Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lucy is finding it exceptionally hard to not stare at him.

She knows that she shouldn’t. Actually, she doesn’t even want to look at him. She’s seen old movies, films from before the war they used to play in the Vault every now and then as a special treat, and whenever a woman gets kidnapped in those, they never spend as much time as Lucy has watching their captor eat. The women in those movies avoid eye contact. They stare ahead or look away, either defiant or frightened while they wait for the hero to come rescue them — Cowboys, usually. Lots of cowboy movies where the hero saves the town and the ranch and the girl from the communists.

…He’s kinda like a Cowboy, come to think of it.

Regardless of any potential similarities, however, this isn’t a film. It’s real life — and not the Vault version of real life, either (which she is learning is an entirely different kind of existence at a breakneck pace.) No fertile cornfields or barn dances or jello-cake on the fourth of July here. No. Real life, where everyone, apparently, is out to kill you. Everyone is out to trick you, or take advantage of you, or hurt you, or kill you — or, maybe in the case of the Ghoul helping himself to her Cram provisions, all of those options.

Is she really in the wrong, though? It’s impolite to stare, obviously, but she’s never seen anyone (or anything real, for that matter,) that looks like him. And while she found it to be a bit of a shock to her system at first — like a lot of other things since she’s left the Vault — he’s… not unpleasant to look at now that she’s acclimatized. From an entirely objective perspective, of course. The other Ghouls she’s come across look a lot worse for ware than her captor, huge flaps of their skin peeling off, bone exposed, eyes and even hunks of jaw missing. Other than his nose and his skin, though, he’s in a remarkable condition by comparison. She wonders what he looked like before… this.

His eyes flash up from the Cram, gaze locking to her, and Lucy is so busy trying to imagine how he used to look based on his bone structure that she doesn’t think to look away before he can notice. She doesn’t even register that he’s looking right back at her until he grunts.

“Somethin’ on my face?” He asks.

She flinches — physically flinches — and he seems to find it funny enough to laugh under his breath as he digs his fingers back into the Cram can. “No— I just— I—“ She stops herself. Why is she even bothering? She shouldn’t. It’s reflex.

“Yuh’ just what?”

Her eyes rising to meet his again, she tenses up. He’s so unpredictable, and that makes it hard to avoid offending him because she can’t even make an educated guess at what offends this man. “Just… wondering if you… uh…” she takes a second to rephrase. “Does it hurt?”

He raises an eyebrow — or, well, where she assumes his eyebrow would be if he had any. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he used to shave them on purpose. It’s not polite to assume. She starts imagining him with a nose and regular skin but without eyebrows. “Which part?” He asks.

“In general, I guess.”

There’s a pause as he scoops out a lob of Cram and shoves it into his mouth. “Nope.” He responds to her as he chews, and she can only think about how much of a faux pas that would be back home.

Silence follows. There’s no follow on, no clarification, no conversation. They’ve been walking for two days straight, she’s dehydrated, she’s barely eaten, and now he won’t even give her the courtesy of polite conversation. …Not that he ever really did, of course, but after a while you’re meant to at least warm up enough to have a basic exchange. At least that’s how it used to work in the movies, anyway.

What can she possibly do about it, though? Her hands are bound in front of her, she’s missing a shoe, and he’s taken all of her supplies and weapons. It would be unwise to call him out for being rude, as much as she’d like to, but there’s a nagging desire within her to push his buttons, do something to bother him as much as he’s been bothering her. Ok, well, a bit more than bothering.

“You shouldn’t eat that,” she all but blurts as he scrapes out the remaining residues from the inside of the can. He stops in place, fingers still in the can as his gaze snaps to hers, and all of a sudden that desire to push his buttons withers away, replaced with fear. “…Water’s scarce, right? So you need to stay hydrated? Well, that’s got higher than recommended levels of sodium in it.” She nods in the direction of the can decisively, as if she’s just caught him in a ‘gotcha’ moment.

“…And?”

“And excess sodium consumption without a corresponding increase of fluid intake forces your body to draw water from other cells, which leads to dehydration.”

He stares at her for a beat before bringing his fingers to his mouth, licking the remaining Cram residue from them, maintaining eye contact the entire time. It’s an act of defiance, much like those women from the cowboy movies who refuse to look their captors in the eye… but this, admittedly, makes her feel way more uncomfortable than being ignored did.

“You a doctor?” He finally asks, tossing the can away and wiping his hand off against his pants. “Back in that Vault? Or some kinda’ scientist or somethin’?”

Lucy shakes her head, a smile slipping onto her face, a reflexive response to finally getting some kind of conversation out of him. And a compliment, nonetheless. “Well, no, but our education system is extremely thorough when it comes to—“

“’Cause you sure do seem to think yourself smart for someone who keeps getting into the position you’re in,” he interrupts.

Oh. Not a compliment, then.

“They actually teach you anythin’ bout survivin’ down there?” He follows up. “Ain’t that ‘sposed to be what it’s about? You hole up down there, pretend everything’s been according to plan for 200 years and then pop back up for your little ‘reclamation day?’”

Lucy frowns. “Are you from a Vault?”

His response comes in the form of a stare. Guess not, then. Okay.

Accepting that’s the best answer she’s getting, Lucy exhales, trying her best to be civil and lead by example. Of course he’s not from a Vault. No one from a Vault would act like this. “As I said — our education system is extremely thorough.”

“Is it?” he asks, his non-eyebrows shooting upwards. Even Lucy can see through it, tell he’s being facetious. Once, when she was in her junior year, Andy Mack spent the entire class period mimicking everything Lucy said in this annoying, high pitched voice whenever she raised her hand to give an answer (something she did a lot, but she had to because no one else would.) Usually, she’d just ignore it and report it to the education captain afterwards, but she’d just started menstruating that day and Mrs Hayes the pediatrician said girls were allowed to be a little moody when it was that time of month, so she smacked him in the face with her biology textbook and broke his nose. He got an extra allowance of reconstituted lemon pie that night, and Lucy had to go to citizen counseling with Betty, who was the young women’s counseling representative back then.

Lucy’s line of defense was that if the Golden Rule was to treat others how you wanted to be treated, then Andy Mack deserved to have his nose broken because he was behaving like someone who wanted someone to break their nose with a 200 year old textbook in front of the entire class. Although Betty had laughed a little at this, she made sure to impart Lucy with some wisdom (as well as a warning and one week behavioral probation;) ‘when people are cruel it’s because they’re hurting from something. It may not be from you, but it’s something, and it’s important we be patient even if we can’t understand. You’d be amazed how quickly cruel people can become kind when they realize that you are a safe person.’

So, Lucy takes a breath, re-centers herself, and pretends he’s genuinely asking her. “I was a teacher, actually.”

He seems to find this a little funny, laughing under his breath. “And what’d you teach?” He asks. “Vault-Tec history? What everyone’s grandparents got up to? The great whipped cream shortage of ‘06?” He’s making fun, of course. Not only is there no way he could possibly know the Vault’s history, but they never had a whipped cream shortage. Their whipped cream powder supply is perfectly healthy… although there was a maraschino cherry shortage when she was a teenager that got pretty dicey before Mrs Weaver finally managed to get some left over pips to germinate. She won Citizen of the year for that — and for good reason, too. Jello cake isn’t the same without maraschino cherries on top.

“American History, actually.” She pauses, holding eye contact with him now, watching as his faux surprise dissipates, fading until he looks… actually, he looks a little mad. “And ethics.”

“Ethics?” He repeats. “In a Vault?” He scoffs at this. “Believe that’s what the educated would call ‘antithetical,’ sweetheart.”

It’s this that manages to sneak under her skin, despite her best efforts, making its way past her self control, breaking through the Golden Rule. “Excuse me?”

He straightens up in his chair, exhaling as he does so, tilting his head from side to side like he’s about to fight someone. Maybe he is, just… verbally. She hopes so, anyway. It’s a bit one sided, otherwise. “You’ve got your taste of the real world, so you tell me: why do you and yours get to enjoy all that food and clean water down there?” He asks. “Why do you get to keep that to yourselves while everyone else in the world has to chug rads and eat ass-jerky?”

“It’s not on purpose,” Lucy explains. “We didn’t — don’t — know what the situation up here has been like, so we’ve been sticking to the mission—“

“The mission where you come to the surface and ‘save the world?’” He asks. “Tell me, ya’ll expecting a parade?” She opens her mouth to respond, because of course they aren’t expecting a parade. They weren’t expecting… anything, really. Maybe some confused survivors to guide and help out, maybe the rare hostile presence who’ve resorted to no-good to survive without what Vault-Tec has to offer… “You think people will be happy t’ find out you’ve been keeping all that good stuff to yourself for 200 years? Jus’ waitin’ it out? Not helpin’?”

She shakes her head. “We weren’t… that’s… that’s not it,” she insists. “We were waiting for surface radiation levels to reach safe levels for reclamation. We didn’t know.”

“You’ve been up here a while. You’ve seen all the people up here. Livin’. Workin’. Startin’ families. Don’t ya’ think it a lil’ questionable that all them ‘readin’s’ of yours, every single one, has come back wrong?” He asks. “Bit too much to be a coincidence, right?”

“…Maybe the radiation detector unit is faulty…” It’s a poor excuse, even Lucy knows it.

He grins at this. He knows he has her in a corner and it’s making her palms itch a little. “Really? Don’t know about that, sweetheart. I was around when Vault-Tec were still selling spots in that Vault of yours. All of that stuff was top of the line, no expense spared. Everything’s backup had a backup… ‘less they wanted something to break.” She wants to question what he means by this, but he continues. “Now, you ain’t the brightest when it comes t’ street smarts, but I can tell there’s a brain for books behind those big ol’ dinner-plates of yours,” he says with a nod towards her. Lucy almost protests, thinking he’s making a lewd comment, but after a brief moment she realizes he’s referring to her eyes. “So I reckon’ if you apply a little logical reasonin’, you can work out that someone — maybe not you, but someone who’s in charge of you — is fixin’ t’ keep you n’ yours locked up down there.” The Ghoul smirks, obviously picking up on how uneasy this is making her, and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees to get somewhat on eye-level with her. “So I’ll ask again: What makes you better than everyone else?”

Lucy is staring at him again, but not because she’s curious about him or afraid, but because she doesn’t have an answer. She knows what she’s meant to say, things she’s been taught her whole life; ‘Vault-Tec has invested an unprecedented amount of resources and research into ensuring that citizens are trained and prepared for all aspects of rebuilding society and guiding other potential survivors towards rejoining said society in a meaningful way. With every year spent in a Vault, Vault-Tec citizens gain more and more knowledge and expertise in contributing to a community that requires all hands on deck to not just survive, but thrive, passing that accumulative knowledge down to their descendants until it’s time to share what we’ve learned with the world. Through our years of working together, we’re ensuring the future is led by the best and brightest.’

But that’s not entirely true, is it? Not now that she’s been out here. People in the Vault aren’t ahead of everyone and ready to lead. No, they’ve been left behind, and they’re more likely to get murdered or eaten by something in their first day on the surface than they are to lead anyone. Lucy’s barely survived — she’s literally tied up and captured right now — and she was one of the more capable citizens. Someone like Chet probably wouldn’t even make it as far as Filly in one piece.

So, instead of arguing or defending the ideas that have sustained her entire life, Lucy drops her eyes and admits defeat — although she’d much prefer he just smack her in the head again. “There are… areas I was somewhat under-prepared in, I can admit.” She closes her eyes. That’s not what he asked, is it? “…But I don’t think I’m better or more deserving than anyone, no.” Her voice shrinks a little and she fidgets with the rope he’s bound her wrists with. “It’s not fair. You’re right.”

Being humble is a virtue that’s held in very high regard in the Vault, and it’s one that Lucy is very good at appearing to be. But that was when it came to solving Vault problems, and Lucy is very quickly learning that the majority of Vault problems weren’t real problems, and when it comes to being humble in the face of real problems? Lucy is terrible at it. It makes her feel small. Feel stupid. And she hates it — and what’s more? She hates knowing that the only predictable thing about this man is that he’s going to rub her face in how wrong she’s been her whole life.

She braces herself for it, waits for him to laugh at her or just outright call her an idiot, a dumb ‘Vaultie.’ Vaultie. It makes him seem like he deals with people from Vaults all the time. Maybe he has. He’s been around since before the war, right? To Lucy’s surprise, though, he doesn’t. He sits back upright, exhaling and reaching back to the back that hangs over the back of his chair. His pack. “It’s a real shame,” he says in a way that almost sounds like an admission as he rummages through the pack. He removes his canteen, and Lucy prepares herself for another round of watching him make a show of drinking water and not sharing any with her. “Reckon’ you coulda’ done well for yourself out here in the real world in diff’rent circumstances.” He removes the cap, and Lucy reflexively feels how dry her throat is again. God, just shoot me. “But you got what we old timers’ call a baptism by fire. Got thrown in the deep end right away.” He pauses, smiling to himself and giving a short laugh. “Metaphorically and literally, come to think of it.” He doesn’t need to explain the joke’s about using her as ‘bait’ in that river earlier, not that he’d bother to if she’d needed him to.

The Ghoul gets up from his chair and steps towards her, her jaw tensing at the idea of having to watch him drink again while she practically withers away from dehydration in front of him. Instead, though, he kneels down in front of her and brings the canteen to the level of her face. Like he’s offering.

This has to be a trick. No way.

“Well?” He asks her. “Don’t reckon’ you’re in a position t’ look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Lucy’s eyes dart between the canteen and the Ghoul’s face, trying to get a read on his face but struggling to fight the way her body seems to be screaming for water. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d dangled the carrot in front of her, and if he’s going to do something like pour it over her head or pour it into the sand beneath her again, she’d rather just refuse.

“I think the Trojans would disagree.”

