#fic: best laid plans

[druidgroves]

Chapter 13: It's All In the Game

Fandom: Fallout 4 Words: 7,475 Characters: Georgia Tate (Canon Divergent Sole Survivor), Nate, RJ MacCready, Nick Valentine, Conrad Kellogg Notes: content warnings for graphic-ish descriptions of gore? canon standard tbh but just thought i'd give a heads up :) enjoy ! read on ao3 / read on tumblr

August 28th, 2075. 7 PM.

The place Nate ends up taking her to is a dive bar near some place called Fort Hagen, a military base, one he tells her he spends lots of time at with his friends. Its patrons were mostly servicemen, which was how Nate found out about it and it isn’t exactly prime date material in Georgia’s mind, but he reassures her that it’s a fun place.

“Something is always going down there,” he says, and he’s cute enough that she lets it slide. It’s only one date; she might as well see where this goes, right?

On the drive there, she learns that he’s been out of the military for a few months now, and picked up a job as a line manager in his uncle’s Corvega factory. He brags about being one of the only managers who likes to actually be out on the floor with the guys, and she’s able to spin it as him being dedicated to his job. He blows past a stop sign on a thankfully empty street when he grins over at her in the passenger seat.

“Aren’t you the little optimist,” he says, one hand on the wheel and the other on the arm rest between them. “I’ll have to tell that one to the boys at work next time they give me shit.”

“I’m a brightside kinda gal, what can I say?”

“That you are,” Nate agrees. “You’ll fit right in at the bar. They’ve got a jukebox, karaoke, a pool table. You’ll love it.”

“Pool?” Now he has her attention; she’s been pocketing 8-balls since she was thirteen, but he doesn’t need to know that. She plays coy, raising a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “I’ve always thought pool was fun.”

“Oh, really? You’re a woman after my own heart, Miss Walker.”

Georgia beams back and sits pretty beside him, hair done up in curls and her best dress already riding up her legs. He drives a cherry red Corvega Blitz with a creamy leather interior that sticks to her thighs in the late summer heat. That detail is not lost on Nate, whose eyes dart to the exposed skin before she artfully smoothes out the fabric. His scarred lip twitches into a self-satisfied smile as he pulls into the parking lot. Up the hill, Fort Hagen itself looms ominously despite its spotlights. Georgia can’t help but wonder what goes on inside a building as imposing as that; probably nothing good, she decides, and definitely not as entertaining as her date is about to be.

Things inside the bar are much more inviting, loud and raucous with music spilling out of the promised jukebox and people dancing across the floor. Georgia hopes that Nate is a dancing kind of man, her hand already tapping the beat against her leg. She doesn’t want to speak too soon, but if it goes well, maybe a club and a good band would be a nice second date. She’s about to ask him if he dances when a group of men at a table in the corner catch sight of him amongst the crowd and begin to shout him over.

“Hey, let me introduce you to my friends really fast,” Nate says, already steering her in their direction.

Georgia attempts to hide her frown. Maybe she jinxed it. “I’m sure they’re nice, but…I thought this was a date.”

Nate looks down at her, eyebrow raised. “It still is. They were gonna be here anyways, might as well say hi, right? C’mon, they’ll love ya.”

Hm. Georgia could appreciate a man who maintained his friendships—surely that was a green flag. Nate ducks down and whispers next to her ear, “Besides, it’ll give me a chance to show you off, huh?”

This gets her blushing, pink from her hairline down to her collarbones. Well, she certainly wouldn’t mind that. She puts her best face on as they approach.

They see Nate first and greet him warmly, clapping him on the shoulder and offering him a seat. Georgia steps out from behind him and before Nate can introduce her, one of his friends nods at her over his beer and asks, “Are you gonna tell us who this fine young thing beside you is, Tate?”

Georgia doesn’t hide her frown this time and goes to open her mouth before Nate opens his first.

“Hey, knock it off,” he tells his friend seriously. “I’m a gentleman tonight. You should play along.”

Another friend laughs and derides him, “Just tonight, Natey? Is your broad aware of that?”

The men descend into a round of obnoxious laughter, but Nate just waves them off while Georgia crosses her arms in contempt. He puts an arm over her shoulders and turns them away from his friends, leaning down to talk to her again.

“Don’t mind them,” he tells her. “They’re already drunk and trying to give me shit. I think they’re just jealous. Who can blame them? Out of that teacher get-up, you look gorgeous.”

Her brow furrows deeper. “Those are my regular clothes.”

Nate must sense he’s said something wrong, because he readjusts on the fly. “I mean to say, you look sexier without a dress code holding you back. Better?”

She will admit, his petty appeals to her vanity are working in his favor. She decides to let him off easy.

“Better. Now, let’s turn this back into a proper date, shall we?”

Nate acquiesces to her and finishes up with his friends, then guides her towards an empty pool table.

“Now,” he says, pulling out his wallet and flashing a few hundred dollar bills that catch Georgia’s attention as he pulls out his driver’s license, “how’s about I grab us a few drinks and I teach you a thing or two about pool?”

Her eyes flit from his wallet to his face and she perks up, unable to stop the mischievous little voice in the back of her head telling her to take him up on it. When she smiles, it’s saccharine-sweet.

“Sounds great. You get the drinks and I’ll grab us some sticks?”

Georgia spends some time inspecting the pool cues, finding two without much warping or worn tips. She chalks her own but doesn’t touch Nate’s until he comes back with the drinks—she doesn’t presume to tell a man how to handle his stick, both on the billiard’s green and off…but she can give a couple pointers.

“You shoot with an open bridge?” she asks conversationally after he makes the break shot. Nate looks at her, raising an eyebrow over his bottle of Gwinnett. She mimics the shape with her hand and he nods. She gives him a playful look. “I thought you were gonna teach me a thing or two about pool?”

Nate laughs, but she can sense a touch of stung pride, just enough that it gives him more of a competitive drive. Georgia can’t say she doesn’t delight in riling up her competition.

“So you were just pulling my leg earlier,” he says, then sets her with a daring look. “Alright then, let’s play some damn pool.”

They play the game and he commends her for her trickshots and doesn’t even seem upset when she sinks all of her balls and calls the winning pocket for the eight ball at the end. In fact, he looks downright eager to get her to hustle his friends for money. So he sends her back over to their table and she plays the part of Nate’s innocent little tagalong, asking them if they want to join in on their game. A few take her up on the offer, sharing looks between themselves like they’re just humoring her. She catches Nate’s eye as they walk back, sharing her own sneaking look with him as he casually asks his friends if they want to put money down on the game. For fun, he says. They agree and soon enough, the game begins.

By the end of the night, Georgia has five grown men nearly snap their pool cues when they are forced to empty out their wallets. As a team, she and Nate had done pretty well, even if she had done most of the work.

Her latest victim sneers, throwing a few crumpled bills on the table. “Bullshit beginner’s luck.”

“Maybe so,” Georgia shrugs, chalking up her cue again, “but then that still means you lost to a beginner, so what does that say about you?”

The man, Jacobs, sneers at her. “Tate, if you don’t control your lady—”

Nate steps between the two of them, putting a hand firmly in the center of his friend’s chest.

“Get a fucking grip, Jacobs, it’s pool,” he snaps.

“And she cheated me out of my last dime!” Jacobs all but shouts and Georgia suddenly feels that maybe hustling people at pool in a military bar wasn’t their brightest idea.

Nate, however, looks entirely unbothered. All he does is give the other man a flippant shrug. “And? You’re the one who put it down. No one forced you to lose at pool.”

“And no one asked you to bring her to our bar,” Jacobs counters and glares at her over Nate’s shoulder. “The little bitch is a cheat, and I can pr—”

Georgia isn’t even able to get an astonished “excuse me?” out before Nate’s fist connects with Jacobs’ nose. Jacobs stumbles back, wiping the blood from his face and doesn’t pause before he charges Nate, nearly pushing him into her had she not stepped out of the way in time. She puts herself safely on the other side of the table as the two men descend into a brawl. She wants to stop them, yells at Nate to do so, but she can’t put herself between them so all she can do is watch as the punches fly.

