people’s beds and belongings—with electricity. Admittedly, he spent little time there, preferring his mostly empty house just across the street or the workshop adjacent to him. Sometimes he still grew homesick for Goodneighbor and his citizens, but he knew they were faring well without him, and he knew that the work he was doing here, with Nora and the other Minutemen, was currently more pressing than rearing his town.
He heard shouts from the bridge and stalked a few steps toward it, searching for signs of trouble. He could see Preston waving at something, and then from behind the guard post strode Nora and Nick Valentine, both looking a little rough around the edges. He watched the three converse for a while and begin heading toward the main house, and then he dropped his cigarette in the dirt and put it out with the heel of his boot.
It had been almost a month since he’d cleared ArcJet with Nora and Paladin Danse. Almost a month since Nora had answered Danse’s offer to join the Brotherhood with much hemming and hawing and neck-rubbing. He’d been thankful, truly, that she hadn’t decided to join, but he knew why the opportunity was tempting. The Brotherhood had a tremendous amount of firepower and could be instrumental in helping Nora achieve whatever goals she desired, provided she could get on their good side. If she’d decided to join, he wouldn’t have blamed her in the slightest, but her hesitance still pleased him. That wasn’t just, of course, because of the Brotherhood of Steel’s stance on non-humans. At the time, he’d still been hyperaware of Nora’s interactions with Danse. When they were back in the safety of the police station, she’d been all smiles again, and he’d been all glowing praise, and Hancock had been all tense shuffling and awkward glances. Danse couldn’t or didn’t bother to try to hide his disappointment when Nora told him she’d think about his offer, and he’d sent her off with a stiff thank you and a few extra guns to burden her backpack. If anything was a sign of affection from that man, the gifting of guns was definitely one.
Hancock tried to stifle his thoughts as he made his way toward the main house, drawn in by the smell of stew and the promise of seeing Nora again. It had been a long time since he’d thought of Nora and Danse’s interactions and he’d long since written them off. She’d made no attempts to contact Danse again, as far as he knew, and Danse had made no efforts to find her. The thoughts he didn’t stifle, however, were ones that involved Nora’s thigh in his hand, her breath uneven and warm, her breasts covered only by some thin swathe of cloth. Those thoughts had kept him company for some time now, when he was idle and at ease in his bed at night. He could play that situation over and over again, each time with different endings—one where he slid his hand up the inside of her thigh until he heard her breath hitch, or one where she closed the tiny space between them and pressed those pretty pink lips to his, or one where—
“Hancock,” Nora said as he stepped onto the patio, a smile stretched across her face. She sat on a cushioned chair with some settler woman he didn’t recognize behind her, tending to a nasty-looking gash on her neck. “Come for dinner? Smells like stew, doesn’t it? Haven’t had a chance to check yet, but I’m starved.”
He grinned, both hands stuffed into his pockets now. “You’re tellin’ me,” he agreed, glancing at the cookpot. Sure looked like stew. He looked back at her, watching as the settler began to wrap a clean bandage around Nora’s neck. “What happened there?”
Nora’s smile turned mischievous. “So there I was, minding my own business, when bam, deathclaw!” She threw her hands up in mock surprise. “It came from nowhere!”
“That’s because it didn’t exist,” Nick said from his place just outside the patio, leaning against a support beam. He sounded deadpan but his slight smile told a different story. His gaze flicked from her to Hancock, limbal rings bright gold in the burgeoning dark. “Some raider got her good with a knife. Bled a hell of a lot, but she’ll be alright.”
“That’s not nearly as entertaining,” Nora complained, then immediately thanked the settler woman as she finished her work.
Soon all of sanctuary had gathered around the cookpot, each taking their share of hot stew. Most wandered away to their own homesteads with their hearty prize—some of which were pre-war houses, but most of which were built by them upon settling in Sanctuary—but some stayed to sit around the warm fire in the main building’s front room. Among the people who stayed, Hancock recognized Nora, Nick, Codsworth, Preston, Dogmeat (of course), and Sturges. The rest were random settlers who he did not interact with too terribly much. Codsworth began regaling the group with snippets of pre-war life, having no stew to keep his mouth occupied, and though Nick appeared engrossed in the maintenance of his skeletal right hand, Hancock knew he was listening. Dogmeat dozed in front of the fire and at Nora’s feet.
“Mum didn’t know what to do!” Codsworth said loudly, spinning until his optic faced toward Nora. “Oh, she tried, but the turkey was burnt to a crisp. Still, she insisted on trying again, so Sir went out and bought a brand new turkey for her to cook.”
