Before I Read It, Im Mentally Preparing Myself And Literally Shaking. Im So Excited Im Gonna EAT This

before i read it, im mentally preparing myself and literally shaking. im so excited im gonna EAT this up. i gotta dim the lights just right, i gotta get in the best comfy spot, i gotta get my HEAD IN THE GAME for this chapter. i love you btw thank you for tagging me

This made me laugh out loud, I’m wheezing now bc I’m congested but this was hilarious. I’m so glad people are enjoying this series so much.

I do recommend you get yourself in the proper headspace for this one bc it’s got some twists to it. ♥️♥️

How About a Nuke?

Part VI / Part VII / Part VIII

Series Masterlist

Cooper Howard x fem!reader, The ghoul x fem!reader A/N: @weakling-grace did some fanart for the series that I absolutely adore! And I want you all to look at it. It’s on her blog, or reposted on mine under the tag How about a nuke? Summary: The wound’s infected. It shouldn’t be, but here you are anyway, barely holding on to life. You make it as far as you can and then it’s up to him to decide whether you get to live or die.

“Have I told you yet that you are the most gorgeous woman in this room?” You couldn’t stop the smile from spreading on your face even if you tried. 

“Only about a dozen times.” His hand reaches for yours across the table and you take it eagerly, linking your fingers together and enjoying the way his hazel eyes linger on yours. You could get lost in them, as cliche as it sounds. You and about every other woman in the world fell in love when you first saw those smiling eyes on the silver screen. 

“I’ll just have to tell you a dozen more.”

God, you would swoon if you could. But, unfortunately, you are in the middle of a very nice restaurant and you’re sure they wouldn’t enjoy your fainting spell. It’s not like you could help it, he was so effortlessly charming, everything he said with that rasping accent of his sounded like music to you. 

Your smile slipped slightly when you caught two women staring at you both. They weren’t even trying to hide it, pointing and whispering behind their hands. You clenched your jaw, trying your best not to let the anger show on your face. But he caught it anyway. 

Cooper dropped your hand and tucked his back in his lap. He sighed and glanced over his shoulder, they caught his eye and gasped, stopping their cruel whispers. You opened your mouth to try and make him feel better but he interrupted you, “Hey-”

“I told you this was gonna happen sweetheart.” You hated how sad he sounded, how resigned he was to his new place in life. It was no secret that most of your fellow actors despised him now just because he did a few ad campaigns for Vault-Tec. But that didn’t mean the rest of the world did. There were still plenty of people who adored Cooper and asked for his autograph. 

Granted, those ladies clearly weren’t fans, but you didn’t care. You didn’t care if you got spotted together in public and rumors started up again. You didn’t care what that meant about future roles. “I want to be with you, Coop, but I can’t keep having this same conversation over and over again.” You sighed and finally drew your hand back to yourself, he tracked the movement like a hawk. 

“If this is too much,” you forced yourself to swallow past the lump in your throat and put on a stilted smile. “If being with me in the public eye is too much then maybe we should-”

“Enough,” he reached back over and forced his hand into yours. “I’m sorry, I’m just worried about you.” He stopped you before you could interrupt him, giving you a knowing smile. “I know that you don’t care what being around me does to your career, but I do. There’s no reason for the both of us to be washed up celebrities.”

“Hey, you’re not washed up, plenty of people still want to see you on the silver screen.”

He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. He squeezed your hand once before letting go and picking up his fork, “Let’s just enjoy our meal, sweetheart.”

“Pick up the pace! I’m not gonna wait for you forever, sweetheart.”

You glared at him and leaned on a tree for support. You’re not sure what’s going on. You feel hot under your skin but also like you’re freezing, you’d thrown up twice during night watch and you’re about five seconds away from keeling over. 

Your sweaty palm slips against the bark and you go sliding over. You hear his boots stomping through the grass before they stop in front of you. Rough hands steady your shoulders and shove you upright again. His eyes rove across your face, the muscles above his eyes turning down in concern. 

“Shit, you look like,” he trailed off, “well, to be perfectly honest you look like shit.”

You laughed but it came out strangled and he flinched back in disgust when you started coughing. “Good to know you’re still a gentleman, Cooper.” 

He sighed and led you over to a rotted log. You threw yourself down on it, wincing as it jarred your sensitive stomach. The gash was aching a lot more than it should. 

When you’d been shot, you could barely even feel it by this point. Now the wound was burning, itching so bad you just wanted to rip the stitches out with your bare hands. Your head rolls back and you clench your eyes shut as another wave of nausea goes through you. You could feel your heartbeat in your throat, rattling like a hummingbird in a cage. 

He kneels in front of you and reaches for your shirt. You lean back on your hands to give him better access. “Stimpak should have worked by now,” he mutters. He pulls your shirt higher up on your abdomen and hisses through his teeth. 

“What is it?” Your tongue is glued to the roof of your mouth and the words come out garbled. 

“Shit!” He yanks your shirt down and reaches for your bag, digging through it until he finds another one of the Stimpaks you’d taken. 

You’d be more panicked if your head wasn’t floating right now. “What is it?” He doesn’t answer you, he hovers the injector over his mouth and lets the medicine shoot in. You wince when he immediately turns to spit it into the grass. 

He wipes the back of his mouth and chuckles. “Should’ve fucking known,” he mutters. He goes through the rest of the supplies you’d grabbed and starts chucking them further into the forest. 

You’re getting pissed off now. Pissed off and worried, you just needed him to talk to you, tell you what’s going on. “Cooper!” You snap, hand clutched over the burning wound on your stomach. He sighs and looks up at you. “Tell me what’s happening.”

“Fakes,” he says, mouth set in a firm line and eyes hard against your worried gaze. “See, darlin’, some people like the men we met last night hand out fake supplies.” If you weren’t so worried you’d be mad about how condescending he sounds. 

“They take empty injectors and fill ‘em with chems to keep people sick and coming back to them. It’s a steady income,” he says, like it’s a respectable career. “Your wound is infected, probably only worsened by whatever chem they put in the Stimpak I stuck you with.”

Your eyes are wide with horror. You can’t decide what’s worse, that you’ve essentially been poisoned and are probably experiencing sepsis right now. Or that people were capable of being so cruel and profited off of it. He pulls your canteen out of your bag and unscrews the cap. He holds the water up to your nose, “Sniff.” You do and he waves his hand, prompting you to tell him what exactly you smelled. 

“Smells like metal,” you shrug, not sure what that means. 

“Infected and you’ve got rad poisoning.” At your confused glance he continues, “Water’s not purified either, sweetheart. Whatever you got is about to get a hundred times worse.” When he turns his back to put the water back in your bag you finally risk a glance down at your stomach. 

You wished you hadn’t because you’re immediately bending over to throw up what was left of your rations. The skin has swelled over the stitches, practically swallowing the black thread. The place the knife went in is red and puckered, pus forming at the corners. The sides of your stomach have an odd green tint that you’re trying not to think about too hard, most likely a side effect of whatever chem you’d been dosed with. 