Nate fights like a caged animal, going for any weak spot he can see and hitting them more often than not. She has a front row seat to the rage now coursing through him, teeth bared and fists bloody as they wail on each other. Jacobs catches him in the cheek but then Nate has him pinned to the pool table in front of Georgia, slamming him down on top of it. The man’s face is a patchwork of black, blue, and red as Nate holds him down by his shirt. He leans down, close enough where only he, Jacobs, and only incidentally Georgia, are able to hear.

“You don’t get to disrespect me and mine just because you’re a sore fuckin’ loser, alright?” he mutters and something in his words makes a warm, fluttery feeling start in the pit of Georgia’s stomach.

Nate spits on Jacobs’ chest before letting him go. When he looks up and sees Georgia standing in front of him, however, all the fight leaves him at once. His face goes pale and that’s when the both of them realize just how many eyes are on them and the silence that now pervades the bar. The fluttery feeling is quickly replaced by embarrassment and Georgia makes the executive decision to hurry the two of them out of the bar before they’re kicked out. She goes around the table, takes Nate’s arm into hers, and leads the two of them out with her head down. As they leave, his muscles are still taught in her grasp.

Once they’re standing next to his car in the parking lot, Georgia turns on him, hands on her hips.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Nate leans back against the driver’s side door and doesn’t meet her eye, just pulls his cigarettes and a lighter out from his pocket. He lights up and takes a drag before speaking to her.

“He called you a bitch,” he says, blowing his smoke into the wind and it tickles her nose. “I didn’t like it. What, did you want me to stand there and let him?”

Georgia puts a hand on her forehead and sighs. On one hand, she’s pissed. This is categorically not how first dates were supposed to go, and she had been on enough to know. She’d had high hopes for the charming man that had walked in and picked up his nephew from her classroom that afternoon. Now, she was standing beside a man who would fistfight one of his friends at the drop of a hat. She can’t help but replay the fight in her mind and as she does, that same fluttery feeling comes back as she recalls what Nate had said to Jacobs. Me and mine.

On the other hand…

Watching him go from zero to a hundred in half a second, all on her behalf…well, no one had ever fought for her like that. First date or not. All that anger and power emanating from him…that had been because of her. For her. Something about it, as terrible as she should find it, makes her reconsider if this date–this man–was a total loss.

Her silence must make Nate antsy, because he speaks up again and this time looks her in the face.

“I didn’t want you to see me that way,” he says, and reaches out to touch her. When she doesn’t move away, his hand runs down her arm until it's holding hers, and he squeezes it with an infant’s strength. “I just…it’s like the anger gets loud, you know? And it’s all I can hear. It was stupid to let it get the better of me. I’m sorry.”

Out in the parking lot, half-lit by street lamps and out of the bar, Nate doesn’t look so imposing anymore. Slouched beside his car, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and a bruise rapidly forming across his cheek, he appears regretful. And, Georgia can’t help but notice, increasingly attractive.

“You’re right. It was stupid,” she agrees, going to lean against the car beside him and he looks down at her with a furrowed brow, “but no one’s ever fought someone for me. It was…kind of nice, almost.”

Nate laughs and puts an arm around her, pulling her close. She leans her head onto his shoulder and looks up at him.

“You’re one surprise after the other, Miss Walker,” he says and she grins. “Might have to keep you around.”

“Just don’t make it a habit, alright? I can handle bein’ called a bitch a time or two, it wouldn’t be the first time,” she tells him, and plucks the cigarette from between his lips to steal a drag. “Besides, I don’t think we’ll be able to come back here for our second date. I was hopin’ you were a dancin’ kind of man.”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “You’ve cleared me for a second date already? Color me surprised.”

“What can I say? I guess I have questionable taste and a thing for men with a solid right hook,” she jokes, only half meaning it, and he throws her that smile that got her to agree to all this in the first place before he takes his cigarette back.

They stand there for a little while longer, smoking cigarettes until Georgia says it’s getting late and they should both go home. They sit in his car a while longer, though, dragging out the date minute by minute until, by unspoken agreement, they decide to get a little hot and heavy in the backseat of the car. When they kiss, she’s careful of the bruise on his face and even softly presses her lips against it. Things escalate from there, a fire in Nate’s eyes, but Georgia doesn’t let him past the first five buttons on her blouse at first, per her own dating rules. He does get a hand up her skirt about halfway through and she allows it, so whether or not it counts as putting out on the first date is up in the air.

After, Nate drives her back to her little apartment a few blocks from the school, and very politely asks if he can kiss her goodnight outside her door despite the fact that he had her moaning his name not even an hour earlier. Flushed from hairline to collarbones, Georgia invites him in under the guise of getting him some frozen peas for his face, and if they end up between the sheets, well.

Georgia thinks she can bend her own rules, just this once.

-----

January 31st, 2288

When Fort Hagen comes into view after hours of chasing Dogmeat’s nose, past wild mutated bears (yao guai, Mac had called them) and a decimated assaultron, Georgia almost has to laugh at the irony. Just down the street are the ruins of her first date with her dead husband and before her is the foreboding tomb she may or may not find her son in. She hasn’t been the praying type in a long while, more so after waking up two hundred years in the future, but she throws a little mental prayer to anyone listening anyways.

The sky above them had been gray since they left Diamond City that morning, making vague threats of rain from the north that hadn’t yet come to pass. Dogmeat ends his tracking at the boarded up doors to the fort and barks once.

“I knew Dogmeat could sniff our man out,” Mr. Valentine says from her left. “Let’s you two and I take it from here, give our four-legged friend a break.”

Georgia bends down, knees popping, to give the hound a rewarding scratch behind the ears. “You did your part, boy. Stay out here while we find a way in, okay? Good boy.”

Dogmeat barks again like he understands—at this point, she’s pretty sure they have some kind of mental link from how in tune they are—and lays down, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

“Front door isn’t an option, and even if it was it wouldn’t be the smart one,” Mac says, attempting to look around for another entrance.

“There’s scaffolding around the side, maybe this place has rooftop access,” Mr. Valentine says, so the three of them seek it out, only to find several automated turrets on said roof that put a bead on them almost as fast as he can shuffle them back down the platforms.

Mac offers to take them out, reminding her of the training yard job, but when she reminds him they should probably keep a low profile, he surrenders to her point. It’s only when she spots the parking garage connected to the building that she remembers they usually have interior entrances. It’s surprisingly deserted when they get down there, and almost like a light at the end of a tunnel: a door, lit by a single emergency light amongst the darkness. When she puts her hands on the crash bar and it begins to open, she pauses.

“You ready?” Mac asks from beside her. She swallows.

“You don’t know until you know,” she says, and presses forward.

--

The synths scattered among the inside of Fort Hagen are Gen 2’s, according to Mr. Valentine. Metal and plastic like him, but without his sparkling personality, as he put it. Georgia’s been lucky enough that she hasn’t crossed paths with many of them since she thawed out, and those she did, she and Preston had steadfastly avoided. Now, with their hollow, robotic voices echoing off the crumbling walls around her, it sends chills down her spine. They’re damn good shots, too, because by the time she, Mac, and Mr. Valentine clear the floor, they’re all sporting new holes in their coats and multiple plasma burns of near misses from their energy weapons. Mr. Valentine seems the most well-off, all things considered, while she and Mac quickly patch up the burns on her thigh and the one on his arm.

The further they go, they manage to find an elevator that provides the only way forward. It takes them below the surface and it reminds Georgia far too much of the vault. She tries to push it out of her mind as they press forward past another handful of synths, a turret, and a few easily disabled trip wires. For a moment it all seems too easy, like the three of them are just blowing through minor threats before rolling up to the big one, wherever he is. But then something crackles along the hallways, like a classroom intercom, and Georgia is sent back to cold metal and glass, thin air, and Shaun’s wailing cries. She nearly trips going down the stairs.

“If it isn’t my old friend, the frozen TV dinner,” a rough cadence says, echoing down the never ending hallways. “Last time we met, you were cozying up to the peas and apple cobbler.”