Nora smiled, though to Hancock it looked a little wan.
Codsworth continued, “In those days, a burnt turkey was the most of anyone’s problems. Her second try came out quite good, if Sir can be believed.”
“He hated it,” Nora said around a tired laugh. “It was so dry. I couldn’t even force myself to eat it, but Nate ate a whole leg and insisted we should save the leftovers.” She waved a dismissive hand and set her empty bowl on the ground, then leaned back in her chair. Dogmeat stirred at her feet with a small whuff. “I threw it out after we cleaned up and he never mentioned it again.”
“Mama Murphy could give you some lessons,” Preston supplied, patting his stomach. “I have no idea how she makes such good food with so little supplies.”
The conversation shifted toward the needs of Sanctuary and things that still needed to be done, and Hancock took note of each little thing out of place, each small chore that needed to be done. Running a town and participating in a settlement were not so different; every person had their own little issue that needed to be sorted out one way or another. Nora seemed to be paying attention to these details, too, because he saw her staring at Preston, chin resting in her hand. The firelight cast her profile in soft shades of orange and red that did strange things to his pulse.
Soon she wandered off, probably to do some armor or weapon upkeep or possibly even to get in an early night, and Hancock entertained idle conversation with Preston and Sturges about the state of the settlement. They asked his opinion often, knowing of his status in Goodneighbor, and he gave suggestions and advice freely. Need to do something about the drafty pre-war houses, he told them, and need to ensure absolutely everyone had warm clothing and a warm place to sleep. Sickness needed to be prepared for, with perhaps a small quarantine shack built to stem the spread. Medicines and foodstores needed to be well-stocked.
They spoke late into the night, and before long, even Dogmeat had retreated to his doghouse to rest. Soon it was only he and Preston, sharing the dying fire in silence, but eventually he, too, bid Hancock goodnight and disappeared down the hall toward the comfort of his bed.
Hancock smothered the remains of the fire with some dirt and left the main building quietly. It seemed so serene and peaceful with most of the settlement asleep. He could see the distant figures of Nick and Codsworth at their respective guard posts, the spotlight still turning slowly back and forth.
He headed toward his house, standing solitary but strong just across the street, intent on crawling into his warm bed and sleeping as long as possible. It had been nice to see Nora again after her long outing with Nick. He always felt strangely on edge when she was gone. There was always some small voice in the back of his mind worrying about her safety, wondering if this would finally be the time that she would come up against a foe she couldn’t defeat. He had every confidence in her, really—she was one of the most competent and talented people he’d ever met in the Commonwealth, but he held no delusions about her limitations. Everyone had their limits, and though Nora’s were much higher than most other people’s, they still existed.
He stepped through his doorway and maneuvered around the scattered furniture in the dark, both able to see them perfectly clearly and knowing by heart where everything was. He kept his bed in one of the back rooms, down the hall and to the left, across from the room with the crib. He’d thought often about rearranging the home and perhaps throwing out some of the old inhabitants’ belongings, but it seemed disrespectful, in a way. He ruminated on this idea now as he shed his coat and bent to unlace his boots. Somewhere in between “they’re obviously not around to care anymore” and “but this isn’t my home to redecorate,” he heard movement in another room and stilled.
An animal? Possible, but it had sounded bigger. He heard the telltale sound of footsteps walking down the hall and dropped into a crouch, backing into a corner where he would be protected, but which still offered him good visibility. He would have taken his shotgun in hand, but it could very well have been a wayward settler. It was unlikely, since they had their own homes, but still a distinct possibility.
He watched as two very familiar boots came into view, and as the person turned into the room across from his, he saw very plainly that the intruder was Nora. Suddenly, he was unsure of what to do. He didn’t think she’d ever visited him here or even seen him go into or come out of this house, so perhaps she didn’t know this was where he slept. Had she set up a bed here too without him knowing? And how exactly was he supposed to announce his presence without scaring the shit out of her?
He inched toward the doorway to get a better view of her. Even with her back to him, she looked lost. She put a hand on the lip of the crib and sighed deeply.
Realization dawned on him, heavy and sad. She was thinking about her lost baby.
Hancock stood and took quiet steps toward her until he was standing in the doorway to the room she was in. He watched her for only a moment longer before saying, “Nora?” in a low, questioning voice.
As hard as he had tried not to startle her, Nora still jumped and gasped and turned on him before placing a hand over her heart and giving an exasperated sigh of relief.