He presses the canteen into your hand and you shake your head from where it is between your knees. “Can’t, radiation.”

He laughs, the sound unkind, “It’s a bit late for that, honey.” You snatch the water out of his hand and gulp down as much as you can stomach. It’s not much, the taste of the water is too metallic and bitter for you. “The place we’re going, they’ve got medicine. We get you there and I’m sure I can work something out with them.”

You know what that really means. He’ll get paid for his bounty and then he’ll get what he wants, whether they offer it freely or not. “If I get there,” you mutter, still holding back the rest of your breakfast. 

“Enough,” he snaps. His hand wraps around your elbow and he yanks you to your feet. “We need to get a move on, power through.” If you had the strength, you’d slap him again. 

“Here you go,” he placed a bowl down on the coffee table, steam still wisping over the edge. He sat down beside you on your couch and brushed some hair away from your face and you leaned into the warmth of his palm. You were freezing but he seemed to think you were burning up. 

“Did you make me soup?” Your voice is groggy with sleep. He helps you into a sitting position and hands you the bowl. 

“No,” he laughs a little and leans back against the cushions, arm spreading out behind you and pulling you into him. “But I warmed it up for you.”

“Cooper,” you whisper. 

“Get a move on!” He shouts from a couple yards ahead. “You either move your ass or I’ll leave you here, because I’m sure as shit not carrying you.”

Oh shit. 

Hallucinating is never a good sign. You would swear on everything above that you were just on your couch with Cooper. You could still feel the warmth of the bowl in your hands, the old plush fabric of your couch on your cheeks. 

You swallowed down bile and did your best to catch up to him. You blinked a few times, trying to get rid of the fog over your eyes, but it didn’t help much. It took you a minute to realize it was from the sweat dripping down your brow and burning against your retinas that was causing the problem. 

You glanced around, surprised to find yourself surrounded by sand. Weren’t you just in the forest? You lifted a shaking hand to try and get rid of the glare of the sun. He was walking closer to you now, keeping a keener eye on you. You trip over your own feet for the inth time and try to keep pushing yourself. 

“Any chance we could dim those?” You squint and point up to the lights hanging above the set and one of the PA’s runs off to fulfill your request. You shake your boots out, tired of all the sand that’s been getting in them. You understand you’re meant to be chasing an outlaw through the “Wild West” but this is getting ridiculous. 

You’ve done about a hundred retakes of this scene, you’re not sure when the director is going to admit defeat but you hope it’s soon. You don’t know why the studio is even bothering to do cowboy stuff anymore. Everyone knows since Coop was forced out of the industry no one’s wanted to see these types of movies. 

The actor you’re working with this time is a dick. He’s commanding and rude, he’s got no sense of boundaries either. Or a nose. 

What the fuck?

He stands over top of you and you finally realize that you’ve collapsed into the sand. You let your head fall back and rub your forehead. One second you’re on a set and the next you’re in the Wastelands at the end of the world. You’re struggling to remember which version of reality is real and which isn’t. 

“I mean it,” he threatens, “I ain’t carrying you.” Your hand flops uselessly to your side, muscles fatigued and the burning in your gut sucking the energy out of you. The only part of yourself you’re physically aware of is the stab, you can’t feel anything else. You can’t twitch your toes or wiggle your fingers, everything is off kilter. “Alright then,” he leans down and yanks your arm over his shoulder. 

Before you’re processing what’s happening the world is being tilted on its axis and you’re being hauled to your feet. You don’t remember much about traveling through the sands. Everything is one long blur of red and orange. When the air in front of you starts to get wavy your eyes lose focus and you black out.

She nearly made it. They’re only about an hour away from this compound he’s been trying to get her to. He sighs, looking down at her prone form in the sand. There’s sweat beading along her forehead, her lips are cracked and split and her face has an unusual tint to it that can’t mean anything healthy. 

He squats down next to her and debates how he wants to go about this. The wound on her stomach has only gotten worse since they started walking, it’s just looking angrier and angrier. With how infected it is, it’s possible that even a stimpak might not help her now. 

He could leave her here, get the bounty, and go on his merry way. He could shoot her, put her out of her misery and leave. Or he could throw her over his shoulder and walk the last hour to the compound, hoping that whatever they have there will help. No matter what choice he makes, it’s her life in his hands. 

His hand drifts forward, brushing the hair off her cheek and lingering on the soft skin there. He sighs before scooping her up and tossing her over his shoulder, she whines, her wound rubbing against his shoulder and probably causing her a heap of pain. It didn’t matter how much it hurt, though, as long as she was feeling something that was a good sign. 

“Nearly there, sweetheart,”; he muttered. He tuned into her shallow breathing, the long pauses before her next breath and let that be what keeps him going. She better not fucking die on him. He grunts, shifting her higher up on his shoulder and wrapping an arm around her legs. 

He could feel how hot she was through each layer of their clothing. This was more than just the sun, she seemed like she was about to combust. “Cooper,” she whimpers. He frowns, she’s been muttering to herself since they left the forest. Talking about things that weren’t possible. 

He’s seen it before, with infection or rad poisoning, the hallucinations start pretty early. Only problem is, he’s never met anyone who lasted as long as her. She should have been dead hours ago. He has no idea what’s keeping her going, but she better fucking hold onto it. 

You laughed, your dress swirling around your legs like a blooming red flower as he spun you through the room. His hand wrapped around your waist and he pulled you back into his chest. You smiled at him and he reached up to brush the hair out of your face. 

Sinatra’s smooth voice cracked and then began to stutter. You laughed again but Cooper just rolled his eyes and walked over to fix the record. You smoothed out your dress and sat down on his couch, reaching for his glass of whiskey on the table. 

You took a sip, hoping for some liquid courage, and regretted it. You’d momentarily forgotten your distaste for alcohol. You tried to fight the tickle in your throat but failed, you probably ruined your lipstick with how hard you started to cough. 

He walked over to you and chuckled, taking his glass from your hands and stealing a swig. “Can’t handle your liquor, honey?”

“I can,” you wiped your mouth and gave him a playful glare. “That just tastes absolutely disgusting.” He smiled and took a seat beside you, arm draped behind you. He crossed a leg over his knee and titled himself to face you. You found yourself taking a deep breath, trying to prepare yourself for the question you were going to ask.

“Everything alright?”

You glanced down at your dress and fiddled with the hem of it. “I know the divorce was finalized a few days ago,” Cooper looked away from you, his face hardening, and reached forward to place his glass back on the table. Your heart leapt into your throat at the way he slammed it down. Maybe this was a mistake. 

You know when Barb came over to pick up Janey yesterday they’d gotten into a fight. You didn’t know what exactly it was they fought about, you’re pretty sure it had to do with you. But it didn’t truly matter. She always found a way to rile him up. You’d been hoping that coming by tonight might make him feel a little better,  but he still seemed to have a residual tenseness to him. 

Bringing the divorce up after one of their fights isn’t smart. But you need to talk about this and he’s been avoiding the conversation for a while now. 