She doesn’t know why she says it. It’s probably the dumbest thing she could have said — technically smart, but ‘street wise’ (as he’d called it?) Absolutely not. He probably doesn’t even know what she’s talking about—

The Ghoul smiles — a genuine one — and laughs. Out loud. Not his usual, bitter, spiteful laugh like he does when he’s making fun of her or she trips over or something. No. A real laugh. Lucy is terrified.

“’S a good one,” he says, nodding, the smile still there. “I like that.” He lifts the canteen to her mouth, tilting it a little. “I’ll give that to ya. Reckon’ you’ve earned a treat.”

Her heart is racing, almost pounding out of her chest, but this is the closest she’s come to water since he started denying it and she’s not willing to risk it anymore. She parts her lips, and although she’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop, she feels the metal of the canteen touch them and then—

Water. In her mouth. He’s actually giving her some water. She drinks as much as she can as fast as she can, and it’s warm and tastes like metal and she’s pretty sure she drinks down some solids with it, but she doesn’t care.

And as soon as it starts, it stops. He pulls the canteen away. It was barely enough to be a quarter of a glass, but it was more than nothing and Lucy didn’t know that water could feel so good. As he gets to his feet, Lucy closes her eyes, savoring the feeling of a throat that doesn’t feel like it’s full of sandpaper, all but breathless from how frantically she was gulping it down.

When she opens her eyes, he’s frowning at her. “Don’t go doin’ that again,” he warns her, screwing the cap back on the canteen. “Only thing folk got a bigger thirst for than water is that.”

“Do what?” she asks.

He raises an eyebrow. “If you don’t even realize ya’ makin’ noises like that, I’m gonna have t’ gag ya’ the rest of the way.”

It takes her a second to work it out, but when he turns around to put the canteen away, it hits her — she wasn’t breathless. She moaned. She moaned. “Oh my god—“

“Mean, if you wanna go around doin’ that, I know a fella’ in New Reno who’d pay a small fortune for ya’.”

“What?”

“They pay good money for virgins out there, if ya’ don’t mind me bein’ crass,” he explains with a smirk. Ah. So he’s back to terrorizing her. Cool. Great. “Clean lil’ thing like you? Reckon’ I could retire off of what I’d make fer ya’.”

She stares at him, mouth agape, waiting for him to make it clear it’s a joke. He doesn’t. “…You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?” He asks, outright grinning. “Think we established it’s every man for himself out here, remember?”

She’s speechless. She knew he was cruel, but this? This is downright evil. “Well…” she can feel her ears burning. She’s about to cry. Her ears always burn before she starts crying. “You wouldn’t get that much money anyway,” she argues. “Because I’m not a virgin.” She attempts to sound righteous, just like she did before when pointing out how salty Cram is, but even she knows that’s not happening right now. She just sounds petulant at this stage.

The Ghoul stares at her momentarily before tossing his head back, not even just laughing but downright cackling, something she watches him do for almost a full minute, gob-smacked. He… genuinely thinks this is funny — hilarious, even.

“You—“ he cuts himself off with his own laughter again, sitting upright again. “You’re somethin’, alright.’ He wipes under his eye with his hand, as though this is so funny that he cried. Can Ghouls cry? Lucy immediately thinks this is a dumb question. Of course they can. Maybe. The real question is can this one cry? Someone so unbelievably cruel that after all this, the thing that sends him into a fit of laughter like this is the idea that she’s had sex before — does he have the ability to feel empathy in order to cry?

“I don’t see what’s funny.”

“If I sat here and explained all the reasons that was funny, we’d be talkin’ well into t’morrow,” he laughs, shaking his head.

“Well seeing as you’re apparently going to sell me into sex slavery, I’d prefer that if it keeps us delayed—“

“Calm down,” he interrupts, catching his breath a little. “Not gonna do that.”

If it’s meant to reassure her, it doesn’t. “Appreciated,” she says regardless.

“Thought they’d have rules ‘bout that down there,” he says. “Y’know, keep things ‘all American,’ wholesome as apple pie, no funny business ‘fore marriage.”

“I was married,” she says, deadpan.

The Ghoul pauses before smiling, not the same grin as usual, but a surprised one. “Really?” He asks, equal parts in disbelief and fascinated. “Just full of surprises t’night, aren’t ya’?”

“Don’t know why that’s surprising.”

“Because you don’t seem th’ type who can handle bein’ told they’re wrong, n’ half of a successful marriage is accepting when you’re wrong, sweetheart.” Lucy wonders how he’d know, but she dare not ask. “So what happened t’ him?” He asks. “He stay behind? Or he follow you out here n’ get ‘imself killed right away?”

“Neither.” Her jaw tenses. “Wasn’t who he said he was.” The Ghoul stares at her expectantly. He wants the explanation. “…It’s a long story.”

The Ghoul shrugs, making a show of looking around before he returns his attention to her. “Night’s young. Reckon’ I got plenty of time.”

Usually, she’d jump at the opportunity to correct him, but this? It’s different. She hasn’t even really had time to process it. She should be sad about it, right? Having to murder her own husband, even if no one in the Vault could really decide in the end if their marriage of valid or not and Betty’s solution was to just ‘let that one go and apply for a new marriage in a few months.’ But he’s not going to let it go, and Lucy’s starting to think that it really is just better when he ignores her entirely, actually.

“One of Vault 33’s longevity related challenges is that we’re starting to struggle with genetic diversity. But, Vault-Tec had the foresight to create the inter-Vault marriage program.” She gives it a second to make sure he’s following along before continuing. “If, like me, you have a difficult time finding a suitable marriage partner through no fault of your own, you can apply to the Vault’s leadership council to be matched with a suitable partner from Vault 31 or 32 for immediate marriage.”

“And you couldn’t find a single person in your own Vault?” He asks, smirking. It’s obviously a dig at her, and it bugs her enough that she doesn’t really think before answering.

“Not that I wasn’t related to.” Lucy immediately sees the change in his expression and speaks again before he can get in. “Which isn’t allowed!” She blurts. “Cousin stuff is only allowed to go so far.”

The Ghoul blinks, looking at her like she’s speaking a foreign language. “Only allowed to go so far?” He repeats.

“Yes,” she nods. “And there are reasons for that. But anyway,” she continues, “I was matched with a man from Vault 32, and as is tradition, he arrived at our Vault with the Vault 32 Overseer and a small party of Vault 32 citizens to be present at the ceremony. After that, he was supposed to stay in Vault 33 with me, and everyone else would return to Vault 32.”

“Guessin’ that didn’t happen.”

She takes a second, thinking back to it. “…Vault 32 had, at some stage, been breached by a party of people from the surface who we assume raided Vault 32 and then…” she exhales, “received Vault 33’s message about my marriage application.”

He nods slowly. “So you married some regular ol’ wastelander, then.”

“Yeah,” she nods. “And after we… um… consummated—“ she clears her throat a little uncomfortably. “It came to my attention that he was not a citizen of Vault 32 when his compatriots started trying to kill everyone. Including me.” There’s a pause. “So I killed him.”

She’s not sure what kind of reaction she expects from him, but by now, she’s figured out it’s best to not try to predict. He nods to himself, visibly sucking at his teeth. “Well, look at you, lil’ killer,” he finally says with a little smile. “Got a lil’ black widow on my hands.” There’s another pause as he watches her. “Still, reckon’ that’s closer to a virgin than most women out here—“

“I did stuff before that,” She blurts. Oh, Lucy, why? Why do you have to be right about everything? It’s a mistake, and she immediately recognizes it.

“Oh?” He opens his mouth as though to ask, but then stops, grinning eat to ear. “C’mon, don’t tell me that’s why ya’ so versed in ‘cousin stuff?’” He bursts out laughing again.

“It’s perfectly normal for cousins to experiment during young adulthood as long as appropriate boundaries are set—“

“See, this is what I mean,” he laughs over the top of her. “They’ve got you Vaulties so sure that you’re the answer to everything, that ya’ll are gonna pop up here n’ cure the sickness ya’ll helped create all them years ago — but ya’ll are so sheltered n’ messed up down there that they’ve got ya’ kissin’ cousins n’ thinking it’s perfectly normal.” He clicks his tongue. “No dogs in the Vault, but hittin’ second base with relations is fine. ‘Future of America’ my ass.”

“And what would you know about sex?” Lucy asks. Again, bad idea, last thing she should ask, but for some reason, this is pushing past her patience. “I can’t imagine anyone is lining up to have relations with you!”

The Ghoul’s smile vanishes, his back straightening, eyes locked on to her. “Why’s that?”

Oh no. Oh no. Lucy’s heart starts racing again and she can feel it in her throat. The answer should be obvious, it’s a big, unspoken thing sitting right between them. Saying it’s because of how he looks should be the obvious answer, but… it isn’t. Not even because Lucy feels like that should be off limits (is it off limits for Ghouls?) but because she honestly doesn’t think he actually is ugly. The Ghoul he made her carve the flesh off? Sure. He was ugly. Some of the people she saw in Filly? Definitely not attractive. But he’s… not unpleasant to look at. Interesting, yes. But not… not ugly, no.

“Because you’re unpleasant company,” she finally settles.

“Right,” he sighs, clearly not buying it, even though she’s being entirely honest. “And that’s all?”

Lucy nods. “I have a hard time imagining you carrying a conversation long enough to appeal to someone that way.”

He nods slowly. He doesn’t believe me. “I haven’t had any complaints, but the types of women I associate with aren’t exactly lookin’ for conversation.”

“Well,” she says, tensing her jaw, just wanting this conversation to be over now. “I guess there’s someone out there for everyone, then—“

“You’re telling me,” he interrupts, “that my attitude is th’ issue, ‘s that right?”

Oh no. She nods quickly. “You haven’t exactly shown me a great deal of kindness.”

“Right, right,” he nods, rising to his feet, and oh no, here it comes. Lucy tries to guess what he’s about to do. Maybe kick sand in her face, or pour water on her again, or shoot next to her head — and then follow it up by telling her that he can be mean if she wants. Oh he’ll definitely say that—

Hold on.

She’s not trying to predict. Oh no. She’s—

The Ghoul steps towards her and kneels down again, bringing himself directly in front of her, still tall enough to loom over her a little bit where she sits in the sand, but close enough to make her back up completely against the brick wall behind her back. “So, you mean to tell me that if I was a nice guy who bought ya’ flowers n’ opened doors fer’ ya’, ‘n whispered all the right, sweet lil’ things in yer’ ear, you wouldn’t have a problem?”

Lucy is speechless. It’s like there’s a million words in her head and they’re all trying to get to her mouth at once and bottle-necking in her throat. He wants an answer and he won’t wait for one, and she knows that, but all her brain power is predisposed on processing what she’s just realized.

She wasn’t trying to predict what The Ghoul is about to do. She was fantasizing about it.

The Ghoul clicks his tongue again. “Thought so,” he says to himself, a smug air about him as he pulls away a little, satisfied that he was right. “Don’t go making bets if ya’ can’t—“

“I wouldn’t,” Lucy cuts in. The Ghoul pauses, almost like it freezes him in place for a moment. He definitely wasn’t expecting that. Neither was she, to be fair. “I wouldn’t mind. No.”

He eyes her for a second, and for a second, he seems to be on the back-foot. …But it’s only for a second before his eyes thin and he almost seems mad at her, like he thinks she’s making fun or something. “Ya’ sure about that?” He asks, looming over her again.

She nods. “I’m sure.” She’s not sure, actually, but something is happening here and it’s way more powerful than her ‘wedding night’ was, and she’d be lying if she said she hated it, even if the psychological implications of being excited by… whatever’s happening here are troubling.

His eyebrows jerk upwards for a second, and she wonders if he’s as confused as she is right now. The Ghoul takes a moment to eye her carefully, something about the way he does that making Lucy’s stomach feel tight, but in the good way, and then he makes— oh. This noise comes out of him that sounds like it’s really deep in his throat, maybe in his chest, and she’s not sure if it’s a growl or a groan or a chronic lung disorder — but whatever it is makes her face feel hot. Really hot. And oh no, this is a textbook case of arousal.

“I’d be real careful with that line o’ thinkin’,” he warns, raising an arm and bringing it to brace against the wall beside her head, all but pinning her to it. They may not be physically touching, but they’re so close to it and he’s looking at her like she’s a meal (which should be concerning because she knows he literally eats people) and she really, really wishes they were touching right now. “Because I can be nice. Real nice.” His free hand reaches up to her face, and she’s so focused on watching his expression and how close his face is to hers that she doesn’t even realize until his thumb brushes over the barely-healing split in her lip. “…But I don’t think nice is what ya’ want, is it?”

She’s not sure how long it takes her to respond, but it’s definitely long enough to be a little embarrassing. “I don’t know,” she says quietly. The Ghoul’s expression falters a bit, and it looks for a second like he’s about to pull back— “Show me what you mean.”

Lucy worries that she’s lost him for a second — this is, after all, a terrible idea and he’s no doubt thinking the same thing — but he stays in place. “Ya’ sure?” he asks. She nods silently. “Ain’t gon’ treat y’ better or let y’ go fer’ it, I’ll warn ya’ right now… but I ain’t lookin’ t’ take advantage either, so I’ll ask ya’ again;” he brings his free hand from her face to her throat, gripping around it right underneath her jaw and squeezing just a little bit at the sides. “Ya’ sure you’re after this?”

Her first attempt at response comes out as a squeak, not because he’s gripping too hard — he’s not actually putting any pressure on her airways at all — but she’s wound up so tightly that she’s slowly losing a sense of anything she doesn’t immediately want to use for sex. Her second attempt is a little more successful. “Please?” she asks.