“Whoa, careful now,” Mr. Valentine says as he catches her by the elbow, looking around for the speakers.

“That’s him, that’s his voice,” Georgia says, her own voice trembling and her legs feeling like they’re about to give out from under her. She’s not ready. “Mac, Mr. Valentine, I can’t—”

“Yes, you can, Georgia,” Mac says firmly from the other side of her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We didn’t come all the way here for you to turn back now. If he’s here, let’s go find the bastard.”

“Take it slow, one step atta time. We’re right behind you,” Mr. Valentine nods, readjusting the grip on his gun.

Georgia bites down on her lip to keep it from quivering. The speakers hadn’t come back on and she consoles herself with the fact that she has one of the best guns in the Commonwealth beside her as well as its best detective. One she trusts implicitly and one she trusts enough to help her see this through. She resolves to press forward. Mac was right; she didn’t come this far to only come this far.

Once she’s able to keep going, they take out a few more of Kellogg’s defenses and when his voice crackles overhead again, she isn’t as caught out by it. She can’t stop the shaking in her hands, though, shotgun wavering in her grip.

“Sorry your house has been a wreck for two hundred years,” Kellogg says, snarling when he adds, “but I don’t need a roommate. Leave.”

The words continue to bounce around her skull as they push open a set of metal double doors, opening up to some sort of command center. It’s like a game—they snuff out a few more Gen 2’s, Kellogg comes over the speakers to taunt her. She feels like a rat in a maze, the man who tore her family apart the mad scientist watching her every move.

“Hmph. Never expected you to come knocking on my door. Hell, I thought the Commonwealth would have chewed you up like jerky if you even made it out of that old neighborhood alive,” he muses, voice no less like sandpaper across her face even through the speakers. “What a surprise you turned into.”

Eventually Georgia’s fear morphs into anger and frustration. The closer they seem to get, the further away Kellogg seems. A game of cat and mouse, except the cat sends minions to do his work for him. She takes her rage out on a couple of Gen 2’s and hopes Mr. Valentine doesn’t take it too personally.

“Look,” the mercenary says after Georgia’s shotgun blows apart the plastic skull of yet another synth in front of her, “you’re pissed off. I get it. I do. But whatever you hope to accomplish in here? It is not going to go your way.”

She can’t help it; the pressure builds and she screams back at him, something deep and raw from within, “Fuck OFF.”

Mac and Mr. Valentine jump at her intensity, so on edge for everything else around them that they don’t expect it. There is fire and fury within her now that she can only do so much to keep contained. She thinks, briefly, of how much she can relate to Nate right about now. That only makes her angrier and she does away with the thought as she does away with the next synth that crosses their path.

They descend further into Fort Hagen’s depths and Georgia doesn’t want to dwell about how far underground they must be. Surely not as far under as the vault, but with the walls closing in around her as they enter a red-lit tunnel, she can’t really tell the difference. It knocks the wind out of her sails, her breathing starts to thin and she can barely get the words out to ask her two companions for a moment. She tries to grab at the walls around her for purchase when her knees buckle again, Kellogg’s voice ferrying her through what must be the start of a panic attack.

“You’ve got guts and determination, and that’s admirable. But you are in over your head in ways you can’t possibly comprehend.”

Faintly, over the sound of ringing in her ears, she can hear the mechanical voices of more synths around the corner, and Mac tries to yank her back into a standing position.

“We can’t stop here,” he tells her, an ironlike grip on her arm, “we have to keep moving.”

And they do, though every one of Georgia’s footsteps feels heavier than the last and her vision is tunneling and her chest feels too tight. Mac and Mr. Valentine take care of most of the synths, because all she can focus on right now is trying to push ahead. Her hands still won’t stop shaking long enough for her to aim her gun.

“It’s not too late,” Kellogg says, enticing her to give up already. “Stop. Turn around and leave. You have that option. Not a lot of people can say that.”

She’s caught between wanting to bolt and being so desperately close to her son’s kidnapper as the three of them come upon a red door.

“We’re close,” Mr. Valentine says, sniffing the air for something neither she nor Mac can detect yet. “I can smell that old merc’s cigars…”

Past the red door is what Georgia can only assume was an office for whoever commanded Fort Hagen back in its heyday. Now, it’s full of all sorts of tech and pristine, anachronistic furniture and smelling of cigars. There’s a bed that looks like it belongs more in a hospital than an old military fort, just as out of place as the rest of the furniture around it. It’s almost enough to jolt her out of her spiraling until the speakers come on again.

“Okay, you made it. I’m just up ahead. My synths are standing down. Let’s talk.”

A set of maglocks on a door across the room slide open. The man who took everything from her is just on the other side.

Georgia fights the urge to flee and the pent up energy just redirects back to the anxious jittering of her hands. Fingers try to disappear under her sleeve, but have a hard time getting under Mac’s bandages. She doesn’t even register him coming to stand beside her until her quivering hand bumps into his and she latches onto it like a lifeline. He’s a warm, steadying presence beside her and doesn’t even flinch at her white-knuckle grip. The shaking starts to fade.

She turns to him, and he meets her with a steely look as he nods. To her left, Mr. Valentine motions to the door ahead of them.

“Into the belly of the beast,” he says. Georgia lets go of Mac’s wrist to brace herself.

The room is dark when they open the door, weapons drawn, but spotlights begin to flicker on one by one. The last spotlight turns on and her breath catches in her throat when he steps into the light. The rest of the room fades out around her. It’s just the two of them.

“And there she is,” Kellogg says, walking out from behind a desk terminal with three synths at his back. He gestures to her with the pistol in his hand. “The most resilient housewife in the Commonwealth.”

He’s just as she remembers him: gritty, scarred, and worn-looking, but no less threatening, no less predatory. His visage had been the harbinger of her family’s demise, instilling a bone-deep panic into her now that she has a clearer look at him.

Unfortunately for him, all of Georgia’s panic evolves into rage at the sight of him. It’s like she can feel Nate’s hand on her shoulder, giving her the permission she never needed to snap.

“Where the hell is Shaun?!” she barks, more animal than woman.

“Right to it then, huh?” He has the gall to laugh, casual as you please, only fueling her fire. She should shoot him right now before he even gets a chance to gloat, but she knows that he knows the only thing keeping him alive right now is the information on Shaun’s location. If he decides to tell her the truth at all.

“Okay, fine. Your son, Shaun. Great kid,” he continues, casual as you please despite the severity radiating off her to the point where the shaking returns in a different way. “A little older than you might expect, but I’m guessing you figured that out by now. But if it’s a happy reunion you’re after, it’s not gonna happen. Your boy’s not here.”

Georgia’s teeth grit together so hard she swears she’s cracked a molar.

“You can either tell me where the fuck he is, or I blow your goddamn head off,” she seethes. Her gun has been aimed at his chest since he stepped out. “This is the end, Kellogg. Only one of us is walkin’ out of here. You die. I get my son back.”

“If only it were that simple. I’m just a puppet like you—my stage is just a little bigger, that’s all. Doesn’t change the fact that your boy isn’t here,” he shrugs, his revolver glinting in the light. “He’s with the people pulling the strings.”

“Where is he?!” Georgia screams, finger twitching on the trigger and held only by some modicum of restraint still left in her.

“Shaun’s in a good place,” he tells her and she almost believes him. “One where he’s safe and comfortable and loved. A place he calls home.”

Her resolve is starting to slip. Her vision tunnels.

“The Institute.”

A flash of gunfire cuts through the gloom, pulling Georgia out of the moment as the room descends into chaos.

Kellogg stumbles back from the blast of her shotgun, some sort of armor underneath his clothing the only thing blocking what would’ve ripped apart the chest of a regular man. Then Georgia feels herself pulled to the ground, behind one of the desk terminals scattering the room. Streaks of energy from the synth’s weapons fly overhead and she can hear Mac cursing beside her as his rifle sounds off, but then he’s stumbling around the corner of the desk. It takes her a few dangerously long seconds to realize what’s going on, diving behind another terminal as one of the synths falls beside her.