He ran a hand down his face and sighed, “What about it?” 

“I was just wondering what that means for us?”

He scoffed and glanced over at you. The look he’s giving you, you’re certain the fight was about you now. He’s never looked this angry with you, “For us?” You nodded and he shook his head, standing up and heading towards his room. “It doesn’t mean anything.” Your heart stuttered in your chest, eyes burning as he slammed the door to his room without another word. You let your head fall into your hands and took a few deep breaths. You knew you shouldn’t have asked that. 

“That was a mistake,” you muttered. 

“The hell are you telling yourself back there?” Your eyes peeled open and you frowned, you seemed to be looking at something that looked a hell of a lot like Cooper’s backside. You tilted your head to the side to find the world upside down and something stabbing repeatedly in your stomach. 

You clawed your way up Cooper’s jacket, shakily holding yourself up so you could stare down at him. “Settle,” he warns, like you’re a damn horse. 

“Put me down,” you mutter, weakly kicking out your feet and trying to get off of him. He just shakes his head and shoves you back down. You let him, not having much fight left in you anyway. 

“Just,” he pauses, “keep dreamin’,” the words seem to pain him and you wonder why. You don’t linger on it long, letting your head hang against his back before the world is going dark again. 

She keeps muttering Cooper in her sleep. He knows what she’s thinking about. Their old times together, when everything was just dandy and the world was as sweet as peaches. Well, he wasn’t some saint back then neither. He had his own problems, vices, same as any man. 

Only difference between then and now is that he doesn’t have to hide who he is. Doesn’t have to worry about the public’s opinion or how his job will be affected if he speaks his mind. Cooper’s no better than the Ghoul. 

He sighs, barely even believing himself. She whimpers in her sleep, the noise strangled and pained. He squeezes her leg, barely even noticing the action, in an attempt to bring some minute form of comfort. She never should have dived in front of that blade, it was stupid of her. 

Course, she couldn’t have known that he would have healed, it’s not like he ever told her that. But she shouldn’t have risked it anyway, he wasn’t worth her dying for.

He can see a large building about a mile ahead as he crests the ridge of the dune he’s walking on. The compound, nearly there. “Hold on,” he’s not sure who he’s talking to but it doesn’t matter. She’s made it this far, she’ll make it a few more minutes.

“Stop right there!” Only one armed guard comes out from behind the gate of the compound. He scoffs, fucking amateurs. He drops her to the ground at his feet with as much care as he can, which isn’t a lot. Slowly, he raises his hands as the guard approaches, the tip of his rifle pressing into the hardened skin of his chest. “State your business.”

Well, someone liked making themself feel important, he was gonna have a field day beating this boy black and blue. For now, he simply smiled at him, unbothered by the gun. “I’ve got a bounty to deliver.”

“Alright, hand it over.” He reached into his pockets and the boy’s trigger finger twitched dangerously. He pulled out the only thing they’d wanted from the body, dog tags, and held them out for the boy to take. He darted forward, trying to snatch them but he yanked them out of the guard’s grip. 

He lunged, wrapping a hand around the barrel of the rifle and yanking it out of the kid’s hands. He tucked the tags back in his pocket and pointed the barrel into the boy’s chest. His face blanched and he held up his shaky hands. “Not so big now, are you?” He kept the gun trained on him and leaned down to scoop her back up. 

She was just cognizant enough to wrap an arm around his shoulder, keeping herself steady. “My friend here needs help. So help me boy, I swear if you fight me, I’ll slaughter everyone in that fucking place and just take what I want.”

He poked the gun into the boy’s chest and he jumped away from him with a frightened little whimper. With a grin, he bullied him into unlocking the gate and leading the both of them inside. 

“Please-”

“Shut the fuck up and get me inside.” It didn’t take long, the kid seemed to be the only guard they had patrolling right now. He led the pair inside the compound and then shoved them inside a room. 

“Here, you can clean her up here.” Before he could say anything the boy was running down the hall and out of sight. He figured they didn’t have long before the rest of the compound was alerted to what was going on. 

He knew enough about the place to know they had a water purifier set up in the back and some odd little ditty they’d created to use water to generate power. Having a radiated ocean behind them was a lot more convenient than Cooper ever would have thought. 

“Alright,” he propped her up on the bed and threw the boy’s rifle to the side. “Wake up, darling,” her eyelashes fluttered but she didn’t move. He used his teeth to pull off one of his gloves and pressed a hand to her clammy head. Still burning up. He cracked his hand across her cheek, chuckling at the way her eyes flew open. 

“Come on,” he hoisted her up and shoved her towards the bathroom in the room. There were holes in the wall, the faucet was really a metal can with holes poked in it, but it was running water. Who was he to complain? He propped her up against the sink and cranked the odd lever in the wall. There was a loud rattling sound before water came pouring out of the rusted can. “Clean yourself up,” he muttered, closing the door behind him.

Barely a minute later he heard a loud crash and the sound of porcelain cracking. He ran back into the bathroom and found her half collapsed against the shower wall. What was left of the decrepit sink was broken on the ground, only the faucet sticking out of the wall. He sighed and looked over at her. 

“I fell,” she muttered, a million little cuts bleeding on her arms. 

He sighed and tugged his hat and gloves off, tossing them onto the bed outside. He came back in, pulling her away from the shower and straightening her up. She clung onto him, broken nails digging dully into his scarred arms. “Come on, sweetheart,” he tugged her shirt up, her arms slipping limply out of it. 

Her wound was practically festered by now, turning a color that he knew meant she didn’t have much time to waste. He undid the button of her pants and knelt down, hands dragging down her legs and pulling her pants with them. She stepped out, hands braced on his shoulders and tripped slightly. He grabbed her thighs, steadying her and stood back up. He wrapped an arm around her waist, stopping her from falling and leading her into the shower. 

She sighed as the tepid water hit her back and he grimaced at the brown water pouring off of her. Maybe he should have let her clean up in that lake. He didn’t do much to help her as she cleaned herself up, mainly just stood there and let her hold onto him so she didn’t hurt herself further. 

He cupped the back of her neck and helped her tilt her head back to clean out the rest of her hair. It was odd, being this close to her. Less because of how stark naked she was, and more because of just how vulnerable she was being. Like a deer rolling over and presenting its neck to a wolf. He could do anything to her, and she just let him hold her like this. 

She leaned forward, clearly tired after moving around so much. Her head fell into his chest and she wrapped her arms around him tighter. She sighed, “I love you, Cooper.”

He flinched, knowing this was just a part of her delirium. Having running water for once was probably just confusing her more, making her think she was right back home. He leaned forward, lips pressed against her forehead and brushing some hair back. “No you don’t, darling.”

There was a knock on the door and he was quick to draw his gun. The door opened and a middle aged woman flanked by two guards stood smiling at him. She took in the gun in his hand but seemed unbothered by it or the threat he posed. “I hear you two need some help.”