With zero hesitation, his head dips down and his mouth goes straight for the side of her neck, biting down on the skin as the hand that once choked her flies up to her head, gripping her hair and holding her head in place to better expose her neck. She cries out, writhing beneath him, already overwhelmed by the mix of pain and pure arousal because how had she not considered that pain can be just as exciting during foreplay? It seems so obvious now, especially now that his other hand has dropped from the wall to scoop under her and grab at her ass and her brain is getting all of these different signals. Her hands flex in their binds as he starts to suck at her neck, gripping at his vest to try and pull him closer. She considers asking him to at least loosen the binds so she can use her hands, but not only does she immediately decide he’d never do that, but she doesn’t want him to.

Next thing she knows, he’s picked her up. Scooped her up from underneath, like she weighs nothing. And just as she manages to squeal a little in surprise at the sudden elevation, he’s tossed her up on the old couch on the other side of the room in one of the few seemingly sand-free spots, her body bouncing against the creaking, ancient springs beneath the worn out cushions as she lands on her back. He reaches into his belt holster and removes his hunting knife, and she immediately worries that he’s going to try and cut her Vault suit open — but he doesn’t. Instead, and to her absolute shock, he cuts the binds off her wrists. “Don’t think I gotta’ warn ya’ how badly it’s gonna go for ya’ if y’ try somethin’ stupid now, do I?”

She shakes her head, mumbling a barely coherent ‘nuh-uh’ as she immediately rushes to unzip her Vault suit, kicking off her remaining boot and attempting to shimmy out of the lower body portion as soon as her arms are out. The Ghoul removes his coat — and only his coat — before grabbing her Vault suit where it’s bunched up at her hips and yanking it down unceremoniously. The urgency behind it makes her gasp a little. Neither of them can hardly wait. He wants her and he wants her right now and this should not be hot like this, he has kidnapped her and marched her half way across the wastelands and even tortured her at one point, this should not be hot like this, but it is.

As soon as she’s able to kick the suit off her ankles, one hand is back on her throat, pinning her back down to the couch as another slides up her undershirt. His gloves are already off from his dinner, and she can feel his skin on hers, and despite it’s obvious roughness, it still feels like skin and god she’s needed some skin to skin contact, actually — and they’re warm, too. No, almost hot. Do Ghouls just… run hotter? Is it some kind of radiation burn? His hand reaches the band of her bra and slides under it and suddenly she doesn’t care about the details at all as he grabs her breast.

He shoves all of the fabric up and over her chest, exposing it entirely, and he makes the noise again before his head dives back down, taking a nipple in his mouth and biting with a surprisingly considerate gentleness. She arches her back a little as though to push herself into it, whining and bracing her hands against the arm of the couch above her head. “O-oh, like that,” she sighs, “ohh—“ she stops for a second, lifting her head. “What’s your name?”

His eyes, which have been closed, snap open, taking a second before he releases her from his mouth and looks up at her. “What?”

“What’s your name?” she repeats. “I just realized I don’t know.”

“…’Sit matter?”

She sits on that for a second, bobbing her head from side to side as she thinks it over. “Well… no…” he grunts, looking back down at her breast. “But— wait,” she blurts. “Don’t you think that’s weird? Us having sex when I don’t even know your name?”

The Ghoul stares at her blankly. Oh. Okay. Guess not. “That a problem?” he asks.

Lucy immediately shakes her head. “Just… wondering what I should call you…”

He smirks, lowering his head again and kissing the space between her breasts. “You’re a smart one. Reckon’ you’ll figure somethin’ out.” His lips are rough, too, like his hands, but as he trails downwards, she learns that his tongue seems to be the same as anyone else’s, and by the time he reaches the waistband of her underwear, she’s squirming.

His eyes flicker upwards at her and he watches her for a moment, measuring her reaction, and while her expectation is that he’ll pull them off her, he doesn’t. His fingers move down the seam that follows the inside of her thigh and hook into the crotch of her underwear, pulling them aside. Lucy audibly gasps — not that this fell into the realm of cousin stuff, but it came kind of close a couple of times, and the Vault did have the odd dirty book floating around that described it in ways she was definitely curious about—

“Nah,” he says after a moment. “Y’aint earned that yet.”

She frowns, sitting upright on her elbows. “Wha—“

Before she even registers it, he grabs her by the waist and again lifts her up, causing her to squeal (again) as he carries her the short distance between the couch and a nearby wall. He twists her around as he drops her back down, her feet slipping a little in the sand as he all but slams the front her get against the wall, grabbing one of her arms and twisting it behind her back as she cries out with the impact.

“What are you doing—“

“Bein’ not nice.” One of his hands grips into her hip as he shoves her further against the wall before reaching out and grabbing her free one. He pulls it behind her to join the other, holding both wrists in one hand while the other reaches to his side. Lucy’s wanting — hoping — it’s protection, that he’s gonna hurry up and get to it because she really wants this and she wants it right now, but then she feels the rope again.

“Are you serious?” She asks. “But I thought—“

“What parta’ not nice did ya’ not understand?” He asks, wrapping the rope around her wrists before securing a knot, yanking on her arms as he pulls it shut. “Sides,” he exhales, free hand returning to her hip, his fingers digging in again. “Yer job ain’t thinkin’ right now, sweetheart.” He roughly pulls her hips back against him, holding her there firmly, and Lucy can feel— oh. Oh. Oh. “You got a much bigger job t’ worry ‘bout right now.”

“…O-oh.” It’s the best she has to offer. In the dirty books (that were only supposed to be kept in the Dr’s office for assisting with obtaining samples for sperm count testing,) the women always seemed to know what to say during sex. They’d tell their partners what to do, or how to do it: harder, faster, fuck me, cum on my chest, fuck me so hard that the Communists in China feel it. Sometimes, failing that, they’d just curse out loud. Lucy had always tried to keep an open mind and experiment when fooling around back in the Vault — a healthy attitude towards sex was just as important as a healthy diet, after all — but the talking part? She’d never really got that part down. Not that she was shy or anything, but she’d had it drilled into her head from the moment she could talk that swearing just wasn’t the Vault way. Not unless you were on fire or something, and even then, you still might need to talk about it with the Overseer once you were out of the burn ward.

Her train of thought is completely derailed when she feels the crotch of her underwear being pulled to the side again. He slides his hand between her thighs, his fingers helping themselves to her, The Ghoul exhaling right into her ear. “Look at that,” he laughs, “days without water but still wet as a storm.” She can feel his face smile against the side of hers, either pleased with himself for that one or pleased with how she’s started desperately wriggling against his hand. She can’t tell. “What am I gonna do with you?”

He slowly pushes a single finger inside her and she involuntarily bites her lip as she whines into the wall. Logically speaking, it should be somewhat satisfying, but all it really does is make her want more. He doesn’t really do anything with it at first, but after a moment, he very, very, very slowly starts to withdraw it.

“Now, if I was fixin’ t’ be really mean t’ ya,” he begins, stopping just short of removing it entirely, “I could do that.” He starts to push it back in just as slowly, and Lucy arches her back a little to try and get more faster. “I could jus’… play around with ya’ a little, like this,” he says, withdrawing it again, but a little fast this time. “Just keep workin ya up,” he increases his speed, adding a second finger, laughing to himself when she moans in response. The Ghoul waits until they’re deep again, and then—

Lucy’s eyes widen and she cries out, reflexively rising to her toes as she feels his fingers curl upwards inside her. That’s new.

He starts moving his fingers again, but faster, and not as much. It’s less like he’s finger fucking her behind the water desalination unit on the basement level and more like he’s gently rubbing some part of her she hadn’t even discovered yet. “Oh my God—“ she gasps.

“Like that, huh?” He asks, his voice low, right up against her ear. She can feel him breathing and she knows he’s so close to her face right now and she doesn’t even care because oh WOW this is— no one ever did THIS to me. “Reckon’ I could have you screamin’ so loud that they might hear ya back home,” he says. “Cummin’ so hard that you’re gonna forget ya’ own name,” he presses in that spot especially hard and she clenches around him in response, trying to angle her hips in a way that will add more pressure. She can already feel how wet she is, how much of a mess the inside of her thighs are. How hand must be soaking.

“But I’m bein’ mean, right?”

His fingers are suddenly gone, Lucy whining in protest and twisting her head to try and frown at him.

He just laughs, and her stomach lurches.

Is he really doing this?

Is he really not going to follow through and just leave her like this?

“Are you serious?!” She asks. The panic in her voice must be more obvious than she realizes, because she knows exactly what the grin he responds with means: ‘I’ve got your number.’

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He asks. “’Less you can give me a good reason to.”

She’s freaking out a little, admittedly. There she is, half naked, dripping all over herself like some… non-wholesome, not all American girl like she really should be behaving — and he’s just going to leave her like this? No. No, no, no, this isn’t fair. He can’t. “Please,” is all she can come up with.

“Please what?” He asks. “What is it y’ want?”

“Please—“ she swallows, trying to find the words. “Don’t stop.”

“Don’t stop what?”

“That.”

He’s silent for a second, but the look on his face tells her everything she needs to know. If he didn’t have her number before, he definitely has it now. “Don’t tell me ya’ shy, now.”

“I’m not.”

“Then say it.”

“I— I…”

He presses himself against her again and makes it really, really clear that by the feel of things, it’s still on the table. He reaches one hand around the front of her, pushing his hand down the front of her underwear and pushing a finger directly over her clit (which is impressive because it took Chet probably five tries to find that, so Lucy honestly thought maybe hers was just in a weird spot but nope, guess it was just Chet after all) and holding it there. His other hand — the one that he’s been fucking her with — reaches up to grab her by the back of her hair, forcing her head around even more to face him as much as she physically can without turning the rest of her body. “Tell me what ya’ want me t’ do, sweetheart,” he says, his face so close to hers that they could almost be kissing if he wanted to.

She takes a deep breath. It’s outside of her comfort zone, but so has everything else she’s done since leaving the Vault, really, and unlike a lot of those? This isn’t really a bad thing. “I want you to… I… I want you to… um…”

He lets go of her hair and she worries he’s about to give up entirely and just walk away. Instead, though, he brings his hand around her face, his fingers still visibly glistening from fucking her. The Ghoul gently brings them to rest against her lips, waiting a second for her to figure out what’s happening before slowly and gently pushing them inside her mouth. They lock eyes.

Oh.

Doesn’t take a textbook to figure this out. It’s like something just kinda snaps inside her and she knows what to do and she’s desperate to do it, sucking on them gently, holding eye contact while she cleans them off with her tongue.

He grins, but there’s something else in his eyes this time. Something heavier. If he’s got her, Lucy’s got him. “There she is,” he says under his breath, his voice so low it seems to rumble in the back of his throat. “That’s it.” He slowly withdraws his fingers, not removing his eyes from hers for a second. “Ya’ like that?” He asks. She doesn’t need to respond. It’s rhetorical. Of course she does. “Now,” he begins, his hand moving back to her hair, fingers lacing back into it but not gripping. Not yet. “I’mma ask again, sweetheart. Tell me what y’ want me t’ do. C’mon now,” the way he says it almost sounds like how the Cowboys in the movies used to calm their horses. “Use ya’ words.”

She takes a deep breath. Her head is swimming. Lucy doesn’t just want to have sex with The Ghoul, she wants to fuck. She wants him to make her curse and scream while he tosses her around and slams her against stuff and hurts her a little bit (but in a good way.) You’re not supposed to want the stuff she wants from him. You’re not supposed to want to be thrown around and used and treated like some kind of sex object for the pure gratification of the guy who has kidnapped you.

But here she is, wanting that — wanting to have her brains fucked out by a man more than 200 years older than her who she, realistically, never wants to see again once he’s done doing it.

“I want you to fuck me,” she finally announces, breathless, her heartbeat in her ears.

He presses his hips against her ass again. “That right?”

“Please,” she begs, her voice a little louder than she intended in desperation now that she can feel him again. “Please fuck me!”

The Ghoul makes that sound again — the growl noise — and this time shoves his hips into her. “Feel that?” He asks. He grips into her hair, pulling her head back a little as the other hand on her hip suddenly pulls away, fumbling with what she can only assume is his own pants given the jingling sound of his belt buckle. Finally. “Feel what beggin’ a man t’ fuck ya does?” He asks. “Real fuckin’ dangerous, lil’ killer.”

She opens her mouth to argue, to tell him that it’s fine actually because she wants it, even if him saying that is really, really hot — but then he’s inside her and all that comes out of her is a moan that’s way, way louder than she’d intended.

“Good fuckin’ God,” he groans through his teeth, his hand moving from his belt to hold the top of her hip again as he slowly starts, pushing deeper and deeper as is comfortable before withdrawing in kind like he did with his fingers. “Tighter than a fuckin’ snare.”

What does that even mean? Who cares? Lucy doesn’t. Not now. Not now that he’s inside her and all she can think about is how good it feels and how she feels so full that it almost hurts a little but honestly, she kind of likes it and it’s like a good hurt and maybe it’s not a ‘hurt’ at all, now, actually, because it’s already starting to just feel really fucking good even if he’s starting really slowly and—

“Fuck,” he exhales. “No idea how god-damned good—“ he grunts and pushes inside her suddenly, going so deep that she swears he’s about to bottom out, “—this looks.”

Lucy might have possibly been over-thinking things, but that’s not a problem, because hearing him say that pretty much makes her brain melt out of her ears. She whines again as he speeds up, the grip on her hair loosening a little and eventually releasing as he brings the hand down to hold her opposite hip so he can start pulling her back against him with each thrust. “Fffff—“ she stops herself short of the whole word, not wanting to think about it too hard, too focused on how good it feels.

“What was that?” He asks, not stopping. Her only response is another whimper, causing him to raise a hand and smack it down against her ass, making her squeal and reflexively try to flinch forward. “What’d we say about using our words?” He asks.

“I—“

“I wanna hear you,” he grunts as he fucks her. “I know what’s in there, and I wanna hear it.”

“Wh-what?” She asks. He pushes into her especially deep, and this time, he does bottom out, making her yelp.