“He’s got a stealthboy!” Mr. Valentine shouts, and she doesn’t even have time to think “what’s a stealthboy?” before a bullet whistles past her ear. “He’s gone!”

She has no idea where anyone is, world turned upside down in the firefight, but her mind catches up to her with a shot of adrenaline. A few terminals down, Mac darts past, low to the ground and Georgia hears him shoot before something falls. She pokes her gun around the edge of a desk before sneaking over to one closer to where she’d last seen Kellogg. Another gunshot, this time from Mr. Valentine, cuts one of the Gen 2’s off mid sentence and then everything goes quiet. Her heart is thundering in her ears as her eyes dart around for any signs of a threat. Another shot rings out to her right so she goes left and makes a break for another piece of cover.

It’s an agonizing few seconds that feel like hours before she sees something flutter out of the corner of her eye. A centuries old piece of paper, falling from one of the desks as if someone had brushed past it, invisible. Her blood runs cold.

One of Mac’s rounds hit a terminal nearby and that’s when Georgia can see a dirty, booted footprint manifest itself on the fallen piece of paper. She lines up the shot.

She pulls the trigger twice and Kellogg materializes before her eyes, falling over sideways as his ankle practically disintegrates under him. He manages to roll over as he falls, landing face up. He doesn’t call out in pain as she rushes him, putting another round in the hand that goes to reach for his revolver on the floor next to him. It turns into a bloody stump, conjuring up images in her mind of ground beef at the supermarket. He barely even makes a sound when she unloads again into his knee cap and is pinned under her boot, the threat of all she’ll do to him a heavy weight in her hands. There isn’t any fear in his eyes when she levels the gun at his head. Instead, with the barrel at his temple and her heel on his chest, he has the gall to smirk at her. Like this was what he had planned all along. Like it was some game to him. She pulls the trigger, but nothing happens. A smirk like he might take the upper hand is the last thing to appear on Kellogg’s face before she changes plans.

The grip on her shotgun has never been tighter than when Georgia uses it to bash his head in. She brings the stock down on his face again and again and again and she doesn’t know when she starts screaming, but her throat is torn raw by it as she lets go of every piece of frustration that’s been building up inside her since she thawed out. Every downward swing is another fuck you to the world, to karma, to the Institute, to him. The air turns coppery as blood—his, her own, she can’t tell the difference—covers her torso. The drops that manage to fly into her still screaming mouth burn on her tongue as she drops to her knees above him, dead set on reducing him to nothing just as he did her. Then she’s grabbed by both arms and dragged away.

She tries to fight it at first, not realizing who has a hold of her. The adrenaline makes her twist and try to launch herself back at the mangled remains of Kellogg’s corpse. “I’m not done!” she shrieks, but Mac and Mr. Valentine’s separate grips on her shoulders don’t give. Together, they pry her hands away from her gun, finger by bloody finger.

Mac is beside her ear, repeating, “It’s over, Georgia, he’s dead, you did it, you’re okay—”

The hands only come off her once they have her away from the carnage. The two men sit her down on something hard and solid and are careful to block the view of her destruction. She doesn’t know why they bother; she already knows the former mercenary is nothing more than mincemeat from the neck up. Distantly, she hears Mr. Valentine say something like “at least the bastard won’t be hurting anyone else” before telling Mac to watch over her.

“I’ll look around, try to get all the intel this place can hide,” she hears him say and he disappears behind one of the overly large desk terminals.

Mac takes a seat beside her as she buries her face in her hands. She chokes on a sob, fury fading into distress as crimson consumes her, covering her arms, her chest, her legs. It’s everywhere and suddenly she feels like she can’t breathe, that red is all she’ll ever see until Mac wordlessly takes her glasses off her face. Blurrily, she sees him wipe the smears of blood off as best he can with his shirt. Instead of handing them back when he’s done, he hooks them on his collar and swings his pack around to rifle through it. He comes out with one of the tins of water from the Gunner base and reaches for the knife he keeps strapped to his boot.

He stabs a hole into the aluminum top, then points to her hands. “Here,” he says quietly, “let’s get that off you.”

She doesn’t move, too trapped inside her own head, but then she feels him move her trembling hands, softly, to pour the water over them. Blood and water pool together in her palms before spilling to the floor and he doesn’t say a word as he silently washes it away, gentler than any words of comfort he could have given her. He even changes out the bandages on her left arm now that the old ones are soaked through with new blood.

In the quiet of his care, all Georgia can think is that she failed. Sure, the man is dead, but she is no closer to finding her son.

The Institute.

She’d heard all the stories, or at least the ones people weren’t too scared to share. Becky, in Diamond City, whose lost husband may or may not have been snatched up. The settlers who wouldn’t look her in the eyes in the early days because new faces were suspicious and not intriguing. Piper, who seemed to have her own personal vendetta against the Commonwealth’s biggest boogeyman, the blade in the dark that struck when you least expected it. The Institute, whatever it was, had Shaun. If Kellogg was telling the truth. That at least meant he was still alive, possibly. She just didn’t know for how long.

While Mr. Valentine pokes around, Georgia slowly comes back to herself. Her vision stops tunneling and the ringing in her ears begins to fade. She doesn’t speak until Mac finishes cleaning her off and bandaging her up. What comes out is hoarse, like someone has taken a nail file to her vocal chords.

“Thank you,” she manages to get out, barely above a whisper. There are so many other things she wants to say (thank you for being careful with me. Sorry I dragged you into this. I’m glad you were here) but they die in her throat.

He shakes his head, unhooking her glasses from his collar and handing them back to her. His voice is only a little rough when he says, “Don’t mention it.”

By the time Mr. Valentine comes back over, she is as put together as she can be in the moment, but even then the grasp she has on herself is tenuous at best.

“So, turns out Kellogg wasn’t giving us any bull. I bullied my way into his terminal—your son really is on the inside,” he says, regretful to be the bearer of bad news. “I’m sorry to say it, but even I don’t know where the Institute is, and they built me.”

Mac pipes up from beside her, indignant, “There has to be a way, right? Otherwise, how the hell did he get in and out?”

“We’re in the weeds here, kids,” Mr. Valentine sighs with a mechanical shrug. Mac’s lip twitches like he wants to rebuke something in his words, but stays silent. “I looked over the body and found these, though.”

From his pockets he pulls out what had once been the pristine pillow case on the bed in the other room, now dark with viscera. Georgia can’t help but wrinkle her nose. A funny, involuntary reaction, considering.

“You did quite the number on him, but I noticed this between all the gray matter. Cybernetics,” Mr. Valentine continues, then puts it back into his coat. “I may not know where the Institute is, but with this, we may have just won the lottery.”

Her brow furrows as she looks up at the detective, confused.

“What do you mean?” she asks, purposefully quiet to not agitate her still-raw throat.

“There’s a place in Goodneighbor called the Memory Den. Heard of it?”

Georgia nods. She’s seen the hazy neon sign over the former theatre in her scant few visits to the town. She’d never been inside, however, before or after the end of the world.

“The place to be to relive moments of your past in your mind as clear as the day they happened. If anyone can get a dead brain to sing, it’ll be Doctor Amari,” he says. “She’s the mind behind the memories.”

“Who is Doctor Amari?”

“She runs the place,” Mac supplies. “Well, kind of. Irma’s the real owner, I think.”

“I’ll let Amari give you her life’s story in person,” Mr. Valentine cuts in, pushing ahead, “but if we head out now, we can get there before it gets too late.”

“And you’re sure she can help?” Georgia presses, not wanting to take more out on hope.

Mr. Valentine’s yellow-filament stare holds her own, “She might be our best bet.”

“Then let’s go,” she nods as she stands, but Mac catches her by the sleeve.

“Hey, hey, slow down a minute,” he says, looking between the two. “Shouldn’t we, I dunno, think about this a little more?”

“What’s there to think about, Mac?” she pleads. She pauses to cough, the more she talks the more it stings. “If the Memory Den is our best bet, then I have no other choice.”

Mac stands up beside her, crossing his arms. “What I’m saying is maybe we should take a break, rest for a little bit, plan before you go shooting off—”

“Mac, I’m fine,” she stresses, clenching a fist at her side. “I don’t want to put it off anymore. I…I want to know.”