“Mhm,” he glanced at the guards behind her but they didn’t seem particularly interested in reaching for their weapons. The woman took her in from where she lay on the bed, panting and sounding like she was struggling to get her breaths in. “I have a bounty to turn in, figured part of my payment could be you giving us a Stimpak. Then, we’ll be out of your hair.”

She laughed and took a step further into the room. He stood up now, gun pointed towards her slightly. She ignored him and took a peek at the festering wound. “She’ll need a lot more than a Stimpak. We can clean her up, don’t worry.” He didn’t get a chance to argue before the guards were coming in. He stepped out of the way as they grabbed you by the arms and legs, hauling you out of the room. 

He made to follow them but the woman placed a hand on his chest. “Sylvie, I run the compound. The bounty?”

He sighed and fished the dog tags out of his pocket, passing them to her. He glanced out the door, trying to track the path they took you down. “She’ll be fine, trust me.”

He laughed and glanced over at her, “No offense, ma’am,” he says the title with a lack of respect that makes her brows furrow in irritation, “but if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s not to trust anyone. No matter how pretty their promises are.”

She gave him a long look before smiling and motioning back towards the hall. “Follow me and we’ll go find her.”

They had a decent set up here. Not as nice as the vaults, clearly, but pretty good for surface dwellers. A decent supply of meds and rations, running water. Everything in the building might be run down or covered in mildew, with cracks in the wall, but it was better than the hovels he’d camped out in. 

They’ve got her set up on cot, a bag of Radaway hooked up to her arm and her hair braided away from her face. They had to cut out the stitches he’d sewed and open the wound back up to flush it out. She’d been patched back up and while the skin still looked irritated it seemed to be doing a lot better than before. 

He’d been keeping a close eye on her breathing and she’d finally stopped wheezing on every inhale. He figured another hour here and they could get the fuck out. These people were starting to bother him. Every half hour or so they would come in to check on her, the women would spray some water on her face and mutter something before running back out. 

He seemed to scare them, enjoying the way they would avoid meeting his eyes. But it wasn’t enough to keep them away from her. Their insistence should’ve had alarm bells going off in his head, but he was already preoccupied worrying about her. He didn’t even notice when Slyvie came to stand beside him. 

“She’ll be alright,” she tried to place a hand on his shoulder but the look he shot her had her stopping short. She cleared her throat uncomfortably and tucked her hands back behind her back. He gave her another long look before going back to staring at the girl on the bed. 

“We have a place for her here, if you’re interested.”

He scoffed, “Room for us, huh?” He let himself picture it for a moment. He wouldn’t fucking stay, of course, he couldn’t. There’s no way, after two hundred years of wandering, that he could be locked down to one decaying old building. Showers or no. But he could always come by to visit her, stay a few nights and then leave again. 

That’s assuming she’d even want him to visit. Didn’t matter, he’d come anyway. But, he couldn’t do that anymore. Couldn’t live that life even if it would be temporary. It just wasn’t in him. He stayed stagnant for too long and two hundred years of bloodshed and loss would drive him insane. 

Sylvie shook her head and frowned. “I’m sorry, I should have been more clear. We have room for her, you have to understand, without a steady supply of Radaway we can’t risk having a ghoul here.” She moved towards her and brushed some hair out of her face, “Think about it.” She walked out and he stared blankly at the cot. 

She shifted on the bed, face pained and mumbling something under her breath. Finally, her eyes fluttered open and she frowned. “Coop? What’s,” she trailed off, struggling to sit up and glancing around the room they were in. “What’s going on?”

“Relax, we’re at the compound.”

She rubbed her forehead and glared at him, “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

He swatted her leg and she recoiled, “No, smartass. Just relax, we’ll be out of here soon.” She nodded and leaned back against the pillows they’d given her. It was odd, finally seeing her clean again. He could see clearly just how tired she looked. It was in her eyes, mainly, a weariness towards the world that left her exhausted. 

He’s surprised she’s even made it this far without giving up. She’d been dealt some shit luck, but he supposed it was better she be exposed to how cruel the world was as quickly as possible. She groaned and her head flopped forward. 

“What’s wrong with you now?” 

“God,” she muttered, turning her face away from him and shaking her head. He huffed and sat up straight, glaring at the side of her face. 

“Talk,” he demanded, not in the mood for games. 

“I meant it,” she sounded pained, like the words had to be forced out. “I mean, I hate that I meant it, but I did.”

He rolled his eyes, “Meant what? You’re gonna have to be a little clearer than that, sweetheart.”

“What I said in the shower. I meant it. I haven’t stopped loving you, despite how much I want to. I don’t want to want you anymore, I don’t want that connection to the past to constantly be shoved down my throat.” She sighed and tugged at the braid they’d given her. “You’re cruel and mean and, fuck’s sake, you’ve shot me twice. But you’re also the only thing I’ve got left, and despite how much I want to, because trust me I do, I can’t let you go.”

He sighed and turned away from her. She was still tired, still a bit woozy from the fever. He could see the sweat on her forehead again and knew that whatever this was, was just drug induced. He couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t handle her wanting him like this again. 

Being around her already made him vulnerable enough. Whatever twisted connection he held to her now, would be nothing compared to letting her love him again. Two hundred years on his own and she thought she could just come barreling back into his life and everything would be lovely again?

No, that’s not how this world worked. Not anymore. 

He stood up and threw his bag over his shoulder. “Get back to sleep, we’ll leave soon.”

She sighed and sank back against the pillows, shivering as she did so. “You’ll be here?”

“Of course I will, sweetheart.” She nodded, eyes already drifting shut, and turned away from him. He let himself admire her, taking in her relaxed features and soft expression. She reminded him so much of before. Before the world went to shit and before he turned into what he is now. 

He could feel parts of him, the ones he’d buried a long time ago, come up around her. Twisted as they were, how he felt about her before still lingered somewhere within him. But he couldn’t afford the risk that they presented if he did let her back in. He wasn’t even sure she could fully handle him if he did. 

She’d nearly died about five times, most of them because of him, and she’d been up here for such a short time. She’d be better off without him. He walked towards the door, the spurs of his boots clicking against the tile of the floor. He found Sylvie lurking a few halls down and whistled, getting her attention. 

Sylvie turned to him with an expectant smile. “You got room?”

She nodded with an eager smile, “We do. And you’d be compensated, of course.” Before he could question what exactly she was paying him for she snapped her fingers and some guards approached. They handed him a bag that he quickly rifled through. Not only was there enough Radaway to last him at least a month, there was purified water and rations that would keep him going until the next bounty. 

She’ll be better off here. 

He tucked the bag away and smiled at Sylvie, “Pleasure doing business with you, ma’am.”

She gave him a lecherous grin, “You as well,” she nodded and the guards escorted him to the gate. He didn’t let himself look back, knowing he’d just want to go get her. At least now he didn’t have to constantly worry about saving her ass. 

He was better off on his own. Always had been, always would be. 

end. — I do not own the characters or the game/show Fallout, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

How About a Nuke?