“C’mon,” one of his hands drifts lower, stopping where he’d smacked her earlier, gripping into the flesh of her ass as he repeats the deepness of the last stroke. “Inside every repressed, innocent lil’ good girl is the filthiest fuckin’ slut outsidea’ New Reno. But I guess if I gotta fuck it outta’ ya’, so be it.”

He picks up his pace, well and truly done with any exploratory strokes or anything that’s testing the waters as he starts to fuck in a way that leads to her bouncing against him. Her breasts press against the wall, her chest burning a little as it scrapes along the ancient wallpaper she’s pressed against, but she wouldn’t dare tell him to stop. Not when it’s so good. He curses under his breath again and something about it makes her stomach tighten in that good way again. “Oh God—“

“C’mon,” he insists between breaths. “Almost, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart? Oh, oh no, that does something, the same way it has this whole time, even if she’s refused to admit it. “Fuck,” she cries out, unable to stop her own hips from bouncing back to meet his in kind.

“What was that?” She can hear him smiling.

“So… fucking good…”

The Ghoul’s hand reaches up with no warning as he makes that fucking growling noise again and brings his palm to the side of her head, slamming it against the wall as he starts to fuck her so hard and fast that she can hear the sound of her wet cunt taking him over and over and over. “There it is,” he growls through his teeth. “You like this, don’t ya’?”

“Fuck yes,” she cries out, not minding that he could, realistically, crush her skull like this if he wanted to given how strong he is, or that her head is spinning from having it slammed into the wall like that. “Don’t fucking stop, please!” He grunts aloud, fucking her so hard that he is absolutely bottoming out now but she doesn’t even care anymore because it just feels so good and she’s needed something that doesn’t feel terrible and this is better than not terrible. God, she’s not sure if it’s just the shape of him or the position they’re in or if it’s because Ghoul dick feels a little different in a really good way, but he feels so good. Can she say that? “Your cock feels so fucking good!” He makes the sound again, so, yes, she can and should say that. She’d say anything to get him to keep making that noise.

One of his hands reaches around to the front of her, finding her clit again as he leans in close, speaking into her ear again. “You got no idea how bad you fucked up, sweetheart,” he warns through his teeth as he starts to rub her clit in circular motions that match his pace. “I’m gonn’ fuckin ruin ya’. You’re gon’ go back t’ that Vault n’ spend th’ rest of your life thinkin’ bout this,” he says. “Every single time ya’ Vault assigned husband or whatever the fuck takes you to bed? You gon’ be thinkin’ bout me.”

Oh god. Oh fuck that is so hot, what the fuck is wrong with her? “I’m so gonna— I’m gonna—“

“Already?” He asks, his own breathing ragged. He’s just as close as she is. Asshole. “Wheredya’ want it?”

She almost asks what he means but quickly remembers that there’s no protection in this scenario. Of course there isn’t. Thank god there isn’t. Lucy decides to unpack that later and just do what feels good, do what she’s always fantasized about doing until now, because so far it’s only been good. “Inside.”

He chokes out a laugh at this, but doesn’t drop his pace at all. “Really?” He asks.

“Please? I wanna— I wanna feel it. I just— ohgodplease—” She hopes he doesn’t ask her to explain it because she can’t. She’s running on basal, carnal instinct right now, acting like an animal. There’s no explanation other than I want it.

“Damn,” he grunts as she gets closer and closer with each thrust into the wall. “Dirtier… than I thought… maybe I should…” He groans as she starts to twitch around him. “Maybe I should… hold on to ya’… keep ya’ fer myself… special lil’ treat… have ya’ whenever I feel like it… reckon’ ya’d like that, wouldn’t ya, Sweetheart?”

Lucy swears her eyes actually roll back into her head because she honestly whites out for a second. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—“ it comes out of her mouth as a long, pathetic whine as she feels herself tighten around him, which he responds to by dipping his head down and biting down on the spot where her neck meets her shoulder so hard that in any other situation, she’d worry he was actually trying to take a bite out of her. Her entire body clenches up before finally releasing, the moan that follows so loud and lewd and unlike any noise she’s ever made before that it takes a moment for her to realize that’s her doing that because she’s so dumbstruck by the power of the orgasm that’s absolutely ripping through her entire body right now. Stephanie would have been impressed. Lucy has never felt anything like this in her entire life.

The Ghoul isn’t too far behind, his movements turning erratic and even rougher as her own release triggers his, biting down even harder and definitely drawing a little blood in doing so as he cums inside her, Lucy moaning and pushing her hips back to take as much of him as she can while he fills her with his load, still pumping slowly even after its done, filling an animalistic desire to fuck it as deep inside her as possible.

They stay in place for a second, both of them catching their breath, basking in the post-orgasm euphoria for a little. It’s not at all what Lucy would have expected in a million years, but having unprotected, rough hate-sex with a Ghoul that has held her prisoner and denied her food and water for the last couple of days (who she’s pretty sure is planning on selling her into sex-slavery) has, somehow, made her feel the most normal she has since coming to the surface.

What transpires next is… awkward for a multitude of reasons as it dawns on the both of them what the hell they’ve just done. Neither say a word. The Ghoul unbinds her wrists and allows her to get dressed before rebinding them in front of her, Lucy co-operating entirely, and he even gives her another small portion of water. All in complete silence.

Once they’ve resettled and are back where they started — her sitting on the sand, him in an old dining chair — he stretches his legs out and stares ahead, Lucy resting back against the wall and staring off into the opposite direction.

“So that’s it?” He asks after about five minutes of silence. “Jus’ gonna let me have biblical knowledge of ya’ without sayin’ a word? No discussion? Usually you’re so chatty—“

“Nope.”

Her response is blunt — so blunt that she worries it might offend him enough to make him lash out again. But it was just sex. That’s it. Just sex. And despite what Chet might think, sex can be just sex and that’s all. In fact, it seems that might be the norm on the surface, given what she’s seen and learned so far. And, honestly? Lucy has no problem at all with that. …Come to think of it, she prefers it that way, actually. He might be good at sex — really good at it — but she still hates him.

The Ghoul grins, giving her a curt nod. “Atta’ girl.”

Chapter Text

“Y’ know, it’s funny,” he says to himself, wiping his mouth after tossing back one of his little vials of… whatever it is. All Lucy knows is he’ll turn feral without them. “The one time I wouldn’t mind ya’ usual chitchat n’ you’ve gone all quiet on me.”

She just stares at him in response.

He’d insisted they wait a night before hitting the road to get out of California, herding her into some old, hidden away bunker that he somehow knows the code for that sits just outside of what he says is the limits of Shady Sands. She’s not really interested in reading into it, though. Feels like reading into things has only served to destroy her entire life.

“Want me t’ take y’ back?” He asks.

She frowns. Her first instinct is to assume he’s threatening her, that he’s telling her to entertain him or he’ll take her back to Shady Sands. But his expression says different. He’s not wearing the usual, trouble-making grin that accompanies the way he takes delight in seemingly making everyone around him suffer. It’s flat. He’s genuinely asking. His eyes even seem a little soft — they only go that way when he’s talking to the dog.

He means the Vault.

She does, honestly, consider it for a second. She could go back. She could go back, say her father is dead or that he ran away for some reason, tell everyone the surface is a terrible, awful place and they probably need to add another 50 years to however long they’re meant to be down there, and then pretend this whole thing never happened. She could, but she can’t. Not really. Not anymore.

“No.”

He raises an eyebrow at this, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall he’s been leaning against while he has a cigarette. Should he even be smoking? If he doesn’t have whatever that drug is, he starts coughing like he’s got a respiratory infection or something. Does it matter, though? If the other thing around the corner is turning into what those other Ghouls were, it probably doesn’t seem important by comparison.

“Y’ sure?” He asks. “Could just ‘tell ‘em a good story ‘bout how we’re all monsters n’ cannibals up here,” he suggests. “Get y’self cleaned up n’ marry some all American boy with all his teeth n’ a haircut you could set ya’ watch by, have y’self a proper lil’ nuclear family ‘n never have t’ worry ‘nout ass jerky again.”

Lucy shakes her head. “Don’t want that.”

“That so?”

She eyes him for a moment, shifting on her cot. They might have helped clean her up in Vault 4, but she’s still so sore all over from all the walking and running and fighting. “Thought about it,” she admits. “But even if I wanted to, I don’t think they’d even let me back in.” She looks down at her hands, fidgeting with her nails. Even her singular, discolored finger would probably cause enough panic for the counsel to try and banish her. They were always squeamish like that. Resistant to change. Can’t be resistant to change up here — if you don’t adapt, you die. The scientist guy was right about that. “I know too much now. Betty would never…”

“Betty?”

“She was Overseer before my dad,” Lucy explains. “She’s probably in charge again.” She always did seem to step up when her dad had to step away, which wasn’t often, but sometimes it was necessary. When Norm caught mono during the middle-school outbreak and his fever didn’t break for two weeks, when Lucy had the GOAT and begged for help studying (and it turned out she didn’t even need to study because it was an ethics and personality based aptitude test,) when he had ‘long service leave’ and had to take a mandatory three days off after 10 years of service (which he spent watching these old Cowboy movies he was obsessed with) — Betty was always the substitute, the one who stepped up to the plate.

“Betty what?” He asks. She looks up from her nails, and his expression has changed a little bit, hardened up, like she’s said something offensive or something, or like he thinks he might know Betty—

He knew her dad, though, didn’t he? Somehow. So maybe…

“Pearson,” she responds quietly, like she’s ashamed, like she already knows deep down where this is going.

The Ghoul looks away and clicks his tongue. “’Course,” he exhales. The disgust in his tone is clear: he knows Betty. Or knew her — that might be the more appropriate way to say it.

Lucy has a million questions, of course, most of them ones she’s not even sure he knows the answers to — or, rather, she has questions she’s pretty confident he wouldn’t answer, even if he did know. She’s so tired already, and the idea of working though all of them sounds exhausting right now. Usually, when it comes to being overwhelmed, Lucy tries to triage her problems, sort them from most urgent to least urgent. But at the moment she can’t decide if it all feels equally super urgent or if it all feels completely and utterly hopeless.

So, instead, she decides to just start at the top with the one thing that’s inexplicably floating around in her head. “Did you… did you say that my dad used to pick up your wife’s dry cleaning?”

He pauses, watching her as he takes a seemingly deliberately long drag on his cigarette. Eventually, once he’s exhaled the second hand smoke into their shared air (which she doesn’t really appreciate but it’s really the least of her worries after all the radiation she’s been exposed to,) he nods. “I did say that, yeah.”

Lucy stares at him, waiting for an explanation that she really should know better than to expect. “So… is it true?” She asks when he doesn’t give any context.

“Wouldn’ta said it if it wasn’t.”

“How, though?” she asks. “My dad was born in Vault 31 and—“ she stops herself. “That’s not true, is it?”

“No, sweetheart,” he says. “No it ain’t.”

“Right.” She presses her lips together, running her tongue along the inside of them and feeling how chapped they are. “So how’d that work, then?” She asks. “How do you know him?”

He takes a second and she can tell that he’s studying her, assessing her, making a decision, formulating a response. “…’S like I said; he used ta’ pick up my wife’s drycleanin’.” He finally breaks eye contact, looking down at his boots and kicking the heel against the concrete floor, a little bit of gravel scattering out from the tread. “Lets just leave it at that fer now.”

“Why?” She argues, the word slipping out, betraying her disappointment.

“’Cause ya’ spooked,” he responds way too casually for her comfort given what’s just happened to her entire life. “Might be a smart cookie, might be learnin’ real quick, but ya’ ain’t there just yet. Now, I ain’t gonna claim t’ understand the inner workin’s of a woman’s mind — trust me, I ain’t got a death wish, not like that — but I seen enough war n’ sufferin’ t’ know when someone’s one bit o’ bad news away from goin’ third base with their own firearm.” He looks back up at her, nodding in her direction. “N’ you, sweetheart? You look like ya’ just did two tours of Yangtze without power armor.”

She stares at him blankly, hoping he can see how frustrated she is with him. “After everything you put me through?” She asks bitterly. “All of a sudden you care about my wellbeing?” She wants to yell at him. She wants to shout and pick up something and hit him with it and make herself a problem until he does tell her just to shut her up. Despite everything, though, there’s a little voice in the back of her head that she struggles to ignore, and it’s reminding her that he’s objectively the worst, but he’s still helping her. He’s bringing her with him even though she knows he could do whatever he’s doing alone, he’s letting her have the bottom cot in the bunk bed, and he’s not tying her up and making her eat ass jerky.

He also hasn’t brought up the time they had sex. Not even once. Not even to berate her or make fun or her. She didn’t even need to tell him not to. Is it because he also considers it to be a momentary lapse of judgment made while they were both under incredible stress? Probably. But does she appreciate that nonetheless? Absolutely. It’s not something she needs to think about right now — she hasn’t even had time to really properly unpack it. Come to think of it, it hasn’t really crossed her mind all that much since she nearly had her organs harvested, spare for the discussion she’d had with Max (where she offered and immediately felt kind of relieved when Max wasn’t up for it because her first thought had been ‘he doesn’t seem like he’d want to choke me.’)

The Ghoul doesn’t seem too phased by it at all, though. “Don’t worry,” he assures her, “you’ll find out, as is ya’ right.” He takes another drag. “The I-80’s a long road. Real long. Reckon’ if we spend t’night goin’ over all them details, we ain’t gon’ have nothin’ t’ talk about on the trip.”

That’s not really the reason, and Lucy knows it because she knows enough about what he’s like. If he’s anything like he was the last time they traveled together (albeit unwillingly on her part,) he’s going to want a lot of silence. Honestly, she might want that, too. However, this is also the only reason she’s going to get, and she knows for a fact he won’t budge on it.