“Scared you?”
“Jesus,” she said in answer.
“Sorry,” he said, smiling toothily despite how awkward he felt, trying very hard not to glance at the crib she stood over, at the torn child’s rug on the floor, at the broken toys on dilapidated shelves that lined the walls.
She returned a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Did you follow me in here?”
He folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe. She had put her hand back on the lip of the crib. “Was gonna ask you the same question.” He jerked his head toward what lay behind him, his makeshift room and its dark contents. “I set up shop here a bit ago.”
“Here? In that room? When?”
“Yes, yes, and like I said: a bit ago.”
Her brows knit together and she clenched the hand holding the side of the crib. Her leather armor groaned as she shifted, turning away from him. “Good,” she said, though from her tone, he thought maybe it might not be good at all. “Something should be done with this place. I just haven’t had the heart to redecorate, or come here much at all.”
“It’s—” he began, watching her take a shaky seat in the overstuffed burgundy chair in the corner of the room. She ran her fingertips along the arms, fingers tracing tears in the fabric. Something wistful and sad darkened her features, and he felt the sudden urge to retreat, to feign some excuse about itching for a hit or needing a fix, something that might dissuade her from seeking him out.
But he remembered her in ArcJet, her skin smooth and tense under his hands; he remembered how willingly she entrusted herself to him, and somehow, this situation didn’t seem all that different.
After a moment’s hesitation, he lowered himself onto an adjacent, dusty wooden nightstand. It complained with a quiet creak under his slight weight. He looked into her face, elbows on his knees, slouched so as to be at or near her level, and she looked at her feet.
Her mouth twitched downward and her fingertips curled into her fists.
“This was your house, wasn’t it?” His voice was a sigh.
The frown deepened. “Was, yes. Not anymore.”
Sometimes there just wasn’t much to say to a person. What could he possibly tell her, anyway? Sorry for squatting in the ruins of your old life? The room he slept in must have been the one shared by her and her late husband; the thought almost made him wince. He dug into his pants pocket and removed his pack of cigarettes, pulling one out and lighting it in one swift motion.
Nora’s eyes flicked up toward him, but she didn’t say a word.
He took a drag and then held it out to her. “Smoke with me.”
She didn’t move.
“All you gotta do is breathe it in—”
She snatched it from his hand on a glower—something he much preferred to her previous frown. “I know how to smoke,” she said, sounding somewhat offended.
He smiled again, pulling one out for himself and lighting it. “Yeah?” he said, cigarette bobbing around the word.
“Before I was pregnant with Shaun,” she said, and though he expected the confession to be sad, she only sounded pensive. “Giving them up was hell. I thought I’d never go near them again.”
“Bet you didn’t think the world would end, either.”
His words must have struck a chord, because she took the longest drag he’d ever seen and then exhaled, leaning her head back against the chair. “I used to read him bedtime stories from this chair.” She pointed a finger in his direction, not bothering to look at him. “He used to have the cutest rocketship lamp.” Her finger shifted toward the ruined closet. “And Codsworth would stand there and fold laundry.” The finger swung toward the open door. It seemed her memory of this place hadn’t eroded even a little. “And Nate would stand in the doorway and smile and smile.” Another drag.
He wanted to tell her she didn’t have to talk about all of this if she didn’t want to, but he’d always been at least a little bit curious. He knew she was a vault-dweller, and he’d heard snippets of her past from Codsworth’s ramblings, but he’d never heard it first-hand, and he’d never heard the details. So he stayed quiet instead, letting her talk on.
“You can’t imagine how perfect life was. If there were ever problems at home, they all seem so insignificant now. Arguing, money trouble, none of that matters. Sometimes it makes me feel so free, but then I open my eyes and look around and realize where I am.”
“I get that, sure.”
She went on and on like this, talking about her life back then, how it was different and how it was, in some aspects, much the same. She dwelled on the domestics, speaking about tending to gardens and learning to cook, about reluctantly setting down her rebellious streak in order to embrace married life with unburdened arms. She’d never imagined it for herself, she said; she’d always wanted to join the Army, travel the world. But life just had different plans, as it so often did, and she’d actually liked where she’d ended up.
Honestly, Hancock could relate much more than he ever thought he would. Fifteen years ago he’d never imagined he’d be a ghoul. Twenty-five years ago he never thought he’d be an addict. But he did, and he was, and it was surprisingly easy to adjust.