Part VII / Part VIII / Part IX

Series Masterlist

The ghoul x fem!reader A/N: PLEASE READ, this will be one of my darker chapters. I’m really sick right now, I have a bad fever, and when I’m sick I tend to write darker things. I’m not sure why, just keep that in mind while you read. Summary: You wake up alone surrounded by people with strange smiles and empty gazes. You’ve been left behind and you don’t know if you’ll be able to make it out of the compound alive.

You shift on the thin fabric of the cot and rub at your eyes. They’re crusted over with evidence that you’ve been sleeping for a lot longer than you meant to. You shoot up in the bed, panic flaring in you, and look around the room. He isn’t here, neither is his bag. The chair he’d been sitting in is still at the side of your bed, but no other evidence of him having been here. 

You throw your legs over the side of the cot and rip the IV out of your arm. You press your thumb down over the bubble of blood and walk towards the doorway of the room. The lights are out in the compound. You can tell from the window in the hall that it's night now, dim candles are lit along the hallway but there’s no other light. 

“Cooper?” You whisper, afraid to wake whoever lives on this floor. You look down each end of the hallway but you don’t see his silhouette or hear his spurs coming towards you. You can feel yourself starting to freak out the longer you stand alone in the dark hallway. 

With only a thin gown on and no weapons to protect yourself, you duck back in the room and lock the door. You’re sure there’s a reasonable explanation for where he is. He promised he would be here when you woke up. Maybe they’d just given him a different room. 

Though, you’re still frightened, you let yourself fall back onto the cot. You’re still exhausted, despite how much sleep you’ve already gotten. This is the first time in a while that you’re clean, not sleeping under the stars, and you don’t have to worry about radroaches gnawing on you. You don’t have enough adrenaline to keep you upright and find yourself slipping back into a dreamless sleep. 

The doorknob rattles and you jump out of bed. Without much thought you rip the door open, assuming Cooper would be on the other side. Instead a woman with bright red hair and an eerie smile looms over you. She’s startling tall, taller than anyone you’d encountered so far in the Wastelands. 

You stumble back as she advances, two armed men flocking her. “Where’s Cooper?” You demand, eyes darting around to try and find something you can use against her. You’re woefully unarmed in the room. Besides throwing a chair at her you can’t find anything to defend yourself with. 

“Who?” She asks, moving to take a seat in the chair he’d been occupying. You keep yourself backed in the corner of the room. Your eyes dart between her and her men but they seem completely at ease, the pistols on their hips going ignored. 

You glare at her, “You know who. The man I came here with.”

“Oh,” she laughed, the sound made your hair stand on end. There was nothing outwardly wrong with this woman, nothing you could point out anyway. Maybe it was the unusual length of her smile, or the lack of anything real behind her eyes, but you felt deeply uncomfortable around her. “The ghoul,” the word rolled off her tongue with a clear distaste. She sighed and shook her head, standing back up. 

She turned towards the door and looked back at you. “Join me.” It clearly wasn’t a question, not with the way her guards grabbed you by the arms and shoved you forward. You stumbled, bare feet tripping on the uneven tiled floors. 

She made her way down the hall, not once looking back to make sure you followed. It was clearly assumed that you would just obey. Despite how much you didn’t want to, you figured you would have a better chance of living through the next hour if you didn’t test the men with guns. 

You kept one arm around your abdomen, the raw wound aching. It wasn’t burning or itching like yesterday, but your skin was so sensitive it felt as though your stomach might fall through the stitches. “Lights,” she started, causing you to nearly jump out of your skin at the abrupt noise. Your eyes kept darting around the hallway, like someone was going to jump you any second. 

“Running water,” she continued, “agriculture. We have a steady supply of Radaway, meds, food. We are very fortunate here at the compound.”

“I’m sure,” you muttered. You passed by a room and she came to a stop. You glanced through the window of the room, little kids surrounded by pregnant women stared up at a man teaching them something on a chalkboard. You moved a little closer and frowned when you saw the diagram of a man and woman’s anatomy on the board. 

These kids were barely walking and they were already learning about the birds and bees?

You glanced up at the giant woman and shuddered, she had a predatory look on her face while she looked at the babies. What backwards hellhole did Cooper drag you into?

“We’re much luckier than other surface dwellers, our children no longer have to worry about fighting to survive.” A woman rolled past you in a rusted wheelchair, her belly practically bursting through her white gown, three men flocked her, their eyes straying towards you. You glanced from her and back to the window of the room. 

Was every woman here pregnant?

Feeling like a rat trapped in a cage you looked up at the red haired woman with trepidation. “Where’s Cooper?”

She smiled, the corners of her lips stretching too far across her cheeks to look real. “You no longer need to concern yourself with him. Your keeper has given you to the compound.” She kept talking but you couldn’t hear anything past the high pitched ringing in your ears. 

The room seemed to spin and you found yourself leaning on the wall for support. 

Cooper left you. 

A heavy hand landed on your shoulder and you flinched. You fought the burning feeling building behind your eyes and glared up at the woman. “We’ll finish the tour later. You seem to still be feeling unwell.” She looked to the men behind her and nodded, “Take her back.”

You didn’t get a chance to argue before they’d looped their arms through yours and were dragging you back down the hallway. They didn’t throw you in the room like you’d expected. If anything they seemed to be treating you gently. 

They laid you in the cot, propping you against the pillows and leaving without another word. You sat there stunned for a long time. You stared up at the cracked ceiling, surprised you weren’t freaking out more. Maybe it was shock, or whatever drugs they’d given you were keeping you numb. 

The most likely reason, though, was that deep down you’d never fully let yourself trust Cooper. That was what he had been drilling in your head this whole damn time. No one was to be trusted, not even him. 

You couldn’t be mad at him because it was your own damn fault for getting stabbed. You should have just let it get him, would have saved you a whole heap of problems. You throw the blankets off and get up. 

You’re not just gonna sit here and wallow the whole time. You got yourself stuck here, you’d get yourself out. You approach the door, fully expecting them to have locked you inside, but it pulls open without a problem. They must really not think you’re a threat. Not like you could blame them, you’d been half dead when you were dragged here. 

You creep down the hallway, going the opposite way the woman had been leading you this time. You round the corner, slamming into a little girl and and a man. You jump back, heart in your throat, but they don’t do anything except give you a smile and continue on. 

You suppose there’s nothing to suspect about you. You’re dressed like everyone here, in a gauzy white nightgown that goes to your ankles. You don’t have any weapons on you. If you act natural, you’re sure you can just blend in. 

You pass by another windowed room and risk a peek. You immediately wish you hadn’t. The woman on the wheelchair from earlier is squatting on the floor, holding onto the arms of a man. Her face is red and her hair is plastered to her head. She lets out a loud groan and another man removes his arms from under her gown, something small and wrinkly in his hands. 

He carries the baby to a table, weighing it, cleaning its face off and then hands it to her. You turn away, debating whether or not you should keep watching or just move on. This is incredibly intimate, a mother holding her newborn for the first time. But something about this whole place is off, there’s a deep feeling of instinctual fear in your gut that is leaving you on edge. 