Her shoulders drop, relenting, partially because she knows he’s stubborn and won’t budge on it, and partially because she’s just too exhausted to argue right now. They stay silent for a while, Lucy staring ahead at the cans on the shelf that sits on the wall opposite, looking over the labels, wondering what came with the bunker and what he’s stored here himself, and then a question hits her.

“You’re married?” She asks, the weight of that dawning on her. It’s one thing to have sex with a man who’s kidnapped you and used you as bait for a monster and refused to let you have food or water for days and has overall just been a real asshole to you. It’s another thing to find out he was also married. Lucy isn’t sure if she can really sit on the ethical pedestal she used to, not anymore, but facilitating infidelity is a line in the sand she hadn’t even considered that she might be crossing.

It’s his turn to stare ahead now, his jaw physically tensing a little for a split second. “Was.”

“Oh.” Lucy has to stop herself from cringing — his wife is probably dead and she just bought it up, which would be bad enough if the question probably didn’t also bring the sex to his mind by its own nature, either. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—“

“Don’t be,” he interrupts. “Didn’t work out.” He takes a short drag, an eyebrow raising. “They got divorce in that Vault o’ yours?”

“Um.” She blinks. So his wife’s not dead, she’s just… not his wife anymore. There’s a mean part of her that wants to revel in it a little, because of course, who would want to be married to him when he acts the way he does? Good for her, whoever it was he was married to. “Of course. If you’re unhappy with your spouse, you can appeal to the council and following a period of counseling…” she trails off. He’s not asking how it works, he’s asking if she knows what it is. People on the surface don’t seem to ask the questions they actually want to ask. Instead, they tend to ask a question adjacent to it and then expect you to read between the lines (and then get annoyed when you give them the answer to the question they actually asked you instead.) It’s something she’s getting incredibly tired of incredibly quickly. “I’ve never heard of it actually happening, though,” she concludes. “Never goes past the counseling part.”

“Well, I wouldn’t recommend it.” He pauses. “Least ya’ got t’ skip all that, what, with killin’ yer husband n’ all.” She almost laughs at this. Almost. The Ghoul looks at the last of his cigarette, then to her, reaching out to offer her the rest of it. She shakes her head. “’Probly smart,” he concedes. “Ain’t a good habit if ya’ still got smooth skin.”

“Yeah, well,” she exhales, just wanting to steer discussion away from the ‘wedding’ incident, which she feels like she’s over, but still kicked this whole ordeal off, “they must be doing something good.” He raises a brow quizzically as he drops the remainder of the cigarette onto the concrete, grinding his boot onto it to put it out. “You just… seem really calm,” she says with a half-hearted laugh. “All of—“ she waves a hand around in the air, “this and you’re not even a little bothered by it.” She pauses, rubbing her face with her hand. “God— sorry— I’m not— you’ve obviously been dealing with this kind of stuff for… I dunno,” she admits with a shrug, “hundreds of years?” She takes a deep breath, bringing her knees up to her chest and burying her face in her hands. “You’re right,” her muffled voice concedes. “I’m spooked.”

This is so embarrassing, sitting there like this after getting word-vomit like that at a time like this with a person like him. She stays that way for a bit, considering just laying down and rolling over and pretending to go to sleep even though there’s no way she’s getting any sleep because while her body is absolutely exhausted, her brain is wired, and in back in the Vault when she felt like this she’d either find Chet and fool around (which she’s learning is not something you talk about doing with your cousin on the surface, even if it’s supposed to be perfectly normal by Vault standards) or take care of things by herself, both of which would send her right to sleep afterwards but neither of which she can do right now because—

“T’ be completely fair,” he says, cutting through her over-thinking, “the excessive cocktail of drugs ‘probly helps.”

Not coming out from behind her hands, she exhales. “Got anything to help me sleep?”

The silence that follows is loud, and Lucy eventually emerges from behind her hands to see him staring at her, that same pokerface he gets when he’s trying to keep ahead of her, when he doesn’t want her to get a read on him. “…It’s a slippery slope, sweetheart,” he warns.

Oh. He’s serious.

Every single alarm bell in Lucy’s head is going off. It’s a bad idea, and they didn’t really have any narcotics in the Vault spare for painkillers (which were closely guarded) but the dangers of drug use was still drilled into her head from the time she was little — in fact, she literally used to teach kids that drug use was bad as part of her ethics class. She is emotionally exhausted, traumatized, volatile — all bad things to be when making a decision — and despite his sudden turn to altruism, she doubts that The Ghoul is exactly the most responsible person when it comes to guidance around the subject, either.

But at the same time, she’d do anything to be even half as calm and nonchalant as he is right now. (Almost anything. The thought of trying to initiate round two with him in this bunker has crossed her mind but she’s unstable and is probably just thinking about that as a form of self-sabotage.) And if this journey they’re going on is half as big as he says it’ll be? She needs to rest while she can. She also spent her entire life believing there was no life worth living on the surface, that cities didn’t exist, that people had survived but there still wasn’t civilization yet, that the world was waiting on Vaults 33, 32 and 31 for Reclamation Day.

None of that was true. So maybe the stuff about drugs wasn’t true, either.

“Please,” she asks him, dropping the (very) fragile appearance of detachment she’s been clinging to all night. “I just wanna… not feel like this. Just to sleep.”

He watches her for a moment, as though she’s given him need for caution, and then looks to the dog that’s curled up under a desk at the end of the bunker, like he’s waiting to hear the dog’s input. The dog lifts it’s head to return his gaze, and it looks to her like it’s expecting a command from him more than anything — but after a moment, it lowers its head again, relaxing back into it’s resting position, ready to doze off again.

The Ghoul nods to himself like he’s just had some kinda silent discussion with the dog (do Ghouls have psychic powers? Maybe?) and pushes himself off the wall, making his way over to the bunks and reaching up to grab his pack from the top bunk. “Alright — but if ya’ end up some kinda’ New Reno Med-X fiend, y’ keep my name outta’ ya’ mouth.”

“How can I have your name in my mouth if I don’t even know it?” she asks under her breath, watching as he unceremoniously dumps the contents out onto the cot next to her, the array of glass jars and syringes clinking against each-other.

“Ever had any of this before?” He asks, ignoring her, probably willfully.

It takes her a second to respond while she takes in the sheer volume of drugs he’s carrying. How can one man need all this? Maybe being a Ghoul really is painful. “We don’t have narcotics in the Vault.”

He raises an eyebrow at this. “So if someone down there needs surgery or has a baby or summin’, they’re just meant t’, what, grin n’ bare it?”

“Oh, well, we have Med-X—“

“Ya’ ever have it before?”

When Lucy was 14, she insisted on wrestling Bobby Adams during phys ed because he’d talked a huge game about how the girl’s wrestling league should be called ‘cuddle time,’ and Lucy knew he didn’t practice at all and only had the wins he did in the boy’s league because he was physically larger than the other boys (the Vault didn’t have enough people to class by weight.) She won based on her technique and superior maneuverability, but he got so mad about it that he tried to reverse the pin just after it was called and dislocated her shoulder. The Doctor was able to pop it back in, but they gave her some Med-X beforehand to try and dull the pain of it. “Yeah. Once.”

“And how’d that feel?” he asks. “Once it hit’cha, really settled in?”

Lucy thinks about it for a moment. She felt so warm and relaxed and comfy that even though popping her shoulder back in hurt, she didn’t really care. Afterwards, she had what she still considers to be the best sleep of her entire life. “It felt… good. Really good, actually.” Better than sex, if she’s being completely honest. …Most sex. It might have been a mistake, but she’s willing to admit that the mistake she’d made in that abandoned house with The Ghoul was… the best she’s had. Not that she’d ever let him know that.

The Ghoul smiles, nodding, like she gave him the right answer. “That right there, darlin’, is why it’s a narcotic.” She should, by rights, hate how condescending he’s being with her — but something about the way he smiles at her is kind of nice, actually, giving her the same warm feeling she gets when someone tells her she’s done a good job at something.

Amongst the spread of drugs is something that catches her eye. It’s an inhaler, kind of like one that Nate used to use when he was a kid. “Is that an asthma inhaler?” She asks, pointing to it.

He shakes his head. “That there’d be Jet. Ya’ use it all the same, but it gives ya’ a real head rush, really sharpens those senses. Kinda’ makes it feel like time’s slowed down a lil’.” He picks up the inhaler, shrugging and tossing it back in the pack. “Mighty addictive — big commitment for such a short high, if ya’ ask me, but goes down a treat when ya’ adrenaline’s up.” He starts picking up little clear pill bottles next, dropping them back into the pack one by one. “My little buddy Buffout here’s gonna make you sweat until you feel like ya drownin, and it’ll make ya ‘irratable like nothin’ else, but ain’t nothin’ else quite as good when ya’ got three days of walkin’ ahead of ya’ n’ a body t’ carry all th’ way there.”

She watches as he picks up a small cardboard box with ‘MENTATS’ printed on the front. “Why would you need to carry a body—“

“These,” he continues, “go one o’ two ways. Some folk, like yours truly, find that Mentats calm the nervous system right down, make ya’ a little numb t’ nervousness or the jitters. Other folk with more anxious dispositions—“ he pauses, giving her a pointed look as he drops the box in his pack. What’s that supposed to mean? “Tell me that it does th’ opposite, that it helps ‘em stay focused, gets ‘em awake and on top o’ things. Good for the kinda’ folk who enjoy playin’ with old computers, I’m told.” He pauses. “Now, all this is important, Miss MacLean, ‘cause if we’re headin’ all the way t’ Nevada—“

“We’re going to Nevada?”

He ignores the question. “If we’re going to Nevada,” he repeats, “there might come a day where I might need ya’ t’ use them lil’ hands o’ yours t’ get somethin’ outta my bag fer me while I’m busy givin’ some folk an acute case o’ led poisoning.”

Lucy frowns. “Wouldn’t I also be shooting people?”

The Ghoul stops what he’s doing completely, staring at her almost like he’s completely baffled by her — which he apparently is — before laughing under his breath, shaking his head as he continues to pack away the remaining Mentats. “Know we ain’t been amicable,” he says, still shaking his head, “but it’s real lucky on yer part that ya’ took up with me, ‘case yer fuckin’ adorable.”

It’s her turn to be dumbfounded now. “Excuse me?” She asks. “What— why— why is that a bad thing?”

He laughs out loud at this, like she’s told a follow up joke. “You, sweetheart, are jus’ askin’ t’ be run through.” Her eyes widen, her jaw dropping in absolute outrage. Run through? She’s not entirely sure what that means but she can take a guess, make an assumption. “Back in my time, ‘fore everything went t’ shit, the ones that looked like you with th’ dinner-plates n’ the naive, sweet kinda’ disposition? Th’ real clean lookin’ ones? Kinda’ girls ya’d they’d put in movies, only really ever see ‘em on the screens or in the studio lots,” he recalls, opening one of the cardboard boxes and picking a few loose Mentats tabs from the mattress. “Now, girls like you were rare back then, so imagine if ya’ were some junkie raider who’d only ever seen yer type on them ol’ billboards, or one of those big ‘family’ pricks I New Reno who’s spent their whole life lookin’ at girls like you in ol’, scavved movie reels.” He unceremoniously drops the loose tabs in the cardboard box, shoving the lid back on before putting the entire box back in the pack with the others. “Mix in ya’ inexperience n’ the fact you was basically born yesterday far as anyone out here’s concerned, n’ most’d consider you a free fuckin’ lunch.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but just kind of stammers. She made it all the way to Shady Sands — and, sure, she had some help along the way — but she did just fine. Mostly. Does that count for nothing? Once again, though, all of her arguments seem to bottle-neck in her throat, and the only one that makes it through is: “You think we haven’t been amicable?” She scoffs as she says this, as though, somehow, the implication she hasn’t been nice is the thing that offends her more than anything else. “I’ve been amicable! Actually, if anything? I think I’ve been a little too amicable—“

Lucy immediately seizes up, realizing what she’s just referred to, even if it was entirely accidental and not much more than an implication. He just… grins, like she’s just said the most out-of-pocket thing he’s ever heard. He’s enjoying this. He’s enjoying watching her squirm like this. “If yer’ really think two adults’ gotta be amicable t’ get their rocks off when there’s no-one else ‘round t’ take care of it, ya’ got a lot t’ learn, sweetheart — not jus’ bout life on th’ surface, either. ‘Bout life in general. A real fuckin’ lot t’ learn.” He laughs to himself, picking up a Stimpack from the mattress. “Can’t tell me yain’t familiar with this one, now.”

She watches him for the moment, hoping he won’t mention the incident again, and thankfully he doesn’t, seemingly have moved on already, looping back to the assortment of drugs. “I’ve used Stimpacks before,” she confirms.

“On yerself?” He asks, not-eyebrows rising again. He seems surprised. “Well, here I thought ya’ wouldn’t have it in ya’. Folk as green as you tend t’ be squeamish ‘bout needles.” He picks up the remaining Stimpacks and tosses them in the pack with the rest, the syringes clinking against the other bottles inside, leaving an assortment of loaded auto-inject syringes on display, half with green caps, half with red. “Now, th’ ones with th’ green caps—“

He’s cut off by the sound of the dog growling, Lucy jumping a little at the sound of it, the Ghoul immediately getting to his feet, hand on the sawed off in his holster as he slowly approaches the dog, his head turning to look at the door.

“What is it, girl?” He asks, his voice low. Lucy’s entire body tenses up. He was so sure that this bunker was going to be safe, that it was well hidden, off the map, one he’s been using on and off for the last two decades. And Lucy had believed him, either through merit of him offering to bring her with him or just through exhaustion.

Her guns and backpack are sitting on the desk the dog is now standing up under, her boots are off and tucked under her cot, she’s not even wearing her vault suit properly, having unzipped the top and rolled it down her waist where she’s tied the arms around her hips. She’s more vulnerable than usual right now, and that realization hits her like a double black cup of Vault cafeteria coffee. Her heart immediately starts racing and her palms itch as her eyes follow the Ghoul, darting between him and the door intermittently.