“And I miss Nate so much,” Nora said suddenly. The words stung him only a little bit, and he wasn’t sure if it was out of sympathy or misplaced jealousy. “He’d know what to do.”
“The scars won’t heal, but they’ll hurt less every day,” he said. He handed her another cigarette, and she obliged happily, taking his lighter as well.
The light from his flip-lighter reflected the near-dried tears on her face for only a second. “Paladin Danse looked just like him.”
He felt cold in his veins. Christ, he knew it. He knew she’d married some prettyboy fuck like Danse. There was a bitterness in him at the thought, that of course Nora would be with someone just as beautiful as she was, and of course she’d still find that perfect face attractive, but there was a touch of relief to the bitterness, too. Maybe she hadn’t been into Danse at all. Maybe she’d just seen her husband in him and—
“It was like meeting him all over again. They’re so much alike, really, it was weird.” She sighed, exhaled a mouthful of smoke that twisted up into the cold night air. Stars twinkled through a gap in the wall behind her. “Both straight-laced military men, just wanting to do what’s right.”
—fallen in love all over again? He laughed quietly, darkly around the cigarette in his mouth. He’d thought maybe he could help her feel better, but shit, he was worse at this than he ever thought possible. “I’m not surprised,” he said in a mocking tone, though he was quite sure he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
Her gaze snapped to him. “What do you mean?”
“Your type,” he said, disgust dripping from the word. “I knew you were into the ‘perfect soldier.’”
She leaned back in her chair, expression rapidly turning stormy. “You knew, huh?”
“Sure did.” His voice was acid, burning his throat. He didn’t know why he was inciting her like this, but he just couldn’t stop. All the frustrations of dealing with his feelings for her, dealing with wanting her in any sense of the word, came rushing back, just like at ArcJet, just like she was standing in front of him again, and Danse was here again, and they were both smiling and laughing with each other again. “I knew you’d like that tin can.”
“Like him?”
His grin turned sideways as he shrugged. “I saw the looks you gave him. You don’t have to play coy.”
“Play coy?” She stood from the chair, almost knocking it over in her haste.
He took a long, slow drag. “You gonna keep repeating me all night?”
His insides turned fitfully, guilt making him feel rotten to his core. She’d just been pouring her heart out to him, and this was how he’d repaid her—by making her angry, by making accusations, by insinuating things he had no business insinuating.
Before he could start figuring out how he was going to apologize when she eventually decided to speak with him again, the cigarette was ripped from his mouth and thrown to the ground. He stared up at her in shock, fully anticipating the possibility that he’d need to actually defend himself from her, before she grabbed him by the thin fabric of his undershirt and grit her teeth right in his face.
“Don’t you dare,” she hissed, her nose inches from the hole in his face where a nose had once been. Really, he had no idea how to respond, except to be ready for her punch him in the gut at any moment. “You, of all people, should know who and what I like.”
He tore out of her grasp and stood as well, and though he had about an inch on her, she still looked like she could—and would—tear his throat out at the slightest provocation. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Are you kidding?” She actually laughed at this, though it was nowhere near the kind of laugh that he liked to hear from her. It was acerbic and empty. “Are you really trying to tell me you don’t know?”
He curled his lip at her in a sneer. “Don’t know what?”
Her incredulity turned soft the longer she stared at his face, the tight lines around her eyes and mouth smoothing. Her shoulders loosened and then drooped. “You…really don’t?”
“Nora, I have no fucking idea would you’re talking about,” he said, desperate and angry in the same breath. “You were just talking to me about your old life and then I was being an asshole and now you’re suddenly accusing me of not knowing something that I’m apparently supposed to know?”
Before his eyes, she seemed to shrink, drawing her hands to her chest and dropping her gaze to her feet. The screen of her pip-boy reflected the light from his still-lit cigarette, lying abandoned on the spaceship-patterned rug. He’d never describe Nora as a small woman, really—she was heavier than him, for sure, and almost as tall—but right now, she looked smaller than he’d ever seen her. Here, in her lost child’s room, having just handed him her heart on a plate only for him to shove it back in her face.
He put a cold hand to his face on a heavy sigh, turning away from her. “I’m sorry,” he said, meaning every word. “I shouldn’t have brought that shit up.”
It was a while before she spoke, but when she did, her voice was light. “I’m sorry too,” she said. “I shouldn’t have unloaded on you.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. She was still in the same place, the same position, still staring at the same spot on the floor. He turned to face her and then put a gentle, hesitant hand on her shoulder. “You should get some rest,” he said, his voice hoarse and low. “Been a long night, huh?”