You can make out muffled conversation from the room and peer back in. She smiles at the man holding her and he nods. She leans down and presses a long kiss to her baby’s forehead. The man who’d been observing this whole ordeal with a blank face steps up. He presses a pillow to the side of her head and then a gun. You stumble away from the window just as he pulls the trigger. 

The sound is muffled by the pillow, but the baby still cries as its mother goes limp. One of the men catches her body before she can fall, passing the baby off. One of them leaves with the kid, the other two collect her body and carry her out behind him. You make a run for it before they can spot you, the image of her blood spraying across the floor permanently burned into your brain. 

You don’t even bother trying to come up with a reasonable excuse for what you just saw. There isn’t one, there’s nothing that could explain what you just witnessed away. And Cooper had given you to these people. 

You could feel the rage building in you now. 

He stared down at the fire, the only sounds were the distant noises of bugs and the crackling of the burning logs. He felt odd, unsure of how to put it. It was quiet, despite the noises of the forest, everything seemed still to him. 

He glanced across the fire, expecting to see her there, surprised to find himself a little upset when she wasn’t. It’s not like he could be blamed for missing the company. Being on his own for over two hundred years was hard enough. Being on his own after having her around seemed worse somehow. 

Loneliness was easier when you forgot what you were missing. 

He shifted around but no matter how he moved he couldn’t get comfortable. The discomfort wasn’t something physical, it was a restless feeling brewing under his skin. Poking and prodding him until it couldn’t be ignored. 

Leaving her had felt like a smart choice. It seemed like the right thing to do. The compound should be safe enough. Then again, all he really knew about it was that it was only slightly more civilized than the rest of the Wastelands. 

He sighed and leaned back against the old wreckage he had propped himself against. He wouldn’t have shelter tonight, it was rare to find any that wasn't overrun by radroaches out in the sands anyway. With the light from the fire he couldn’t see much. But he could make out the old billboard across from him. 

It was the one she’d always hated and he loved. She was in that skimpy astronaut suit riding a rocket with a Nuka-Cola in her hand. He’s constantly bombarded by his Vault Boy posters. Seeing her shouldn’t bother him. It’s not like it’s the first time he’s ever seen one of her ads out here, anyway. 

But it hurts him in a way it hadn’t before. Now he knew that she’d never left him, that she’d been screwed by the same company that ruined his life. He sighed and ran a hand over his rough cheeks. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he shouldn’t be considering this. 

He should just leave it be, leave her be. But he can’t. Once he’s got his teeth dug into something, it’s nearly impossible to let it go. 

You should have been paying better attention to where you were running, but all you could see was that woman’s lifeless body clutching her crying baby to her chest. You stumbled through a door, racing down the stairs until you were sure you were at the bottom floor. 

You burst through the door, wincing at the bright sunlight that shone down on you. You heard the sound of laughter and children’s voices as they screamed and ran past you. You jumped out of their way, watching as they chased each other. 

You glanced around, confused and disoriented, trying to figure out where you were. It must’ve been the back of the compound, beyond the different crops and gardens you couldn’t see anything but a radiated ocean. It was the same odd blue the lake Cooper had taken you to had been. 

Men in dirtied clothes were bent over different crops and vegetables, digging around in them and pulling out ripe foods. Some older children assisted them, holding tools of their own or carrying baskets of different crops. But you didn’t see any women among them. 

“Lost?” You whirled around on the man behind you, he raised his hands up with a startled expression on his face. “Sorry, sorry, I thought you heard me walk up.”

“Who are you?”

He held out his hand, an odd smile on his face. Everyone here had the same smile, nearly genuine but lacking just enough life to be. You looked at his hand and then back at him, making no move to take it. He was undeterred and just reached forward, yanking your hand into his and crushing your palm in too firm a grip. “Ben, good to meet you, Sylvie told me to come find you.” He seems oddly familiar, but you can’t place why.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out Sylvie was the red head who’d been showing you around earlier. With one glance at the gun on his hip you figured this was another demand. You peered over your shoulder at the children again, surprised to find them already staring at you. The boys grinned but the girls didn’t even blink as Ben showed you back through the door. 

You took in a shaking breath and ascended the stairs once more, feeling your freedom slipping further away from you. Ben kept a tight grip on your wrist the whole way up. ”I’m excited to get to know you.”

You shot him a distrusting look and tried, unsuccessfully, to once more get him to release you. “Why would we be doing that?” 

He stopped and you were forced to follow. Your eyes bounced around the empty hallway, feeling incredibly on edge with the way he invaded your space. He had the eerie smile again, eyes roaming slowly up and down your form. “You are to be my breeding partner after all.”

What. The. Fuck. 

“Ben!”

You didn’t think you’d be happy to see Sylvie again, but right now you were ridiculously grateful for her interference. He backs off and it’s only then you feel like you can breathe again. You rip your wrist out of his grasp, rubbing away the bruise that bloomed under his hand. He doesn’t take his eyes off of you when you walk away and it takes everything in you not to turn around for another glance at him. 

Sylvie holds a door open for you at the end of the hall and you duck inside, trying to calm your racing heart after that interaction. “I apologize for Ben, he’s a bit overeager. He lost his partner this morning and I did promise him you,” she laughs and steps inside.

It’s only as she passes by you that the light goes on in your head. He’d been one of the men in the room with the mother. He’d been holding her. 

Your fists dig into the white fabric of your gown and you have to swallow the bile building in your throat down. Your hands are shaking horribly and your eyes go fuzzy. Lack of any real food is starting to catch up with you as your adrenaline spikes and plummets again. 

You’re not sure your heart can take much more of living in the Wastelands. 

Sylvie sits down at a long table, plates piled with food enough for ten people before her. But there are only two chairs, one for her, and you assume the other is for you. “Please,” she motions to the chair across from her, “sit.” Her tone brokers no negotiation and you find yourself walking on shaking legs to the other chair. 

You throw yourself down in it, staring blankly down at the plate. “What happened to his partner?” You whisper, unable to bring yourself to speak any louder. 

“It is the cycle of life here at our compound.” You glance up at her in astonishment but she’s not paying attention, just digging into her food. “Our goal is to repopulate the earth. Bring back society as it should be.”

“And how should it be?” You interrupt, fully disgusted by the people surrounding you now. “Because what I saw was sickening. You slaughtered her like she was an animal.”

Sylvie’s fork slams against the table and you jump in surprise. “That’s what she was, is.” She sighs and shakes her head, “It’s hard for an outsider to understand.”

“Then explain,” you order, voice sharp. You’re not going to play games with this woman. You want answers and you want them now. But more importantly you want to know why he would leave you here. How could he?

“Our mission, requires sacrifice. When they are ready, the women here are assigned a breeding partner. They give birth until they can’t and then…” That sickening grin was back and you found yourself shrinking back into your chair. “They provide for us in other ways. Organ harvesting is a very lucrative trade, did you know?” You shake your head mutely. “It’s what provides us with the medicine that saved your life last night.”