The Ghoul stands in front of the desk, coming to a standstill for a moment before he leans down in front of it, inspecting something at the bottom. Is the dog okay? Is it hurt? Has it found something dangerous? A mine? Max mentioned those being a problem further out into the Wilds (whatever they are,) which was another thing Lucy had to add to her continually growing list of things to worry about.

And then he laughs. He fucking laughs. “C’mon, girl,” he chuckles, standing back up and stomping down on something, “don’t tell me ya’ afraid of a lil’ spider after all that.”

He’s a thousand times nicer to the dog than he is to Lucy. She’d be offended if it wasn’t so endearing, like one of the last things about him that indicates to her that he might not actually kill her one day, that maybe there’s still some semblance of a heart in there under all the drugs and murder.

She watches him reach forward and pet the dog, scratching behind its ears as it beams up at him. At least she likes him. Guess someone has to. “I know, I know,” he says, that same soothing tone coming out as before, the one from her Dad’s cowboy movies, reassuring her like he’s actually a cowboy and the dog’s a spooked horse. “Ya’ jus’ doin’ yer job n’ lettin’ us know. Good girl.”

Maybe it’s her insistence on proving when she’s right about things, maybe it’s a desire to prove that she’s not anywhere near as ‘green’ as he still insists she is, or maybe (and more honestly) she acts on impulse because hearing him say ‘good girl’ made her feel a certain way and she’s willing to do anything to side-step that and ignore it completely, but Lucy reaches forward and grabs one of the syringes with a green cap, flicking the cap off with her thumb as soon as she gets a grip on it.

Not only can she absolutely self-inject herself with medication if she needs to (it’s part of the advanced first aid training all Vault citizens in charge of the supervision children are required to take) but it’s not even a basic needle, it’s an auto injector syringe, the same as a Stimpack. All she has to do is find the right spot — like the inside of her forearm — and essentially stab herself with it. So she does.

The hiss of the syringe’s smaller auto injector isn’t as loud as the larger one you’d find on a Stimpack, but it’s loud enough to get The Ghoul’s attention and prompt him to turn around and realize what she’s done. With the syringe still pressed against her arm, she smiles at him as sweetly as possible (as if that could hide the spite she’s obviously acted with.) “See? Easy. I really think you need to stop assuming that I’m—“

“The fuck are ya’ doin?!” He asks, his voice rising, his eyes wide. He doesn’t even look mad at her this time, which totally takes her by surprise. He looks bewildered, like she’s just accidentally blown something up, bringing one of his hands to his forehead as he stares at her, pushing his hat back a little on his head.

“What?” She asks, genuinely confused, pulling away the now empty syringe and staring at it. Should hit any second now, honestly, which she’s grateful for. The more she thinks about her only other experience with Med-X, the more welcome the idea of that warm, comforting euphoria seems right now.

“Red caps,” he exhales, closing his eyes and taking off his hat, “are Med-X.” He places his hat down on the desk behind him, taking a second, like he needs to process whatever she’s just done. “Green caps are Psycho.”

She frowns, looking down at the empty syringe again and trying to wrap her head around this. Red caps? Who uses the color red for Med-X? Med-X is meant to be a helpful drug, it’s 100% green coded. What else was she supposed to think? “What’s…” she pauses, her heart starting to race a little, swallowing audibly, suddenly really anxious about whatever she’s just injected directly into her bloodstream. “What’s ‘Psycho,’ exactly?”

He steps back to the cot, setting aside one of the green capped syringes before holding the opening of his pack at the edge of the bed and using his arm to sweep the rest of the syringes and needles into it, like he’s in a rush. “Ever gone into a state o’ pure violent rage?” He asks her. “Jus’ pure, unbridled, homicidal fury?” He pops the cap off the needle he set aside, Lucy only responding with wide eyes and a quick shake of her head. “Well, back when I was fightin’ in Anchorage, they usedta’ dose us up with the military version o’ that t’ make sure we did.” Without any warning or hesitation, he takes his own syringe and stabs it into the side of his neck, making Lucy flinch back and gasp aloud because in his neck? Not literally anywhere else? “So I guess ya’ bout ta’ find out.”

Lucy opens her mouth to say something but baulks, her hands gripping the blanket on the cot mattress as a wave of anxiety washes over her. She feels like she’s in immediate danger, and despite her best efforts to tell herself she’s not, it’s like there’s something inside her screaming. She takes a deep breath, her eyes snapping to The Ghoul, who’s let his head drop back while it presumably hits him faster because he injected it directly into his neck for some reason. “Why did you take it?” She asks, immediately noticing that her voice is trembling.

“Well, sweetheart,” he begins, bringing his head upright again and tilting it side to side, his neck audibly clicking, “seen plenty o’ men much bigger and used t’ the ol’ stimulants than you lose their minds on Psycho,” he explains. “Now, if that happens, only thing between you n’ a gun I can’t much trust ya’ with is me. N’ while I’m confident that ya’d need a lot more than a hit’ o’ the juice t’ take me in a fist fight, it’s gonna save me a lotta’ time.”

“I hate this,” she blurts quickly, suddenly extremely aware of her own breathing. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears, and the bottom of her throat aches like she’s just done three hours sprinting on a treadmill. “Are you listening to me?” She snaps when he doesn’t respond immediately. “I said I hate this!”

She starts swinging her legs about on the edge of the cot, suddenly overcome by an uncontrollable impulse to move them. “Then I’d suggest that in future? Ya’ make sure ya’ know what ya’ dealin’ with ‘fore ya shoot up with it.” She can hear him grinning but she’s too busy trying to satisfy the urge in her legs, and next thing she knows she’s up on her feet, pacing back and forth. “Hey, hey, hey,” he says, raising his palms towards her from the corner of her vision. “Easy now, jus’ try t’ slow down that breathin’ and—“

“How long does this last?” She asks.

“Depends.”

“Depends?”

“Ol’ timer like me? ‘Round 20 minutes give or take if it ain’t chased up with Mentats or Buffout.” He pauses, pointing at her. “Wouldn’t recommend Buffout as a mixer, by the way. Not ‘less ya ready t’ break ya’ own fingers punchin’ some poor fuck’s head in. But someone like you without a tolerance?” He continues. “Up t’ an hour.”

Lucy groans out loud as she continues pacing, staring as the floor as she does so. “Fuck!” She snaps. She can literally feel her scalp dampening with sweat. Her sinuses have dried out and her nose stings when she inhales. Her mouth is dry and all she can taste is metal. She’s sure she’s either having a heart attack or is about to have a heart attack, either one. Her entire body is on fire and her skin is hot like she has a fever, and the panic has, at some stage, shifted from anxiety to excitement. She’s so excited, anticipating literally nothing but overcome by it all the same. She either wants to fight someone or fuck someone, either one is fine. Both are bad but she wants them anyway, and the concept of violence or sex or both is making her mouth water like if she was starving and staring at a steak, like when she hadn’t had a proper drink in three days and found that puddle of dirty water to drink and The Ghoul laughed at her while she fell to her knees and drank something that would make her sick like he’d won. The Ghoul. Fuck. She fucked him. Right. And it was great. He wasn’t like Chet who was all soft and shy and gentle and scared he was gonna do something she didn’t like or want. The Ghoul either didn’t give a fuck or he knew better than Lucy and knew what she needed, like he knew what’s been repressed inside her this whole time and could keep up with it. She can ask him. She can ask him because this is technically a medical emergency and she knows she can do what ever the fuck is inside her and clawing to get out needs and he won’t get weird about it with her.

“Movin’ helps,” he offers. “Faster ya’ heart pumps, quicker ya’ system can filter it out.”

She nods for way longer than she should, still pacing. High heart rate? Okay, she can do that. It’s a small space but if pacing isn’t cutting it, maybe she can as a jump at the end of each lap, or maybe she can do some jumping jacks, or push ups, or she can just fuck The Ghoul again until this stuff is out of her system or he bashes her brains out against the wall while she cums god she hopes he bashes her head against the wall again because she hasn’t stopped thinking about that since and she can’t even control her own train of thought right now and it keeps going and going and she’s out of control and she really needs help right now and—

“Wanna have sex?” she asks, coming to a sudden and complete stop in front of him, locking eyes with him, totally aware of how absolutely insane she must look and sound right now but unable to see any other option that makes sense to her Psycho ridden brain.

The Ghoul blinks, dumbfounded. She can see something in his eyes, a little bit of a wildness to them, same as when she first met him in Filly, but the disbelief cuts right through. He might be high on Psycho right now, but Lucy is clearly on another planet in comparison. “Fuckin’— ’Scuse me?”

“Do. You. Wanna. Have. Sex?” She repeats, unable to hide her impatience. The time for that is long passed. As far as she’s concerned right now, this is potentially life or death, even though she knows that logically, that makes zero sense and is ridiculous. He opens his mouth, already shaking his head, looking at her like she’s pathetic and god she hopes he fucks her like that too, but she gets in before he can. “We don’t even have to like each other, right? You said that yourself!” She points at him like she’s accusing him even though she’s talking at a hundred miles a minute like she’s just cracked the code to cold fusion or something. “You did! You literally just said it!”

“Ya’int wrong,” he concedes, taking a breath. She can see he’s tensing up, like he’s holding something back. He probably wants to cuss her out and tell her to sit down right now because she’s acting like a lunatic, but he also probably doesn’t want her to flip out, even though he could easily overpower her if it came down to a physical fight — he has before. “An’ as fond as th’ memory of breakin’ ya’ in like I did is, I’m ‘fraid that addin’ chems t’ the mix is—“

“I just wanna feel anything else,” she cuts in, her voice cracking a little, the volume irregular and her tone unstable as though the words have somehow cut right through the Psycho induced mania, dripping in honesty, desperation. “Anything else but this.” Her entire body is trembling now, not from fear or anxiety or the hot and cold flushes she’s having, but because every single major muscle in her body cannot stop tensing up involuntarily.

She can’t be sure how long he stands there watching her, sizing her up, considering it. Realistically, it’s probably not that long, maybe only a few seconds, but trying to stand still is agony and it feels like forever before he finally speaks. “Y’ sure?” he asks. “We already established I ain’t one t’ look a gift horse in the mouth, but when there’s Psycho involved, y’ might get hurt, sweetheart.” God, she fucking hopes so. “Yer smart ‘nuff t’ know what’s goin’ on here, so I’ll leave it up t’—“

“Please.” She wants him so fucking badly right now that her eyes would probably be watering if she wasn’t ready to start punching the walls. Maybe there’s still time to punch the walls instead, focus on that and pretend she never got to the point where she was so desperate for it that she was literally pleading for sex.

The Ghoul exhales, looking back to the desk where the dog is fast asleep despite Lucy getting ready to start gnawing on the bunker’s support beams. “Well, call me a bleedin’ heart,” he begins, sounding as though he’s admitting defeat and turning his attention back to her, a grin on his face, the same grin that says he’s about to start trouble, that he’s getting up to no good — the exact one she was hoping to see. “But ya’ know I jus’ can’t say no to ya when ya’ beg like that.”

It’s hard to tell who approaches who first, but they collide with each-other like… something that collides together. Atoms? She’s way too fucked up right now to work that metaphor out, too busy clawing at him and grabbing on to whatever part of his vest or shirt he can grab as he grabs under her thighs and hoists her up off the floor, her legs instinctively wrapping around him as he carries her the few steps he needs to the cot while she kisses at his jaw, working down to his neck like she’s trying to find the right spot to sink her teeth into.

Without warning, he tosses her onto the cot, causing her to cry out in surprise as he climbs onto the mattress above her, shrugging the overcoat off and leaving it where it falls on the floor. He reaches up and grabs at his vest again, trying to get some kind of purchase so she can sit herself up and get her mouth on his skin — literally any part of his skin she can get to — but he grabs her wrist and stops her, his free hand grabbing her undershirt and trying to pull it over her head in one swift movement. Getting the signal, she shrugs off the rest of it as he kneels over her on the cot, quickly reaching to the band of her bra and practically ripping that off over her head as well, one of his hands already on her breast before the bra even hits the floor.

Her hands move to the bunched up arms of her Vault suit which she’d haphazardly tied around her hips earlier, not wasting any time on untying them but rather opting to just try and push the entire garment off. She struggles at first, but his hand grips it at the front and yanks as hard as he did the last time, getting it at least down to her thighs. Before she can push it down further though, he grabs her hand at the wrist again, yanking it towards him and bringing her palm to press against him so she can feel how hard he already is. “Fuck,” she breathes, hesitating for just a second (not even a second) before she gently grips it with her fingers through the fabric, having to swallow her saliva at the shape of it as she remembers how fucking good it felt inside her. His grip on her wrist tightens a little as he goes a poor job as stifling a groan as she feels him and fuck she wants it so bad. She wants it in her hands and inside her and even in her mouth even though she feels like that is letting him win, which when she thinks about it that way makes the idea even hotter somehow.

It’s not her talking, she knows that. It’s the Psycho. Or, well, maybe it is her talking, but it’s the part of her that she’s been (as he’d say) ‘repressing’ and the Psycho is just letting it out. Whatever. It feels good right now and that’s all that matters to her in the moment as he lowers himself down and kisses one breast after the other, taking the second one into his mouth and immediately sucking hard enough to make her cry out and arch her back. He bites at her nipple and she grips at sheets either side of her head, every single sensation about 200x louder thanks to the Psycho, the drug not dulling the pain at all but making her want it, mixing up the signals in her head and making it feel just as good as his fingers, which have slipped down the exposed waistband of her underwear and in between her legs. “God fuckin’ damn,” he murmurs, coming up for air as she manages to wiggle her way out of the rest of the suit, kicking it off as his fingers keep exploring her. “Always so fuckin’ wet. He slides his index and middle fingers into her at once, as though to demonstrate how ready she already is, the position of his hand allowing his thumb to press down against her clit. Is he gonna do both? “Question is; is it because you’re that desperate lil’ slut I always knew ya’ were? Or is it all fer me?” He curls up the fingers inside her the same way he did last time, the way she likes it, his thumb simultaneously moving in those same tiny circular motions and oh my god he’s doing both. She arches her back into it, whining with absolutely no reservation as he leans against her so she can feel his breath against her ear. “Wonder how many times I can make ya’ cum ‘fore it’s outta ya’ system,” he says, his voice rumbling a little in how low it is. “Reckon’ three might be my lucky number today.”