“Let me stay here.”
He stilled, hand still on her shoulder, waiting for her to continue or to move or to do anything.
She did nothing.
He removed his hand slowly and then cleared his throat, shoving his hands into his pockets, where he fiddled with the cigarette pack. “It…ain’t my house,” he said hesitantly. “You don’t gotta ask my permission.” He figured she probably just wanted to stay here and relive pre-war memories, try and recapture pieces of her life from before everything went to hell. He couldn’t blame her, of course; it wasn’t like he never thought about his past. He missed when days were simpler, when he had no one to look after or worry about, when his biggest issue was what nook or cranny he’d explore next with his brother. He missed not being a ghoul, able to walk anywhere a normal person could without being stared at and whispered about. He even missed the days before the chems, sometimes, as much as he enjoyed them.
“I don’t want to bother you if you don’t want me here,” Nora said, a hint of vulnerability in her voice that made Hancock frown. She took a small step toward him, pointedly looking at him and not at the decaying remnants of her past lying all around them. “It’s hard, sleeping alone.”
“I get you,” he said, and he did, but the implications of her proposition swam dizzying circles in his head. He wasn’t sure how two people could go from heartfelt life stories to arguing to talking about sleeping together in the span of maybe thirty minutes, but it had happened, and now his whole body felt fuzzy. He shook his head, folding his arms and staring down at where his left hand rested on his right bicep. “I wouldn’t ever turn you away, you know that.” He chanced a glance up at her; her eyes were still on him, glassy even in the dark. “You sure, though? You looked ready to bite my head off a few seconds ago.”
At his words, she visibly bit her lip. She looked as embarrassed as he felt. “Yeah. Sorry. Talking about these things…I get emotional.”
“I wasn’t exactly bein’ a gentleman,” he admitted, and then because he’d heard enough apologies in the past five minutes to last a lifetime, he turned and led her into his room—her room—the room.
He lit the oil lantern on the nightstand beside his rather bare bed, suddenly very aware of how small this room was in comparison to his quarters back at the statehouse. There, he had a huge bed, plenty of space for belongings and knick-knacks, and plenty of surfaces to set things down on. Here, he only had a stand for the lantern, the dingy bed itself, and a lonely wooden chair on the other side of the bed.
Nora stood in the far corner of the room, lantern-light playing shadows across her face and completely hiding her expression from him. To her credit, she didn’t seem nervous or antsy at all—she simply stood, completely still, and waited patiently for him to finish fixing the sleeping area.
He adjusted the patchwork blankets on the bed and fluffed the pillows as best he could, wondering if he should be presumptuous and just take his boots off right there or if he should be polite and find somewhere else to sleep for the night. She had said sleeping alone was hard, though, so she must have meant she wanted to sleep with him.
And really, just like that, he felt his heart stutter. It was like he was fifteen again, lusting after Margie-What’s-Her-Name, the cool girl in the leather jacket who huffed Jet and hung out with older boys at night in the Diamond City children’s park. Except this time Nora was looking at him, very unlike how Margie had ever looked at him, and Nora was sitting down on his bed, something that Margie had never done and probably would never do, considering the sorry state of his face and the fact that he hadn’t talked to her in more than twenty years.
But Nora was nothing like this hazy girl from his youth. Nora was wizened and hard but soft yet, soft in places it mattered, soft when people asked for help and soft when she looked at him. Softer even still, now that she arched her back to begin untying her leather chestpiece and setting it gingerly on the floor.
He wondered what she was thinking about. Was she thinking about her and her husband, how they’d once shared this room more than 200 years ago? Or maybe how strange her life must have been, to have ended up in this foreign world with a weird guy like him by her side? Hell, maybe he was giving himself too much credit and weird just didn’t do it justice.
She finished removing her armor and then started unlacing her boots before sliding into a position under the covers that looked suitably comfortable. She kept her jeans and flannel on, as per usual—truthfully, he didn’t know if anyone slept in less. When you could wake up at any moment to the threat of imminent death, it was often important to keep your clothes on and be at the ready. He dowsed the lantern and slipped into bed beside her, feeling her weight and warmth warp the old mattress beneath them. He felt stiff; nervous; uncomfortable in a way that could only come from uncertainty. How comfortable was too comfortable? Could he let his leg touch hers? Would that be too much? She said she didn’t want to sleep alone, but just what did that entail?