She gives him a speaking look that she hopes will say everything she can’t, that after this, she’s done not knowing. All she wants to do now is make up for all the time she’s wasted, and then maybe she can find her boy.

Mac sets his jaw, then tears his eyes away to look at Mr. Valentine. “Fine. Plan is, we go to the Memory Den and talk to the doc, but after that, you’re taking a break.”

“Christ, okay,” she can’t help but snap (now was when he decided to start disagreeing with her leadership?) but when his expression shifts, she sighs, apologetic. “I’m sorry. Let’s just go. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

She makes to leave, but Mr. Valentine reaches out, putting his plastic hand on her shoulder. It’s surprisingly weighty.

“Hey, chin up,” he says, trying to bolster her. “I know the night just got darker, but it won’t last forever.”

She knows he’s just trying to be supportive, but this time, it doesn’t land. “Doesn’t change the fact that it’s still dark,” she mutters, and walks past him, stepping over Kellogg’s mutilated corpse without so much as an acknowledgement of her violence.

It’s a long way up in the elevator they find tucked into a hallway. It takes long enough that being stuck inside starts to make her antsy again, fingers grasping for purchase on something, anything, until they end up catching on the cuff of Mac’s sleeve. He doesn’t make a show of taking it into his own and squeezing, once, and for that Georgia is grateful. When the doors slide open, he lets go, but she can still feel the lingering roughness of the calluses from where he holds his rifle. Mr. Valentine goes to work on hacking through a terminal attached to the only way out, and he mentions something about the turrets outside being put to rest.

The sun has almost dipped completely under the horizon when they exit. It’s finally raining, too, matching just how Georgia feels on the inside, but it does nothing to obscure the massive, brightly-lit airship coming in from the west. It catches all of them by surprise and takes up the sky like one of those big radstorm clouds, demanding she look at it. What look like vertibirds—are vertibirds, she realizes—undock from the sides and take to the air. She squints up at the thing, putting a hand over her eyes to shield from the rain. A booming, bellowing voice cuts through the skies.

“PEOPLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. DO NOT INTERFERE. OUR INTENTIONS ARE PEACEFUL. WE ARE THE BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL.”

“Son of a…it’s the goddamn Brotherhood,” Mac breathes, eyes transfixed on the airship. “What the hell are they doing there?”

“That man…at the police station…” Georgia trails off, remembering how she and Preston had helped a man in power armor defend his dwindling squad’s base from feral ghouls in Cambridge. They hadn’t been much help in looking for…whatever it was the man had been looking for. She doesn’t even remember his name now, instead only how much he favored Nate…

“What?” Mac asks, tearing his gaze away from the sky.

“Nothin’,” she says, shaking her head as she heads for the scaffolding on the side of the building. “Let’s move.”

[firstkanaphans]

Y’all know how in Best Laid Plans, Aye got inexplicably aroused every time MasterChef was on? That’s the plot of This Love Doesn’t Have Long Beans.

[prolix-yuy]

The Booth (and All its Misuses)

Pairing: Dieter Bravo x F!Reader Editor "Murch"

Summary: Dieter is pushing boundaries with the roles he takes. And with you.

Word Count: 4.4k

Warnings: Explicit, 18+ MINORS DNI, descriptions of male and female bodies, heavy fantasizing including oral sex (m and f receiving) and allusions to PiV sex, exhibitionism, dirty talk like whoa, male masturbation, allusions to female masturbation, Dieter's voice is a weapon.

Notes: That fucking cat show waltzed on in here and made me imagine Dieter recording those ridiculous lines and here we are. It's such a role for him I couldn't resist. This Dieter and Murch are from my series Best Laid Plans, and this story takes place before the events of The Plan. I also have to thank @boliv-jenta for being part of the inspiration for this fic with her hilarious Claude story that I've been giggling over for a couple days now.

Cross-posted on AO3

Best Laid Plans Series Masterlist

“What stupid thing did you sign me up for?”

Dieter’s agent blows a sigh into the phone that makes him wince. He’s still a little hungover despite the IV service he ordered this morning, the grease-laden breakfast sandwich, and the lazy handjob he gave himself in the shower. He thought today was a light day, maybe a press junket in the afternoon he could roll into once the edges of his vision cleared. But instead he’s ushered into a Mercedes and finds himself on the way to a studio to record…

“The voice of a bald horny street cat?” he asks, flipping through the short script. 

“It sounded up your alley…cat,” she quips back, and despite the low ache in the base of his skull he has to admit he enjoys the over-the-top dialogue. A little slutty, artistic, dramatic? Yeah, his agent’s got him pegged well.

His thoughts drift for a moment at the suggestive wording. He should really call Mitsy for another night in.

By the time he exits the car his head has cleared a little, aided by the coffee he whined to pick up and a few more minutes of shuteye. It looks like it’ll be a quick read, only a few pages of dialogue. He sweeps in, heavy brown cardigan flapping behind as he greets the audio tech and director. Their handshakes are straightforward, professional. The tech settles him in the sound booth, testing levels and microphones as the director walks Dieter through the scenes. It’s exactly how it sounds; a lascivious street cat wooing a plump pink hairless counterpart. He’s scrungly but smooth, devilish but dashing. Dieter raises an eyebrow at some of this - are people supposed to be horny for the cats? - but makes no comment.

The read is pretty fun for a one-off job. He leans into the ridiculousness to the director’s delight, and ad libs a few responses. The “follicle divergent” line was a favorite addition. He even turns on the bedroom voice for a few takes. If some classic Dieter filth gets him on their good side, maybe he’ll score something less ridiculous next time. Connections, connections, connections as his agent always says. 

As he finishes up the final page, a door opens on the other side of the glass. His eyes flick up briefly before the words slog to a stop in his mouth.

What are you doing here?

“Problem, Dieter?” the tech asks through Dieter’s headset. It sounds further away than before, like a string between two tin cans instead of Sennheisers. You lean over to address the director, his quick nod dismissing you to sit on a chair in a darkened corner. Dieter swallows hard, shaking off the stumble.

“How do you want me to pronounce ‘gordita’? Throw more accent on it?” he asks, directing their attention away enough to sneak a look at you. Your phone screen illuminates your face, harsh blue light carving your pretty features into something sharp and focused. 

He wants you to look up so he can give you a little nonchalant wave, like it’s no big deal the cute girl who keeps showing up on his movie set and making him laugh is here when he’s reading for a syphilitic cartoon cat. He tries to think up a good line to shoot you when he exits the booth - so this is where you hang out when you’re not on my set, Murch? - but even that falls flat in his head. Plus there’s something about calling you Murch in front of people who don’t know you that makes him cringe. You’ve got enough working against you in Hollywood, you don’t need him tossing out pet names that could lessen their respect for you. He respects the hell out of you in the first place; how hard you work, how everyone likes interacting with you, the trust people have in you to do your job well. Murch is just between the two of you, its own sign of respect. 

He can admit to himself it’s also a sign of a little more than that. Only for him.

He throws himself into the last fifteen minutes of the recording, flourishing his vocals for peak laughs. He wishes you had some headphones on so he could make you roll your eyes or snicker with him, but you’re tapping on your phone up until the tech ends the recording. Dieter gathers himself and feigns casual energy as he exits the booth.

“Need any more takes? We’re running early on my schedule,” he says breezily, letting his gaze fall to you almost by mistake. “Oh, hey, didn’t see you come in. Elias doesn’t have you working today?” He offers a friendly smile, the most professional he’s even been with you. 

“Running drives today,” you say simply, hovering next to the tech while he transfers the audio to a slim hard drive. “The DIT has my footage until 6, so I’m sneaking some extra hours in.” 

Right, you’re still “working your way” in the business, putting in hard days for not enough pay and expected to be happy about it. He’s seen you with lunch orders on set, filling in for a PA or making calls in the home office when shoots are delayed. You’re happiest behind your computer, hands fast on the keyboard and eyes darting over a timeline as you help massage a masterpiece out of the mess. But you’re still working towards that being all you have to do to survive in Hollywood. Maybe after this film you’ll be able to breathe easier. Maybe he could win an Oscar for it and you could be an award-winning editor. It would be nice to win an Oscar for you.