Her eyes widen. Three? Three times? Is that even— can she even do that? Is her body even capable of that? He takes her nipple back into his mouth as he keeps pressing that spot inside her, his thumb continuing to rub her clit, and she’s already so fucking overwhelmed that all she can do is run her hands over his back, her nails grazing along the fabric of the vest and shirt that she really wishes were on the floor with the rest of her clothes because god she just wants to feel every fucking inch of him right now and her skin is screaming for the skin-to-skin. She manages to get a hold of the vest, tugging on it enough to communicate what she can’t with her words because the only sounds she can make are whimpers and moans.

Releasing her nipple again, he grunts. “Not yet,” he mumbles before planting a final kiss on that breast. She lets out a groan of disappointment and he responds by applying more pressure with the fingers inside her, causing her to audibly curse.

“But—“

“Gotta’ warm ya’ up first,” he interjects, speeding up. “’Cause the way I’m ‘boutta fuck ya’? Might break somethin’ otherwise.”

“F-fuck,” her hips automatically start grinding against his hand and she tilts her head downwards to get a visual. One of his hands is, sure enough, inside her underwear and between her legs, pumping against her, meeting her hips in a rhythm that’s building with every second. The other is palming himself through his pants, and without even thinking she reaches down and bats his hand aside, replacing it with hers. He makes the noise, the sound that would, in any other situation, make her worry he was about to go feral — but right now? It’s all she wants to fucking hear, and she feels herself clench around his fingers in response.

“Ya want it?” He asks her, keeping his movements at a moderate pace as her fingers smooth themselves up the outline of him and come to the button of his fly, fidgeting with it in an attempt to unbutton it. His free hand once again holds her wrist, stopping her. “Tell me,” he says. “Tell me what ya’ want, sweetheart.”

This time, he doesn’t have to tell her to use her words, Lucy not hesitating for even a second. “I want you to fuck—“ she’s overcome by his touch momentarily, cutting herself off in favor of a moan she can’t swallow. “—I want you to fuck me.” She gazes up at him, gaging his response, and while he’s not displeased, it’s not what he’s after, either. “I want your cock. Please.”

He groans from deep within his chest, his pace speeding up in response. “Ya’ got no fuckin’ idea how much I love seein’ that wholesome lil’ Vaultie mouth o’ yours talk like that,” he says as he matches the force of his hands to match the speed until she’s so wet and he’s finger fucking her so hard that she can hear it and it’s loud. She takes her free hand and, by instinct, brings it to her mouth, covering it as she cries out, getting closer and closer despite her competitive nature screaming at her to not give in and let him win. The Ghoul immediately grabs her arm, pulling her hand away and — he slaps her. “Don’t ya’ fuckin’ dare,” he warns her. He wants to hear her and oh god he’s so possessive over it that he fucking slapped her in the face for it and it was so hot holy fuck. The adrenaline and shock of the impact immediately throws her over the edge, almost violently, both of her hands clinging to his vest as she cums against his hand, the Psycho amplifying how good it feels that it’s almost suffocating, her hips jerking as she releases a long and basically incoherent string of ‘fuck’ and ‘yes’ and ‘don’t stop’ and ‘fuck me’ over and over again until she’s out of breath.

Usually, in Lucy’s experience, she’s a one and done girl. Not that finishing means sex has to totally finish — it’s a two way street, after all, and she finishes what she starts — but that’s the point where she’s achieved what she’s after and the rest of the encounter is about her partner having a good time. The hunger is sated, so to speak.

But Psycho changes the entire game, apparently, because once she’s caught her breath and she remembers where she is? She leans up on to her elbows, watching him, waiting to see what his next move is and desperately hoping it involves his dick because this time? The hunger is not sated. Not even close. And to add to that? That climax was the calmest she’s felt since the Psycho hit. He was right — an increased heart rate does help, even though it’s nowhere near cleared from her system yet, not by any stretch.

Already positioned between her legs, he withdraws his hand, holding it up to the light, inspecting the results, and if Lucy wasn’t out of her mind on some kind of frightening mega stimulant right now, she’d probably be a little embarrassed by the state of them. “Must be half o’ th’ west coast’s water supply right there,” he quips, seeming pretty pleased with himself. Already impatient, she reaches out again and tugs on the bottom of his vest.

“Can we keep going?” she asks, realizing she sounds just as desperate as before — probably to his delight, actually. “Please?”

He smirks, glancing at her momentarily, lowering his hand. Almost predictably, he brings his fingers to her lips, just like last time. Unlike last time, though, there’s no hesitation on her part and she keenly takes them into her mouth, bobbing her head forward as she sucks them clean, The Ghoul giving a long, deep exhale in response. “Ya’ like that, huh?” He asks. It’s entirely rhetorical, of course. Obviously she liked it. Still, she looks up at him, his fingers still in her mouth, nodding as she sweeps her tongue along the bottom side of them and she sees his neck physically strain as he clearly holds something back.

He lets her continue for a second, clearly enjoying it as much as she is, before he leans down, his free arm holding him up as he looms over her, fingers still in her mouth. “What if I told ya’ one o’ them fingers is yours?”

She frowns, confused because what kind of sentence is that? and he withdraws his fingers, holding them up in front of her face, letting her get a good look. Sure enough, the middle finger is definitely his, the skin the same texture as his face… but the index finger… it’s different. It’s more slender, the skin healthy and pretty much ‘normal’ looking, the half-moon on the nail really healthy, actually. Hell, even the cuticle looks hydrated—

Didn’t she bite that finger off?

Her eyes widen and she looks up at him, horrified. It’s her finger. On his hand. And he just used it to fuck her. And he’s beaming at her like this is Christmas for him. “What the fuck—“

She’s interrupted when he suddenly and without warning grabs her hips, pulling her entire body further down the mattress and against him until hes pressed against her, grinding himself against her, the only barrier being his pants and her increasingly obsolete underwear. He holds her firmly against him for a moment before bringing one of his hands to his belt. “Don’t ‘spose ya’ got around between last time we did this n’ now, did ya?” He asks.

“Like, sex?” she practically pants, her skin on fucking fire again, finding it really hard to even focus on what he’s saying right now while she can feel how fucking hard he is. “No.”

“That so?” He asks, releasing the buckle of his belt, his eyebrows rising as though he doesn’t believe her. “So you was just cryin’ all over that white knight o’ yours for no reason?” He opens his belt next, starting on the button of his fly and Lucy swears this is taking a thousand years and it’s torture. “Dunno’ if I’m willin’ t’ buy that, sweetheart.”

“No!” She insists, panicking all of a sudden. “I didn’t! We didn’t!”

The button opened, he stops just short of opening his fly, one hand still holding her hips firmly in place. She’s been still for too long and she’s fucking squirming. “He seemed real keen on comin’ t’ ya’ rescue back in Filly,” he recalls aloud. “Ya’ sure he didn’t take a poke ‘atcha?”

“I’m sure,” she whines. “We even talked about it and he didn’t want to! I don’t have anything, I promise!” Lucy immediately regrets telling him this. She regrets it before she even finishes saying it.

The Ghoul smiles, laughing under his breath. “Oh, no, no, no, sweetheart,” he coos using the same tone as the cowboys use with the horses godfuckingdamnit why is that so hot? “I ain’t askin’ ‘cause I’m worried ‘bout where ya’ been. Don’t reckon’ I got any room t’ judge on that front.” The smile turns into a grin, the dangerous one. “I’m askin’ ‘cause I wanted t’ hear ‘bout how ya’ thought ‘bout me th’ whole time, jus’ like I promised last time I had ya’.”

Even the memory of him saying that stuns her for a second. Of course. One of the hottest things anyone has ever said to her, how could she possibly forget? But before she can even collect her own thoughts, his fly is open and her underwear is moved aside and his dick is inside her and she forgets how breathing works for a hot minute. “Fuuuck,” is all she can squeeze out of her throat as he immediately sinks into her all the way, holding still for a moment just to really let her drink in how perfectly he fills her before he starts to fuck her, skipping the slow introduction and getting right to grabbing one of her legs by the back of the thigh and pushing it backwards, giving himself deeper access.

“You—“ he cuts himself off, groaning. “You said… he didn’t wanna?” He asks through his teeth. “Good. Best I’ve had in a hundred fuckin’ years.” He groans again, helping himself to a particularly deep stroke that makes her cry out so loudly that it’s almost a scream. “He ain’t earned it, not by a fuckin’ long shot.”

Normally, she’d melt for this, his possessiveness hitting different even though in every other scenario, he makes it really clear that he doesn’t care if she lives or dies. But the drugs are— “And you did?” she asks breathlessly, her adrenaline spiking again, thrilled by the idea of picking a fight right now, unable to let it go. She wants him to get mad. She wants him to lash out, to slap her again.

“Did a damn sight—“ he punctuates it with an especially hard thrust, “more than I needed ta’. Reckon’ I was th’ only thing ‘tween you n’—“

“That’s funny,” she laughs over the top of him as he pushes her leg even further back until he can rest it up over his shoulder. “I seem to remember you half-dead on the ground like an old man when I walked out of that store with all the—“

He reaches out and grips her neck, immediately squeezing at her throat, way harder than last time, his teeth bared. Oh, maybe he’s actually angry. He could kill her like this if he wanted, and Lucy will no doubt freak out over that later, but right now it’s scratching the itch that the Psycho’s created. “Don’t fuckin’ call me that.”

She brings her hand to his arm instinctively, holding on to it, as if she could pry him off her, as if she’d want to. The more dangerous this gets, the more she pushes and the more he lashes out and does things like slap her or choke her, the better it feels. Psycho is terrible, but like this? It’s incredible. The only response she can formulate is in the form of a smile, a grin of her own, and she can tell right away that he’s clocked what it means, his eyes softening ever so much.

“Yer’ playin’ a dangerous game there, Miss MacLean,” he warns her, the volume of his voice dipping again. God it’s hot when he does that. Scary, but hot. “Real dangerous.”

“Sorry,” she essentially whispers under his grip, their eyes locked. “Didn’t know your age was a touchy subject, old man.”

He makes the noise, the growl, the sound that makes her writhe in anticipation, and then squeezes, not just the sides like before, but pressing down against her airway. There’s a primal reaction that occurs, even under the blanket of Psycho, making her eyes widen as and her grip on his forearm tighten as he begins to literally strangle her, and while it looks for a second like maybe he might stop, Lucy smiles through it all and he laughs to himself. “It’s always the wholesome ones.” His other hand hoists her other leg upwards, like the first, over his shoulder forcing her hips up and backwards even more, her lower body curling up beneath him as he fucks her so hard that the entire frame of the bunk loudly strains against the movement.

She can’t breathe, at all, but the more she struggles to get by on the air in her lungs, the closer she wears she gets, like some kind of strange shortcut. She can feel her chest spasming in an involuntary attempt to find air, but she’s way too focused on how good he feels and how he’s so deep inside her that she almost swears she can feel it in her lower abdomen and it would probably hurt if she wasn’t high out of her mind. The lack of oxygen starts to make her hearing go funny, kind of like her ears are underwater or full of cotton, and sound becomes strangely muffled until the only sounds registering to her are that of her own breathing and his grunts and groans and the way he curses under his breath, both taking up her focus along with how good he feels inside her as he fucks her almost violently. His hand feels so hot on her neck — literally so — and she’s unsure if it’s just because he’s physically exerting himself or because his body temperature runs so unusually warm. Maybe it’s a Ghoul thing, but it feels nice against her throat, almost soothing while every other cell in her body seems to run at a thousand miles a minute. She’s so close, her body straining like it’s as desperate to get there as she is because she’s balancing on the edge and just needs one extra push because she’s starting to see stars now and her vision is tunneling and—

His hand smacks down against her ass and she’s gone, wanting to moan and scream and announce her defeat, but she physically can’t get the sound out as her body reacts without her. Her hips buck erratically, her legs tense and tremble, her nails dig into his forearm so hard that she’s sure the ones that are in contact with his skin at the wrist must be able to draw blood. “That’s it,” his voice is strained as he maintains pace. He says something else, but she’s not sure what it is, and the next thing she registers is a slap across her face.

She gasps for air, a long, agonizing inhale that hurts her lungs and immediately makes her cough, sitting up on her elbows again. The Ghoul still looms over her, looking a little… relieved. “Rise n’ shine,” he says, lightly tapping her cheek a a few more times as she coughs and sputters, her eyes watering.

“Wha-“

“Lost ya’ fer a second there, killer.”

She coughs again, frowning. A perfectly good orgasm interrupted. “What—“ her breathing is ragged, her airway feels like sandpaper. He’s not inside her anymore. “Fuck.”

“Easy now,” he insists, bringing a palm to her sternum and pushing her back down onto the mattress (surprisingly gently.) “Reckon’ ya’ oughta’ catch ya’ breath first.”

“N-no,” she insists, trying to push back and get back up onto her elbows, her arms trembling from either oxygen deprivation or adrenaline. Probably both. “You— y-you—“

“Promised ya’ three?” He laughs. “Maybe if ya’ didn’t nearly die on th’ second.” He smirks as he says this. He’s so fucking pleased with himself. “Ain’t no shame in tappin’ out, fer the record. Far less embarassin’ than havin’ t’ explain that ya’ died getting ya’—“

“S-stop.”