Possibilities flashed through his head, possibilities that included Nora stripping the remainder of her clothes and rolling on top of him, but he dismissed those as quickly as they came. She’d had a real tough night and he’d be damned if he let some dumb fantasies start tainting his so far perfect track record. He took a breath that was perhaps too loud, because Nora shifted and then rolled over toward him. Even without looking at her, he knew she was staring at his profile.
“You always sleep in a hat?”
He knew he’d been forgetting something. Before he could reach up to sheepishly remove it and then make some witty quip to throw her off his nervous, jittery trail, he felt her place her hands gently at his temple. She slipped fingertips beneath the ushanka,her skin warm and smooth on his, and then lifted the hat slowly. She set it on his chest and he tossed it on the floor, feeling oddly naked without it. “Only when pretty girls find their way into my bed,” he said, a bit late.
It had the intended effect, though: She laughed, low but heartfelt, and then cuddled down into the pillow and closer to him. He could feel her breath on his arm, slow and short and warm, could feel the slight shifting of her legs beneath the blanket.
He passed many moments listening to the sound of her breathing, his body relaxing and his eyelids growing heavy. He allowed his legs to splay until they brushed hers, denim on denim. A draft came through the cracks in the room and stirred her hair until it tickled his arm.
When he thought for sure she was asleep and that he’d drift off too, about the time that he was wondering what the others would think if they saw her emerging from his claimed homestead—and relishing in the thought of it—Nora spoke.
“Hancock?”
He grunted in response, throat dry.
She moved closer to him, closer still, until her forehead rested against his shoulder and one of her legs had nearly crossed over his. He felt her touch the bare skin on his arm, felt fingertips tracing the divots and ridges that defined him. “You really don’t know, then?”
He turned his head to look at her. Her eyes were closed, hair almost fully covering her face. Her lips were slightly parted. He began to speak, his voice heavily tinted by drowsiness, and it came out as a near-growl. “I really don’t.” He’d meant to sound wry, but it only came out as gruff.
If she took offense to his tone, she didn’t show it. “Do you want me to tell you?”
He’d imagined this scenario so many times in his head since ArcJet, and even a few times before that, if he was being honest. She’d be in his bed, pressed close, and he’d turn over and press hands to the softest parts of her skin, the parts few had touched or seen. He’d drag fingertips up the inside of her thigh, up over her hips, her stomach, and under her breasts, where he’d count her ribs with a tap one, tap two, and on. She’d writhe beneath him, probably, and beg him for more, most likely, and he’d definitely happily oblige her. Or sometimes he’d be less gentle; she’d be pleading, saying his name over and over as he kissed her neck until it bruised, rolling hips into his and making him groan.
But now that she was here, now that this was real, he found that none of those would really satisfy him quite as much as this did. Just this. Just lying here with her, talking, teasing, joking, drifting off slowly in the comfort of each other’s presence.
He took hold of her hand beneath the blankets and watched as her eyes opened halfway, lazily. “Tell me,” he said, voice low, rasping deep in his chest. “Anything.”
She sat up so abruptly that he almost sat up with her, momentarily startled. But then she leaned over him, bracing herself with hands on either side of his shoulders, and leaned down, close, so close, lips nearly brushing his. “You are my type, Hancock,” she said, and as she said his name, she drew even closer, until Hancock was said against his mouth, and her lips moved against his in more voiceless words. He felt her hair brushing his shoulders, felt the weight of her torso push him down into the bed as she lowered, and he never wanted this to end. He didn’t want to live in a world where Nora wasn’t kissing him, where they weren’t warm and entwined, where the physical embodiments of memories long since cold standing all around them weren’t all but forgotten.
And he did forget. He forgot about Diamond City as her kiss moved to his jaw and then to his neck, worrying the hard, leathery skin there. He forgot about the friends he’d seen come and go as he placed two firm hands on her hips, tilting his head back and swallowing a groan. He forgot about the mangled wreckage of his body, his skin, his face even as she kissed them all, fingertips finding a way under his shirt and splaying over his right hip.
She pulled away from him and it was almost painful; he almost made a pitiful noise, something probably akin to a dog deprived its dinner. Her eyes were shining now, reflecting starlight and the shadows of the moon from the gaps in the walls. “Am I your type?”