Not for you. For himself. That would just be some icing on the cake, to give you a leg up in the industry where he can. That’s all. 

“That’s all Dieter, you’re wrapped. Sean, take off, you can still make your kid’s game,” the director says, the tech smiling gratefully as he snatches up his bag. A little flash of an idea, born out of wandering thoughts and attraction and foolhardiness, crosses Dieter’s lips.

“Hey, could I use the booth for a little while longer? I’ve got some pickups I need to record for an audiobook and I forgot to book a space,” he asks, silently hoping this moment of assholery might work out. The tech sighs loudly, rubbing a hand over his face, before you chime in.

“I can wait around, I’ve seen Sean do this enough I can figure it out. And I’ll lock up as we leave,” you say, sunny expression lightening the dour mood. It only takes a moment of shuffling for the others to leave, Sean waving a thanks to you as the door swings shut. 

Shit, he only planned this far, now what?

“Well you better hop back in, you’ve only got…17 minutes,” you say, settling into the swivel chair and pulling the huge headphones over your ears. 

“Not even a, ‘hey Di, nice to see you, thank you for brightening up my day with your dramatic cat-acting’? …Cacting? Ooh, I like that,” he says, leaning in the door frame. You smirk and roll your eyes.

“Hi Di, it’s always a pleasure to see your shining face, and whatever you rolled out of bed into. That’s a comfy looking sweater,” you smirk back, redirecting your attention to the soundboard. “Now can you get in there and do your lines so I’m not late getting back?” you say.

“Yes ma’am, thanks again,” he says, shutting the door behind him. A little smile settles on his face that she liked his cardigan, actively dashing it off before he pulls over a chair to the microphone stand. He’s got a reputation to uphold, and getting gooey over a compliment isn’t part of his brand. Settling back into the seat, he pantomimes opening his phone and placing it on the stand in front of him. 

There’s no script, it’s just a ploy, something to get you to stick around and talk to him more. He always enjoys the handful of minutes he gets with you on sets as you wait for dailies or a script revision to bring back to post-production. He wishes you were one of the actors sometimes, stranded on set while the crew reset or shuffled you around, leaving time to chat and open up. He wants to ask you what your favorite memories were, discuss a new art exhibit at length, pop a few edibles and get high enough that your minds could melt into each other, followed by your bodies. But you’re always moving, a skip in your gait like you’re worried about being a step behind. He dreads the day Hollywood tries to beat that drive out of you, make you step on something precious to get ahead. He wants to put his hands on your shoulders and tell you it’s okay to slow down, to walk instead of run, that you don’t deserve to fall into bed exhausted every day just to get up and do it all over again. 

“Do you need me to keep an ear on your recording?” you say, hand hovering over the button as you look at Dieter through the glass. He twists a crooked smile onto his face, his improvisation skills helping him navigate the conversation.

“It’s an erotic audiobook, so I’ll leave that up to you Murch,” he says, winking. You roll your eyes again, hitting record before reaching to mute yourself. “Wait, before you do that, how’s your day been?” he asks, slouching into his chair with spread thighs. He likes to see if you’ll look, give him any hint that you may be as interested in him as he finds you.

“Not too bad, Di, living the dream,” you say, leaning forward on your elbows with a smile. “Post’s coming along good, you’re getting better at not spitting every time you shout at Alé.”

“They keep asking me to drink during that scene, it gets me all drooly!” he retorts, the tinny laugh coming through his headset warming his chest. He really likes the way your eyes scrunch up when he gets a good giggle out of you, that you’ll laugh with your whole body if he gets it right. 

“Besides that, nothing special. You looking forward to the scenes you get to shoot in Rome?”

“Looking forward to being told I can’t have any pasta. What else are you supposed to eat in the city of love?” You laugh again, goosebumps tingling along Dieter’s neck at how intimate the sound is coming through his headphones.

“I’m pretty sure that’s Paris.”

“Tell me you’ve never fallen in love with a pasta alla vodka.”

“You eat all the things you love, Bravo?”

“Some of them,” he purrs, dropping his voice down an octave and tilting his head. You shake yours with an exasperated sigh, but he thinks he sees your eyelashes flutter. He’s about to elaborate - I do love pussy, and not just the weird cat I’ve been reading for - when the glow of your phone directs your eyes down.

“Shit, I’m blowing up,” you curse, scrolling quickly. “Are you good to go?”

Dieter nods his head, squaring up his chair and adjusting the microphone stand down to his level.

“I’ve got it Murch, you take care of business. Thanks for doing me a favor,” he says, trying not to let the disappointment bleed into his voice. You shoot him a tight smile before muting yourself, red light blinking in his view. You watch the screen for a moment before taking off your headphones and diving back into your phone, alternating typing and scrolling.

The silence of the room lays heavy on his shoulders, the warmth of your voice slowly fading. He feigns opening up something on his phone, a blank webpage all that actually stares back at him. Wetting his lips, he wonders what the hell to say to make it look like he’s not just dicking around in here.

“Hey Murch,” he finally settles on, keeping his eyes glued to his phone, now dark enough to reflect his face back at him, your blurry silhouette in the corner of his eye.

“It’s nice to see you today. You haven’t been on set in a bit. Things must be ramping up in your edit bay. They’re keeping you busy, that’s for sure. Or you’re keeping yourself busy. Because you know, you work really hard. I see it. Everyone does.” He clears his throat briefly, eyes snapping up to you. You flick your own up, a question on your face, but he just thumbs-ups you. 

“What would you do if you got a break? What does the lovely Murch do on a day off?” he says, his throat catching a little on lovely. “I think you like a big breakfast, something with fruit in it. You like…mangos, right? I’m pretty sure you said that once. Or peaches.” The phantom flavors drift along his tongue. “And then I’d bet you’d want to do something outside, especially if it’s nice out. Get out of that dark basement. Wear something light and breezy.”

It occurs to Dieter he’s never seen you in anything more than jeans and a t-shirt. What would you look like with your shoulders bare, legs on display, breasts scooped into a flattering neckline and ass swishing along? Did you even like pretty summer dresses? God he hoped you did. You would look fucking delicious.

A tightening in his groin alerts Dieter to a path his brain probably shouldn’t go down, but it’s the Wizard of Oz in there and his libido is following the yellow brick road. He licks his lips at the thought of you turning to wait for him, a flirty hemline skimming along your thighs. If a little breeze kicked up the skirt would flutter just a little too high for your liking, making you smooth it back down. And he’d be helpless to stop from falling to his knees and ducking his head under it.

His cock is at full attention now, straining against his slacks. He tries to shake off this train of thought, redirect to something that will refocus him, but every time he glances up to take in your features, your attention elsewhere, only hardens him more. 

“Fuck, you’d look good in something like that. You look good all the time.” Dieter’s hand clenches on his thigh, dangerously close to crossing a line. An irrelevant notification lights up his screen - ten more minutes of studio time. He squeezes his eyes shut, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth.

He shouldn’t. You’d be grossed out if he did, violated. Probably scream at him, call him a filthy little slut. 

Fuck, his pesky degradation kink’s not helping.

“Shit, Murch, you got me hard in a fucking sound booth. I can’t even get this hard this fast watching porn. What the fuck have you done to me?” he husks out, running a hand over his face. His cock bobs in his pants, the mistake of even alluding to porn in the same breath as your name furthering his thoughts. Because now that he’s said it, all the little scenarios he lies to himself about jacking off to come to the forefront unbidden.

The way the slip of your tongue over your lower lip makes him want to follow it with the head of his cock, fat and weeping at your hot breath. 

How your hands moving along a keyboard make him wonder how they’d look wrapped around his shaft, pulling him to the brink expertly before easing him back.

The fact that there’s a couch in that dark little room you work in that calls for him to fuck you on it over and over again.

You put down your phone right as he’s spiraling, imagining how you’d look spread on your back on that beat-up monstrosity as he hovers over you, and slip your headphones back on. He coughs once, hoping his face isn’t too red.