“—Guts rearranged—“

“Shut up.”

“—by an ‘old man’—“

“I actually hate you, do you know that?”

“—when ya’ get t’ the pearly gates.”

In a sudden burst of energy (and rage) that is 100% fueled by the psycho, Lucy pushes up off her elbows and lunges up at him, gripping his shoulders and bringing one of her legs to his side. She turns her body, leveraging her body weight, momentum, and the fact she’s caught him off guard (which is extremely rare) to effectively swap their positions, The Ghoul suddenly on his back beneath her, Lucy on top of him, straddling him with her hands bracing his shoulders.

She’s beaming. After taking so much crap from him constantly, she’s finally bested him at something, even if it’s something petty like this and she fully anticipates that he’s just going to grab her by the hair of the hair and throw her to the ground.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he smiles, his eyebrows lifting, blinking a little, clearly surprised. “Can’t say I was expectin’ this outta’ you, sweetheart,” he admits. “But I can’t say I got any complaints, either.” She shifts her weight a little, and judging by how hard he still is, he’s telling the truth. She removes one hand from his shoulder and reaches between her legs, taking him in her hand — and even though she honestly just wants to feel him for a while because after all this she’s so curious about what his dick looks and feels like in her hands — she lifts her hips and aligns him with her before slowly dropping them back down, taking him slowly as gravity does the work.

Her head involuntarily lolls back as she sighs in relief, like she needs to fuck him like she needs water. His hands find their way to her hips, splaying out so his palms are directly against her skin, his fingers pressing into the top of her thighs as he holds her and she eases onto him, stilling for a moment when she’s taken all of him. Unable to stifle a whine, she almost involuntarily starts shifting her hips, swaying them back and forth in a movement so fluid that she wonders if it’s skill or something deeper, something biological, something ancient that’s survived along with humanity, embedded in her DNA.

He curses under his breath, but unlike the other times, it’s not loud or rough or through his teeth when he says ‘fuck.’ It’s slow, elongated, almost like he’s in awe of what’s happening. It honestly might worry her a little if her head was screwed on right, might make her think he’s getting ideas she’s not ready to deal with — but she’s far too worried with chasing the next rush, something else to ride out this high on. “Reckon’ I could—“ he pauses to let out a long exhale, “—get real fuckin’ used t’ this.”

“Mmmmhmm.” Her moan is in the affirmative as she angles her hips a little more forward, allowing herself to take deeper strokes. “Try not to.”

“I might actually consider comin’ through with my original offer if ya’ could get down off that high horse yer always on,” he says, stretching his fingers on one hand out and sliding it to the front of her hip to press his thumb to her clit. “Keep ya’ fer myself.” He smirks as she moans and closes her eyes at his touch. “Maybe give ya’ somethin’ t’ put in that mouth t’ put an end t’ the yappin’.”

Lucy opens her eyes only to roll them before dropping her gaze back down to his chest. He’s still wearing the fucking vest and shirt and she wants to get them off him so bad so she can feel if the rest of his skin runs as hot as his hands. She considers just going for it, unbuttoning the vest without seeking his permission first and seeing where it goes — but it feels forbidden. The Ghoul is the kind of man who would have if he wanted to, and he still hasn’t, despite having plenty of time, despite how uncomfortable wearing his gun belt while he has sex might be.

“Are you at least gonna take off the belt?” She asks. “Y’know, so I don’t get my leg blown off while I have sex with you.”

“’S’kinda the point,” he says with a smile, removing the hand from between her legs and tapping the handle of his sawed off. “Can’t be sure if I gotta shoot ya’ down or not with all the dumb decisions I catcha’ makin’.”

She shakes her head, unable to help but roll her eyes again. “Okay, old man, but I know you wouldn’t—

Lucy can’t tell if it’s because the Psycho is finally wearing off a little bit, because she let her guard down, or because he’s just abnormally quick, but he draws the sawed off and has it pointed in her face so quickly that it takes her a few seconds to realize what she’s staring down and goes completely still. “I would,” he says, his tone switching up so quickly that she swears she can feel the temperature drop. “Now, you n’ me, sweetheart, we can keep on makin’ these bad decisions. We can keep on goin’ with th’ hatefuckin’ all th’ way t’ Nevada if that’s th’ way th’ wind’s blowin’. I’ll help you get high as a kite n’ fuck ya’ t’ sleep every night if that’s gon’ make ya’ feel less like some Vault-Tec lab rat n’ more like a grown woman.” He jerks the gun just a little, just enough to make her flinch. “But don’t you ever, even for a second, think that I won’t blow that pretty lil’ head o’ yers five ways t’ Arizona if presented with a situation that calls fer it.”

Despite this new, ‘wild’ version of herself thanks to the Psycho, there’s still a people-pleaser in Lucy and right now it is begging to try and justify herself to him. She wants to shake her head and try desperately to reassure him that she doesn’t think he’d kill her because she doesn’t ever plan on putting him in a position where he needs to.

But the gun is still pointed at her. And her heart is racing again. And her mouth is watering.

Very slowly and extremely cautiously, Lucy reaches forward with one hand, locking eyes with his as she very delicately places her hand over his — the one holding the handle, its fingers (one of them hers) on the trigger. At first, she waits, leaving it there, giving him an opportunity to pull away or something, but he doesn’t, and once Lucy is satisfied he’s willing to see where this goes, she carefully pulls his hand — and the sawed off — towards her face until it’s pressed against her lips.

She waits a moment, her lips kissing the barrel, watching him for any objections or protests. This is the stupidest thing she has ever done, by far. It’s risky enough being naked and vulnerable with this man as it is, but this? This is something else. This is beyond risky. It’s a death wish. It’s unhinged. It’s the horniest she has ever been in her entire fucking life and when she sees his jaw tense and feels his cock twitch inside her, she knows he feels the same way.

Lucy parts her lips and takes the barrel of the gun into her mouth. The energy between them in this moment is nothing short of volcanic. She waits a beat until she hears him audibly swallow and manages to think through the horny-fog long enough to realize he’s looking at her like she’s just turned water into oil and then, maintaining that eye contact, lets her head slide a little forward, taking even more of it, the same as she would him if he wanted her to.

Is this a display of trust? Or is it just proof that Lucy has finally lost it, that she doesn’t care if she lives or dies anymore? Maybe it’s both, maybe it’s neither, but either way, the only word she can use to describe how The Ghoul reacts is (for lack of a better term) feral.

At first, he holds the gun in place, rutting his hips upwards into her so roughly that she’s nearly thrown off him. He quickly sits himself up, keeping the gun in her mouth and his cock inside her as he positions himself to sit upright, Lucy straddling his lap, the two of them facing each other now, practically chest to chest. “Fuckin’—“ He stops, growling through his teeth as he wraps his free arm around her back at the waist, “you got no fuckin’ idea!” His arm grips her so tightly that it legitimately cracks her back. “No fuckin’ idea how lucky you are,” he says so low that she can feel it vibrating in his chest against her as he starts fucking up into her, bouncing her in tandem so that she’s pulled down forcefully into every thrust, “that my boys can’t swim no more.” She lets out a surprised cry that’s muffled by the loaded firearm that’s half way down her throat. “Cause’ yer fuckin’ askin’ fer me t’ fuck ya’ ‘til I send ya’ back t’ that Vault with a baby in ya’.” He laughs at himself, breathless, fucking her so hard that she involuntarily whimpers with each thrust, The Ghoul fucking the sound out of her. “Wouldn’t that be jus’ peachy?” He asks between heavy, ragged breaths, “trackin’ down ya’ stuck pig of an ol’ man n’ not jus’ gettin’ t’ introduce him t’ consequence, but gettin’ ta’ tell ‘im I been slippin’ it to his daughter?” He throws his hack back, laughing loudly and deliberately. “N’ what better a man t’ do it to ‘er?”

He would find that funny. He would get off on that, on something like fucking a woman while his gun’s in her mouth and he laughs about bragging to her father — her father who he hates for some reason. He would because he’s sick, he’s depraved, he enjoys killing people, he eats people and he does it frequently enough to have a well practiced method for making ass-jerky.

And despite all that, despite him being the most unpleasant, unlikeable, unsafe sociopath she’s ever met in her entire life — he wants her. Not only does he want her, but he wants her bad enough to set down the worst of his self serving and cynical beliefs and make sure she gets off (even if none of this is normal or healthy) because for some reason wants her to feel good. The Ghoul wants her so bad that he’s putting her first, even if it’s only for now, even if it stops as soon as they’re done getting dressed. Lucy suddenly understands why so many people will do anything in the pursuit of power: the rush is unlike anything else. It outclasses joy, sex, even Psycho — and it dawns on her that it’s far more dangerous than all three combined.

She tries to warn him, she really does, but she can’t form words with the gun pressing down on her tongue like this. Her legs start trembling again (actually, her entire lower body starts shaking), and he must be able to feel it coming because he finally pulls the gun out of her mouth, a long string of her own spit falling from the barrel and down her face as she gasps for air. “Don’t stop!” She pleads. “Don’t stop—“

She’s cut off with a smack to the face that’s hard enough to snap her head to the side, making her dizzy for a second and absolutely throwing her head first over the fucking edge.

“Oh shit—“ her hips start to buck and she cries out, trying — needing — to find something to hold on to and thank god he kept the vest on — but her eyes are closed and she reaches a little bit too high up and grabs his shoulders instead by accident but she’s so far gone to realize that they’re sliding over them by habit. She lets out a long, loud, raw moan that seems to come from the very core of her, muffled by the space between his neck and his shoulder which her face is now apparently buried in, her arms looped around the back of his neck and holding on for dear life while he continues fucking the very little remaining amount of her brains out.

She stays like that for a while, on another planet, catching her breath, coming down from the sheer sensory overload as his pace starts to slow a little. Did he finish? Did she come so hard that she missed it? It’s only after a few moments that she realizes the position she’s in, how close they are (by the standards of two people ‘hate-fucking,’ as he’d put it.) He’s holding her and it’s almost normal. She can hear his heart beat. It’s so intimate, especially for him — for them — but she’s honestly so out of it right now that the idea of moving seems like an uphill battle.

He laughs, his chest rumbling against her face as he gentle pushes her shoulder back a little, Lucy just flopping back against him like her bones have melted, feeling so warm and floaty that she could go to sleep here if she wasn’t completely sure that he’d kill her before she woke up. “Looks like it’s outta’ ya’ system, alright.”

She tilts her head upwards t’ look at him, letting out a low, content hum, even though he’s still actively fucking her, but the glow she’s experiencing is rudely interrupted when he grabs her by the hair and throws her off the cot, Lucy squealing as she hits the floor with a thud, leaving her in a naked heap on the concrete. Reeling, she blinks a few times, getting her bearings and lifting her head up just in time to watch him stand up and step over to her, his dick in one hand (if she’d wanted a look before, she’s getting one now, at least, and it’s got the texture she’d expected,) while the other reaches for her hair again.

Lucy might be naive, she might be green, she might be a dumb little Vaultie who doesn’t know what she’s doing and is too trusting, but she has a pretty solid idea of what’s about to happen as he yanks her towards him, standing over her, his breathing wild and unmanaged as he stares down at her. She expects him to say something while he does this, his dick right in front of her face while he strokes himself with an urgency that makes her stomach twist. Seems like a prime opportunity to berate her.

The Ghoul doesn’t, though. Satisfied she’s positioned where he wants, he releases her hair, bringing his hand to the side of her neck and brushing the rest of it back to expose her neck and shoulder. His gaze fixates on something there and although it confuses her at first, he reaches down and runs his thumb over the spot where her neck meets her shoulders, the bruised skin aching a little at his touch. It’s the bite mark from last time, the giant black and blue circular bruise that had the Vault 4 Doctor asking her if she’d had a run in with some Fiends. He stares at it for a second, then looks at her, and then closes his eyes, grunting through his teeth, Lucy shutting her own just as the abnormally warm (she thinks) liquid hits her cheek in thick, sporadic droplets.

They both stay in place like that for a few moments, both of them catching their breath, Lucy trying to keep her head in check now that she feels like her entire self has been liquefied. Eventually, she hears him give a definitive grunt, his belt jingling and the sound of his boots moving a little big away as he starts to rummage around in something. As she opens her eyes (thank god none of it got on her lashes,) she catches him just in time to watch him kneel down in front of her with some kind of scrap of cloth. Silently, spare for his own breathing, he brings it to her face, wiping his cum away, taking her chin in his other hand at one stage and tilting it to the side to get a better look in the light so he doesn’t miss any. “There we go,” he says under his breath, tossing the cloth aside before taking one of her arms and throwing it over his shoulders. “Reckon’ it’s time fer’ you t’ ‘ave the best sleep of ya’ goddamn life.”

He helps her up, essentially carrying her to bed because her legs have turned to jelly, making sure she gets not just on to the cot but in it, standing over her the whole time, as though he’s worried she might try to stay awake. “’Fore you do, though,” he says, quickly reaching around to take his canteen from the pack and unscrewing the lid. “C’mon.” She takes the canteen, holding it in both her hands and throwing it back with her head, drinking what she considers to be a fair amount (it’s not really much.) “Thank you,” she says, laying back down under the blanket as he screws the lid back on.

“Don’t reckon’ I’d be too polite if I didn’t keep ya’ hydrated after ya let me—”

He looks up from the canteen. She’s already asleep.

He watches her for a moment, trying to figure out how he’s meant to feel and unsure what aspect of this predicament is the one he should be most ashamed of. Not an ethical lay, maybe, but she needed it almost as badly as he did.

He twists around to look at the desk. The dog is still under is, curled up, but it opens his eyes to stare back at him.

He points towards the dog, giving it a slow, singular nod. A warning nod. “I don’ wanna hear it.”