In a moment he was above her, the meaty part of his thigh pinned between hers, pressing down and creating a friction that made her gasp voicelessly. Kissing was always a little awkward when you had hardly any lips to speak of, but he tried his best, tongue tasting hers. She tasted like cigarettes—his cigarettes—and he found it was a flavor he could get used to. She ran her hands up his back, under his shirt, not minding the marks and scars and strange burn-like lesions she found there. She didn’t flinch at the sliver of exposed bone at the topmost part of his spine, running over it gently before moving back down again, and he pushed into her harder, needing, wanting. His erection strained against his jeans and he rocked into her, burying his face in the crook of her neck, allowing himself a sigh of pleasure when she whined in response. “If I had one,” he said, pulling away from her only to tear off his shirt and start working on his pants, “I promise it’d be you.” Everything she was, everything she represented, everything about this woman was his type. When had he started feeling this way? ArcJet? Before? During their travels? When they were hunkered down in a leaky shack during a rainstorm, eating warm stew and trading stories? Whenever it was, it had been a long time coming, and he felt something that had previously been wound tight within him suddenly begin to unravel.
He helped her out of her shirt and jeans and was upon her again, interrupting her attempts at removing her socks. If only she knew how much she’d been on his mind. “I’ve thought about this for a long time.” If only she knew how much she meant to him. “You’re so goddamned important.”
She laughed, her throat vibrating against his mouth and making him smile. “You aren’t alone. You’re too charismatic for your own good, Hancock.”
“Don’t forget charming.”
She laughed again and for a final time, because he immediately palmed her breasts and kissed a hot line down her torso, down to her navel, and down further, until he sunk his tongue deep within her folds. She gasped at this, rising to meet his mouth, and he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face—probably smug and so self-satisfied at this point, but he didn’t care. He traced circles around her clit, pulling one hand away from a breast in order to part the fine curls down there and give him better access. He took his time, lavishing her with long, lazy swipes of his tongue, listening to her moan his name and pressing his length against the mattress for the smallest ounce of relief.
“Hancock,” she breathed, arching her back as he withdrew to place chaste kisses along her thighs. “Want…”
“Mm,” he said in response, slipping a finger slowly inside of her.
“You…” she continued, clearly finding speaking to be a bit difficult at the moment.
“Tell me.” He added a second finger, stretching her just the slightest bit. He felt her tighten around his fingers and his cock throbbed.
“Inside me,” she gasped, breathless. “I want you inside me.” She twisted around his fingers, sliding up and down on them, begging silently for him to go faster, harder. “Please, Hancock.”
His fingers curled and she pressed her thighs tight together around his hand, crying out. “Anything,” he said, and then removed his fingers to press his hips against her instead.
She looked up at him, and he could tell her face was flushed even in the darkness. She was breathing hard, chest heaving, breasts rising and falling beneath him. “I should have said something sooner,” she admitted on a shy, albeit dreamy, smile. Oh, that shy smile, all for him.
He pressed his length against her, sliding against the slickness there, the tip just barely slipping inside of her. He was far past the point of words now, so he mouthed a note of agreement and then rocked inside of her on a single thrust.
And oh, God, but she was everything and more than he’d ever hoped for.
He thought about how beautiful she was as he fucked her, here and in the wasteland, naked or covered in layers of leather armor and heavy clothing. With his cock deep inside of her, pulsing as she tightened around him, he thought of all the things he loved to hear her say and how he could now safely add “hearing Nora moan his name” to the list.
“Hancock,” she pleaded, bucking her hips against him. Her breasts pressed against him as she arched, rocked, the soft skin a stark contrast to his mottled, pockmarked torso. She didn’t seem to mind. She never seemed to mind.
He heard her begin to pant, begging him to go faster, and he obliged with a groan that came from deep within his chest.
If anything, she liked him for it.
She was going to finish soon, he knew. Her voice had pitched high and fast, her tempo erratic.
If anything, she loved him for it.
She came on his name, a quiet benediction, “Hancock,” whispered into the hollow of his neck and shoulder. He felt her tighten impossibly, everything so warm and wet and more than he ever could have dreamed, and he came to the sound of her contented “Mm”s and “Ahh”s. He grit his teeth against the pleasure, feeling sweat drip down his spine despite the cold, emptying himself inside of her. He filled her, hands clutching at the mattress beneath them, lips searching for hers and then finding them, and he moaned the last of his orgasm into her mouth. Nora’s knees came up to cradle either side of his waist, and he felt so comfortable, so perfect, so like he belonged that he never wanted to move.
He lay like that for longer than he could count heartbeats, until she shifted beneath him and he reluctantly pulled away from her. He felt her slickness—their mess—as he slid out of her, and it thrilled him.