“You doing okay Di?” you ask, a note of concern coming through.

Busted. 

He shifts in his chair, his erection thankfully hidden by his low seat and the little stand his phone rests on. 

“Hah, yeah, just…getting through some of this dialogue.”

You smirk, chin in your hand.

“What, a little too spicy for THE Dieter Bravo?” you say, and have the audacity to pull the corner of your lip between your teeth. 

Well never mind then. He was going to be the gentleman and suffer in silence. But if you were going to insist on egging him on when he was just imagining how sweet your cunt would taste, then he’s going to play a little dirty.

“You can be the judge of that,” he says airily, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“I’ve read my fair share of romance novels. I don’t think you’ll surprise me.”

Oh, it’s really on now.

“Then listen in. Maybe you’ll learn something new.”

You settle back into your chair, motioning for Dieter to begin. He rolls his shoulders, putting both hands on the stand and pulling focus to his phone. His grayscale reflection is remarkably confident for how rippling his insides feel. Pulling from memories of early gigs that were a hair shy of softcore pornos and his own racing thoughts, he writes you a story.

“I fucking want you. Keep telling myself no but I fucking want you,” he growls, puffing hard out his nose. Your reaction is immediate; your eyes snap wide, mouth parting. He wants to look you in the eyes as he improvises a scene but doing that and trying to keep his composure above the waist is proving too much. His lips brush hard against the microphone, his whiskers scraping along the sensitive instrument.

“I’d make it so good for you, make you mine so many times you’d have to spend the night. Would you like that? For me to take care of you so fully, so completely, you wouldn’t be able to walk out after? Because I want you like that every. Single. Day. Let me make you feel so fucking good, baby.”

You’re trying to keep a neutral face but he can see it. The tremble of your lower lip. The rigidness of your posture. He would bet his summer house you were squeezing your thighs under the control table. God, he wants to be on the other side of the glass and saying these things in your ear, lips brushing against your skin. Filthier things too, like how he wants you to cum so hard it drips down your legs for him to lick up. That he’ll stretch you so good on his cock, make you drunk with pleasure every moment you let him. 

“Because you deserve to feel like a goddess. You do so much for me, baby, let me give you even an ounce of that back to you. I’ll be so good for you, sweetheart, treat you better than that goddamn shithead of an ex that was never worth your time.”

Dieter’s running his mouth as close to the truth as he thinks he can get away with, sneaking glances up to see how you react. Your arms are folded in a picture of ease, but he can see how your fingers dig into your bicep. He drops his voice into a lower register, rumbling deep but with a gentle quality he enjoys utilizing for narration.

“He lets her ride his buttery slick thighs, buried so deep he can’t tell where her pleasure ends and his begins. He doesn’t care as long as she keeps throwing her head back like that and crying his name. If his heart gave out now he’d die happy with the musk of her on his lips and her velvet walls clenched around him. Even though she’s already cum twice he urges her into a third with his clever thumb and a grin when she shatters.” Dieter’s half impressed at himself for thinking on his feet, the words quickening the rise and fall of your chest. Your cunt must be on fire from this, he hopes he’s not the only one aching. You can’t be unaffected, not with the way you can’t look away, gaze tight on his face when he looks up. He’s got one more tiny idea that could get him in trouble, or make the tension thread between you finally snap. Leaning forward, he looks through his lashes at you. You’re holding your breath.

“Be a good girl for me, baby.”

Your reaction is instant. Blinking hard and flaring your nostrils, your grip gets even tighter. Your skin must be blazing hot, the heat between your thighs unbearable. He wants to soothe it with his tongue, quench it with his fingers as you fist his hair and tell him how good he’s making you feel. His cock is hard to the point of exploding in his pants, the telltale tingle in his hips warning him that it’s all too possible. 

A question hangs on the tip of his tongue, one he’s so prepared to ask:

Want some help with that Murch?

You jump suddenly, the faint clanging of an alarm on the other side of the glass a shock to his own system.

MotherFUCKER.

“Sorry Di, time’s up. I gotta get moving,” you stammer, shakily pressing buttons to stop the recording and transfer the data. He tosses the headphones off quickly, taking the briefest of moments to wrap his cardigan around his middle to hide the prominence of his erection. He saunters back into the room with a smug smile.

“Now who’s gotten all flustered?” he teases, hopeful you won’t bolt from his sight. The balance is precarious now, a tiny nudge in the direction he desires setting everything off balance. Thankfully you chuckle and shake your head.

“That’s really paying your bills? I swear I’ve read better online for free,” you say, sticking in a loose USB stick and transferring the “audiobook” over for him. Dieter hovers in case you open the file, but you only hand him the drive with an overly bright smile. He takes it from you, searching your face for any hint of the titillation he caught earlier.

“You’ll have to send me your favorites, I’ll record them for a good price,” he drawls, leaning on one hand in your space. It’s a dance he’s done with you in the past, but never with so much charge in the air. He can almost taste the electricity between you, and when you meet his eyes there’s a flash of something deeper, something you won’t let come to the surface so you tamp it down with a dramatic sigh.

“Why would I want my scorching hot erotica in your voice?” you joke, his hands coming up in mock hurt before he winks at you. You shake your head and put the hard drive you came here for in your bag. 

“See you on set?” he asks, and god he sounds pitiful to his own ears but you tilt your head and smile, hand on the knob to leave.

“I’ll be around,” you say before leaving him in the booth in silence and his own tangle of thoughts.

A bolt of arousal claws down his spine, a filthy moan falling from his lips.

“Sweetheart, I’m so goddamn hard for you. I need you to look at me. Look at me and I’ll cum so hard. Just fucking look at me. See me. See what you do to me?” His hand moves faster, fingers catching along the thick ridge of his head, the need almost painful as his mind conjures the image. Your lips pursed, eyes still cast down as he whimpers into a microphone.

“Want you to put those talented fingers inside your panties and rub your clit on the other side of this window. Let me whisper all the fucking depraved shit I want to do to you, how I want to lick and finger and fuck every hole until you beg me to stop. I’ll be…such a…good boy for you.” He’s on the knife’s edge, looking down into the chasm, heavy breaths making it harder to hide. “Let me…be your good boy, sweetheart. Please, look at me.” 

And in the moment before he cums, you look up and catch his eye. 

It’s a livewire to his cock, and he empties onto his stomach with ragged cries. He’s begging it to hurry up, be as fleeting of an orgasm as when he pumps it into some starlet wanting a night with his publicity, but it keeps rolling and rolling over him, shuddering breaths and clamping legs. Tears come to his eyes because even with how fucking good it feels, he knows it could be so much better. He knows a night with you would be a million fucking times better than his hand and his phone next to his ear playing the soft laughs he coaxed out of you. That you’d make him cum, but you’d also make him smile, and preen, and maybe even glow.

Shame burns along his chest at how fucking sad this must look, legendary playboy Dieter Bravo, who could open his hotel room door and have anyone on his cock that he pleases, covered in his own cum while your voice tells him Paris is the city of love. 

Stopping the recording, he flops an arm over his face. He’s gotta get you out of his system, invite you to one of his parties for one really good fuck then send you on your happy little way. You could brag about bedding him, about how many orgasms he gave you and how much he’s ruined you for other men. And he could scratch the itch buried between his shoulders that flares when you trade good-natured barbs. Clear his head of this weird little infatuation he hasn’t experienced since he was 25 and drunk off his first love. 

That’s it, he’ll do what he always does. Make you feel like the center of his world for a night and part happy and satiated. It might finally ease the giddiness you bring with the swing of your hips. Maybe it will finally feed the emptiness inside him when the drugs peter off and his skin feels too tight and all he wants to do is find the next high or low to distract him.

But first, he’s gotta get you to accept his invitation.

END

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

Summary: Russia decides to kidnap America. Things don't go exactly as planned, since you can't really kidnap the willing.