“The men? Does anything happen to them?”

She shrugs, digging into her meal once more. “They can reproduce much longer than women can. And when they can’t we find use for them in the fields. When they die, their body is used keep our agriculture thriving.” The woman you watched die this morning couldn’t have been older than thirty. 

And the man guarding Sylvie could have been the same age as your father. 

Cooper had sold you to be bred and then harvested. Like you were cattle. You glanced up at the guards but they weren’t looking at you. Why would they? Women clearly weren’t more than animals here. You could never be a threat. 

You slipped the knife off the table and into your sleeve. “And the women are okay with this?”

She looked at you like you were crazy for wondering such a thing. “Of course, they know they’re serving a higher purpose than themselves.” You scoffed in disbelief. Not only was this a human farm where you were harvested like a cow, you found yourself in the middle of some fucked up new world cult. 

“Did-” your voice cracks and you find the words difficult to get out. “Did Cooper know about this?”

“He would have had to.” She puts her fork down and digs through her pockets. She throws the dog tags he’d been carrying around at you. You catch them, noticing the back of the chain looked oddly melted. “The bounty he brought me, it was one of our old trading partners. Occasionally, we do business with the Brotherhood. One of their squires, he took a liking to one of our girls. She was sickly, too sickly to bring any more children to term. The day she was meant to be harvested he took her and they ran.”

She sighed and shook her head, a dark expression coming over her face. “I don’t take kindly to thieves. I wanted the tags as proof of his death.”

You didn’t know who the Brotherhood was, but you figured it was just another cult you didn’t want to know about. You placed the tags back on the table and stared down at your plate. “Couldn’t they have just stolen the tags and lied?”

She laughed and shook her head. “When his knight branded him, there was an accident. You couldn’t get those tags without taking his head off first.”

“And the girl?”

She looked up at you, frowning, “What about her?”

“Is she dead?” You knew Cooper was a bad man, but the thought of him shooting some defenseless girl made you sick to your stomach. Who could blame her for wanting to get out of this place?

Sylvie shrugged, “I don’t know. I’m sure without her little savior she’ll die eventually. She wasn’t made for Wasteland life.” Sylvie wiped her mouth and stood up. She rounded the table, coming to stand behind you, her rough palm circled around your nape and you whimpered at the tight grip. “See, there are things a lot worse than death waiting for you out there, little lamb. So, I suggest you learn your place here and be grateful for the few good years you’ll have left.”

She releases you with a shove and your hand shoots out to brace yourself against the edge of the table. She stalks towards the door, “You’ll join Ben tomorrow night. You have one night to make your peace with your place here.” The door slams shut and you finally feel the tears come.

He hears the coughing before he sees the shack. The smell of a rotting corpse overwhelms him and he figures the girl never bothered to move the body. How she’s lasted this long with the smell and gasses, he has no idea. But she was sick to begin with, he’s sure she won’t be lasting much longer. 

He throws the rickety wooden door open and steps over the bloated corpse of the squire he’d collected his bounty from. Sure enough, as he’d been expecting, the girl is curled up in the corner of the shed. She’s skin and bones at this point, her coughing causing her whole body to shake with painful tremors. 

She peers out from between her arms and levels him with a glare. Her eyes are bloodshot, the whites of them now yellow. “You.”

He leans against the table in the middle of the room and nods, “Me.”

“What,” she coughs again and his face screws up at the blood that dribbles from her lips. “What do you want now? Here to finish the job?”

He shakes his head, pulling out a Stimpak and some ration bars. She eyes the supplies hungrily, a rabid desperation on her frail face. She reaches for them but he places them just out of her reach, a cruel look on his face. “Need some answers.”

“About what?”

“The place your little boyfriend stole you from. My friend’s there, I need to know why exactly you left.”

She laughs, the sound cruel and costing. She wipes more blood from her mouth, a vicious grin on her lips. “Sorry, but your friend is fucked.” She pauses and the shakes her head, “Or she’s getting fucked at least. Over. And over. And over again. They certainly don’t waste any time there.”

She reaches for a bar again but he glares and pulls them back. She sighs and slumps against the wall. “What,” he snaps, “are you talking about?”

“They harvest us. The chickens are treated better than we are. They used us to make their little soldiers, until we can’t push them out anymore. And then they harvest us for parts. My little brother was five when he was taken, he was sick like me. He just didn’t hide it as well. They make sure you’re useful to them, dead or alive.” 

He doesn’t waste anymore time with her. He tosses the supplies at her and runs back out of the shed. Maybe, maybe, he’d had some suspicions about them being less than kind. But it was the Wastelands, no one here was truly good. 

He never would have thought it was going to be this bad. He never would have left her there if he thought something like this would happen. 

That’s what that woman had been talking about when she said compensation. He was fucking selling her, like a prize pig. He had wasted too much time traveling here for the confirmation. He should have just followed his gut instinct and gone back. But he was too fucking stubborn to let himself. 

He didn’t want to think that he was panicking. He had at one point considered killing her himself. Hell, he’d shot the girl. Why would it bother him so much if someone else did it?

He’d lost too much. He wasn’t entirely sure he could lose her again.

Your palm is wrapped around the handle of the knife you’d taken when the door creaks open. You tense up but otherwise remain still. The sound of muddy boots squelches across the tiles. You stay hidden under the covers. The moonlight from the window is just bright enough to cast a shadow over whoever is sneaking into your room. 

You smell him before you feel him. The smell of earth and vegetables suffocating you just as rough hands wrap around your arm. “Hey-”

You shoot up, uncurling like a viper and slamming your hand into his throat before he can even try to shout. Ben’s eyes flare wide, terror consuming them before you twist the knife and rip it out. Arterial blood sprays across your face and he slumps to the floor, limp. 

You rush to close the door and turn back to him. He’s a big man, tall and buff with muscle, you strip off his work shirt and pants, figuring they’ll just have to work for now. You take his boots and stuff his socks into the tips so they’ll fit better. You grasp the pistol off his waist and tuck it into your belt. 

You go through all the drawers and cabinets of the room. You take any supplies you can find and toss them in a pillow case before unlocking the door and slipping back into the hallway. You don’t hear the telltale sounds of guards patrolling and figure you should be able to slip out through the stairs. 

You’re almost down the steps when you stop. Something in you won’t let you go any farther. Your mind jumps to Sylvie. How casually she’d discussed the slaughter of women over her lunch. How quick she was to turn you into cattle rather than view you as something human. 

That familiar rage you used to feel builds up in you. Your entire adult life you’d fought to be viewed as a real person. As someone who deserved the same care and respect everyone else got. And she, a woman, was so quick to tear that away from you. To perpetuate further suffering as long as she got to profit off of it. 

You back out of the stairwell and head down the hallway. You blindly walk the path you’d walked earlier to her quarters. You see that mother in your head, clutching her baby as she drew her last breath. And she’d known it was coming. Every girl here knew what was coming.