Reality came crashing down a little quicker than he would have liked, though, as Nora climbed out of bed and began rooting through her pile of clothing on the floor. He watched her with interest, the way the muscles in her back flexed and shifted, the way the rolls of fat at her hips and waist pinched and stretched. Everything about her was beautiful, he decided—every little part. Every dip, every bulge, every dot, every blotch.
He tried not to look down at his own body or even think about it, as usual. She hadn’t minded his appearance. She’d liked him for it, even. She’d—
She found what she was looking for—some kind of rag or bandanna—and cleaned herself up, then rolled back into bed until she was lying warmly against him.
“I like you, Hancock,” she murmured into his chest.
Hancock. Not Danse. Not dead-husband. But Hancock.
He threaded his fingers through her hair with one hand, still feeling floaty and ethereal from what had transpired. He didn’t remember if he’d ever been with someone like this, with so much emotion and intensity. He couldn’t remember if his heart had ever beaten so hard or so fast.
Her hand came up to rest just above his stomach, at the edge of his ribcage, and she traced an indent there, some nasty pinkish indicator of his non-humanity.
“You’re the only thing that makes sense,” she said, a sigh into his skin. “You’re the only constant I know.”
He was mildly surprised that his instinct to escape, to run, had not taken hold. As he watched her draw patterns in his ruined skin, he wasn’t sure if it ever would.
No, not with her. Not when they could be like this.
He felt her smile into his skin. “And for the record,” she added, “I normally go for the bad-boy types.”
He rolled her over and kissed her neck and her shoulders and her face until, laughing, she begged him to stop.
Mama Murphy absolutely would not stop staring at him, and it was starting to get on his complete last fucking nerve.
He threw down his shotgun on the counter with a sigh, giving up on weapon modifications for now. “What?” he demanded.
Mama Murphy’s gaze did not flinch. She sat in her rubicund green chair, custom-made by Nora herself, glaring a hole into Hancock’s head.
“Old woman,” Hancock warned on a growl, “you’ve been giving me the evil eye all day. What the hell do you want?”
Mama Murphy’s eyes narrowed and she settled more comfortably into her chair. “Don’t need the Sight to know what I know,” she said, sounding rather cross. He couldn’t imagine why, really. “A woman out of time and a man with nothing but time.”
Hancock frowned, resting a hand against the weapons workbench. “You feel like explaining that?”
She scoffed, shaking her head, before coming to an unsteady stand and limping over to him. She didn’t even look at him as she passed by him on her way out of the main building. “Things like this,” she said, pausing for a moment in the doorway, “they change lives. They change people. The way you think, the way you act.” She glanced at him over her shoulder, eyes once hard and shrew now a bit softer. “Be careful with each other and the time won’t be wasted.”
He watched her hobble away, out into the main thoroughfare, and then drew his attention to his house—to Nora’s old house—standing sentinel just across the road. He looked into the window where his bedroom was, where Nora still was, sleeping off the remaining exhaustion from last night. The smile that stretched across his face couldn’t be helped, despite Mama Murphy’s ramblings.
He shook off the last of his Mentats high with a cold cup of water, drinking it down like a man dying of thirst. He’d gone over who he was, where he was, to Nora for hours, ever since he’d woken up long before her and decided to take a walk to clear his head. And really, as long as she’d have him, there was no place he’d rather be. He didn’t feel chained, so there was no urge to escape. He didn’t feel frightened, so there was no desire to run.
There was truth in Mama Murphy’s words, as much as the old bag’s cryptic speech and penchant for stealing his chems annoyed him. But those were bridges he’d cross later—much later—and for now, he had a beautiful woman to wake up.
He entered the room quietly, but Nora was already stirring, stretching and yawning and growing confused as to her lack of clothing. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, grinning devilishly. “Morning,” he said cheerily.
Color crept up Nora’s cheeks and she brought a hand up to cover her mouth. “Oh,” she said quietly, searching the room for her clothes, presumably.
He picked them up off of the floor and then laid them out for her at the foot of the bed. She got up and dressed slowly, carefully, as if her thoughts were weighing her down. He half expected to find her with a distant expression, but when she turned to face him, all he saw was slight embarrassment and careful optimism.
She finished combing her hair out with her fingers. He made a mental note to find a hairbrush somewhere around for her. He was sure he’d seen one before. “This place,” she started, cautiously, eyes darting around the room, “looks completely different in the daytime.”
He held out a hand to her and she took it with a smile—one that was a bit more confident and satisfied-looking this time. “Come on, love,” he told her, leading her out into the sunshine. “We’ve got work to do.”