Little boys got to smile and laugh and play and the girls grew up knowing what their fate was going to be. And they were content with it. 

Two guards are stationed outside of Sylvie’s door. You shoot them both. You know the sounds will alert others. You don’t have much time left. You burst through the door of her room. Her lamp is on and she’s already waiting for you. Her gun is on her lap, and she’s smiling at you as you walk in. “You can still turn around-”

“I know my place,” you interrupt and she frowns. “I’m not letting pricks like you, who think they get a gun and rule the world, make decisions for me anymore.” She reaches for the revolver on her lap but you’re pulling the trigger faster. The bullet tears through her throat and she lurches forward. Her hands claw desperately at her neck, blood pouring between her fingers. 

You run forward, pulling the revolver from her lap and tuck it into the waistband of your pants. You make your way out the door and towards the stairs again. You can hear booted footsteps rushing towards you, nearly at the doorway just as you slam it closed. 

You manage to fly down one flight of stairs before the door’s crashing open and slamming into the wall. Shouts echo through the stairwell. Orders to shoot you are issued but you’re barreling through the gate of the compound before they can grab you. 

You look behind you, watching as all the guards search the grounds for you and you laugh. You nearly can’t believe it. That you made it out, that you finally stood up for yourself. For a moment in there you’d almost considered giving in and just letting it happen. 

Living in the Wastelands was hard, giving in would be so easy. Letting someone just make the decisions for you would be easy. But the base instinct of survival is a tough opponent to beat. You couldn’t let yourself give up and give in to another person who thought humans were just another form of compensation. 

You only have one last stop to make. 

He’d had to camp for the night before he could make it back to the compound. He hadn’t wanted to stop but he figured they’d paid him so well that they weren’t planning on just getting rid of her the first night. He’d go by tomorrow and take her back. How well that went was up to them. 

He stared into the fire and sighed. He felt like a fucking fool leaving her there. He should know better. But he’d been so desperate to just get rid of her it was easy to ignore all the signs telling him not to. He couldn’t handle her anymore. Couldn’t handle all the old emotions she drudged up around him. 

He couldn’t be what she wanted, what she needed. Deep down, maybe, the old Cooper was still in there. But he wasn’t willing to bring him back. Not for her, not for anybody. That didn’t mean he was just going to let her die, though.

He was squatted by the dying fire, eating some jerky, when he heard someone approaching. He didn’t get a chance to turn around before a shot was going off and his hat was flying off his head. It lands in the sand behind him and he turns, almost surprised to find her. 

She’s got a revolver in her hand, dried specks of blood on her cheeks. “You better pray you didn’t just put a hole in my hat, sweetheart.” She narrows her eyes at him and lowers the gun.

“You sold me.”

He stands up and raises his hands in a placating motion. She’s trigger happy, but he knows she isn’t gonna shoot him. If she was, she would have done it a long time ago. “In my defense, darling, I didn’t know they were a bunch of sickos.”

She scoffs, eyes wide with disbelief. “Really? So they didn’t pay you for me?”

He sucks on his teeth and frowns, “Well-”

“Just shut up!” She stares at him in astonishment, shaking her head and muttering something to herself. His eyes stay on the revolver in her hands as she waves it around wildly, trying to figure out the best way to get her to put it down. 

“I was on my way back for you, darling.”

She whirls around, the gun up and pointing at him again. “Yeah, like I’ll believe anything you’ll say to me right now.” She backs away from him and her fists clench around something dangling from her left hand. He finally notices the tags she’s holding now. The same one’s he’d given Sylvie. 

Just what the hell had she done to get out of there? He’s almost impressed by her sheer stubbornness to stay alive. 

“The girl, the one who was with your bounty, what happened to her?”

He shook his head, “Nothing. I left her where she was.” Her thumbs pulls the hammer of the revolver back and he laughs. He can’t stop himself from antagonizing her, taking a sick sort of satisfaction from the fact that he could push her as much as he wanted and she still wouldn’t pull the trigger. 

“She reminded me of you. Battered and bruised, used up and left behind. She couldn’t protect herself, couldn’t even drag her boyfriend’s corpse out of their little hut.”

Her eyes get glossy and he takes in the sight with a grin. She always had been pretty when she cried. “You are a bad person. And I knew that and still tried to find something good in you. But you are rotten to your core, there is nothing human left in you.”

His mouth settles into a firm line and he finds himself a little pissed off. “Now, darling-”

He doesn’t see it coming. Doesn’t even realize what’s happened until he’s flying back and hitting the ground. He doesn’t feel any pain, his adrenaline pumping so much all he can feel is the vibrations. The impact of the bullet carving it’s way through his chest as he lay there on the ground. 

She walks over to him, eyes empty as she stands over him and watches the blood pool out. “We’re done, Cooper.”

She leaves him on the ground, not looking back as he presses his hand to his wound in shock. He didn’t think she had it in her. 

end. — I do not own the characters or the game/show Fallout, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

Part eight of How About a Nuke posted!!

OH THE ENDING WAS PERFECT 🥹 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS STORY. YOU HAVE IMPACTED MY LIFE IN SUCH A GREAT WAY, YOUR WRITING COMPLETES THE HOLE IN MY HEART FOR BEAUTIFUL, PLOT-FILLED, SOLID CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT FILLED STORIES JUST LIKE THAT!

I genuinely cannot even begin to describe how incredible of a story teller you are. I want you to never stop writing, everyone sees the love, dedication, time, and passion you put into your works. I will be one of your fans for a long time. You have changed my life.

I am so sad to see their story come to an end though! If you ever think of more blurbs, more short stories and one shots about their partnership and the rest of their time together, please please please share! Your characterization of both of them is so real and complex and I seriously cannot get enough. The way both of their traumas shape the way they act and their hesitance to be vulnerable with each other is so addicting to read because it is SO. REAL.

I seriously cannot thank you enough for writing it. You are incredible. Never forget that.

I’ve been sitting on this ask for a few days because I just can’t express the words to get across how touching this was. I think every writer hopes for a message like this at least once. I literally was showing it to my friends I got so happy when I read this.

First, since posting the finale I haven’t been getting as many comments as I have been on previous parts. So, seeing this was really helpful in assuaging some of my worries that maybe the conclusion had fallen flat or was disappointing to readers.

Secondly, I don’t know how I managed to have such an impact on you, it’s sort of mind boggling, but I’m so happy that my writing could affect you so much. I don’t even know what to say, I feel like I can’t get across how grateful I am for this message as someone who lacks a lot of confidence in their writing. This just means a lot, thank you ♥️

obsessed with the new chapter like it’s actually so amazing. tho i am nervous since the end of the fic is near. so happy she got to shoot cooper he deserved it for shooting her twice then ditching her. also feel better soon

The end of the series is approaching and I’m also freaking out bc I’ve gotten so attached to this story. I was so happy to shoot him, I’ve been wanting to do that since chapter three lol

Thanks for the well wishes but I feel like I might write better fever ridden lmao