Author: ArixaBell

[nicadilly]

Edit: tfw when u create a fair amount of fanart for the author and commish a 40$ fic only to be mistreated and never get ur money back lol. Got a refund :) Wish the emotional anguish thing never happened but ill heal. They also gaslight on the reg so keep that in mind. if someone told me back in January 2022 i would become an amogus fan/simp for MEN i would laugh. YET HERE WE ARE.

Some of the main characters from @crinklytinfoil ‘s series that is currently causing severe brainrot. @krysmcscience is to blame bcs if it were not for their fanart i wouldnt know abt the fic oops... (also it is a dead dove fic so check it out at your own discretion!)

OH almost forgot about my obligatory “THIS IS NOT THE ARCANA???”

[mira--mira]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Naruto (Anime & Manga) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara, Senju Hashirama & Uzumaki Mito, Uchiha Madara & Uzumaki Mito, Ootsutsuki Indar & Uzumaki Mito Characters: Senju Hashirama, Uchiha Madara, Uzumaki Mito, Ootsutsuki Indra Additional Tags: HashiMada Gift Exchange 2023, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Generation Swap, POV Mito, Matchmaking, Worldbuilding, Fluff and Angst, Team as Family Summary:

The kiss is the beginning when it should have been the end. But of course, nothing with Hashirama and Madara is so simple.

My @hashimada-giftexchange​ for @al-stuffy (Twitter version!)

[apoptoses]

starting to realize it's armand who makes men so deranged my plans for fic get derailed, and not just his boyfriends acting up and giving me issues 😔

[druidgroves]

Chapter 12: Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall

Fandom: Fallout 4 Words: 9,327 Characters: Georgia Tate (Canon Divergent Sole Survivor), RJ MacCready, Piper Wright, Nick Valentine Notes: warnings for self-harm, but otherwise enjoy ! also go check out the rewritten chapter one if you haven't already! read on ao3 / read on tumblr

The days spent in the house by the river went by relatively quickly. Far too quickly for Mac’s liking, who for once was in favor of sticking to one spot for more than a day. Having a breather between taking down the Gunners and whatever came next was a blessing as far as he was concerned. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still bored, however.

Georgia seemed to pick up on his antsy energy pretty fast. With no injuries preventing bodily-movement, Mac was able to futz around the house as he pleased. Mostly, he paced in front of the broken windows, half reading a comic and half looking out at the water. It wasn’t long before his back and forth in her peripheral made Georgia delegate a task to him. When they arrived, the group had done a preliminary sweep upon arrival, clearing out the radroaches in the process, but had neglected to do a real sweep.

“If you pick over this place good enough,” she said, nodding towards the rest of the house, “my treat at Power Noodles when we’re back in the city.”

Mac perked up at something to do. “What do you want me to look for? Probably not anything good.”

Georgia gave him a doubtful look over her glasses, “You know what I like.”

Thinking of all the junk in her backpack (bar the rings he still pretended he knew nothing about), Mac knew he did. He channeled her energy during his search, and within an hour, he had every leftover knick-knack, lamp, and alarm clock from every room in the house laid out on the kitchen counter. He’d even found a few bottle caps that he pocketed cheerily. Once he was done, he not so subtly got the attention of Georgia, who had been quietly observing his comings and goings over the pages of her book.

Turning down the corner of the page, Georgia sat it on the couch next to her and peeked over the cushions. Her eyes scanned over the spread and she gestured for him to continue with a nod of her head.

Mac cleared his throat and got right into it.

“Three table lamps, with one intact lightbulb, six screws, and usable wiring,” he began, gesturing to the items as he went. “Two alarm clocks with complete circuitry and wiring—I had to bust ‘em open to check. One phone with four screws on the bottom that I could count, plus whatever’s inside. I found a camera in the hall closet with a cracked lens, but I shook it around and nothing inside sounded loose, so that’s good, right? Then I saw a mini toolbox in there I thought you’d be interested in, too. Oh, and another fan.” He paused for a moment then turned back to her. “How’d I do?”

“Not too shabby,” Georgia said with a grin. “Help me strip it all down, and I’ll even buy you a beer at the Dugout.”

“Sounds like a deal to me.”

Picking junk apart down to its base components had only occupied him for so long. Stripping metal and wires wasn’t exactly quiet work either, meaning that once they were ready to bed down and it was his turn to be on night watch, it had to be put away. Naturally, idle hands and minds were prone to wandering. On the table across from Georgia’s sleeping form on the couch, was a stack of books prime for picking through.

After the first couple pages, The War of the Worlds had been the only thing keeping Mac from falling asleep during watch out of pure fear (aliens, man). Of course, Mac would never tell her that, not in a million years. After he had read the chapter describing the extraterrestrial creature emerging from its silver tube, Mac knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he’d actually sleep. That kind of thing had always freaked him out, and the book had only cemented that fear further into his psyche. Besides, just the two of them, out there by the river, alone where anything could snatch them up if it so chose...

But Mac had more tangible things to worry about than aliens. Didn’t stop him from staying up the rest of that night, though. Since they had nothing but time, he planned to take a couple of cat naps throughout the day to catch up on sleep, but upon noticing her stack different from how she left it, Georgia seemingly couldn’t help but pester him about it.

“I didn’t know if you were a science fiction type of guy,” she said, holding up the book, “I figured your super heroes were more your speed.”

“What can I say, I’m a complex person.”

She snorted. “So what’d you think about it? Did it leave you with anything?”

Mac raised a brow. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Y’know,” she said, trying to find the words. “Themes, messages, commentary. Personally, I think there’s somethin’ to be said about the theme of invasion and how it can be applied to critiques the old world, though I guess hindsight gives me the ability to recognize that more than most.”

“Hindsight?” he asked, then snorted. “What, you some sort of time traveler?”

“You can travel through time with a good book is what I meant,” she replied quickly, seemingly distracted by a hangnail. “Read a lot of…first hand accounts about life before, is all.”

Boring, he refrained from saying out loud. The old world was the old world for a reason; he didn’t see the point in even thinking about it too much. It was all bombs and ghost stories now as far as he was concerned.

“Anyways,” she continued, turning the conversation back to him, “did you have any thoughts at all? The War of the Worlds is a classic. Apparently.”

Mac blanched. He hadn’t gotten past chapter six.

“It, uh…It was good,” he started, awkward and sweating under her attentive look. “Had a lot of interesting themes, but uh…I don’t think aliens are for me.”

Georgia had almost looked a little disappointed, but then waved it away as she said, “Ah, don’t worry about it, we’ll find you a book you like yet. To tell you the truth, I tend to be more of a romance kinda gal myself, but I figure it’s good to branch out into other genres to keep yourself well rounded, know what I mean?”

“Yeah, sure,” he’d agreed, if “well rounded” meant reading both Grognak and The Unstoppables. He hadn’t been much of a book guy since leaving Little Lamplight, where attempted performances of old world plays had been one of the many ways to keep themselves entertained whenever the holotape player broke for the thousandth time.

On the fourth day, they decided to move out, but only after Georgia swore up and down that her foot was fine and Mac’s own battle scars had healed enough. With generous stimpak applications for each of them courtesy of the Gunners’ loot, they were back in fighting shape again.

“I’m serious. If you fu—mess it up again,” Mac warned her once more before they left, “you’re on your own.”

“Somehow, I doubt that’s true.” He replied with a heavy roll of his eyes, making her laugh.

“Yeah, well, I’d make you work for it first. Maybe press you for that extra medic pay, huh?”

“What, is my friendship not payment enough?”

Mac laughed, then paused for a moment, thoughts turning to their contract and where it hung in the area between employment and friendship.

“Are you even still paying me technically?” he asked suddenly. He almost felt bad about asking, but not bad enough to not ask. “I mean, I know we’re friends now, but uh, a guy’s gotta get by, you know?”

“You’ll still get your fair share, that much hasn’t changed,” she assured him, “but I guess it’s more equal. It’s like we’re...partners, now, instead of a boss and an employee.”

Partners.

For days, Mac had been trying to put the discovery of the wedding rings in her pack out of his mind, but now she had brought it all back to the forefront. Before him, before Piper, before Preston, did she have a partner? Someone who watched her back and kept her alive for more do-gooder shit? Someone who could have worn one of those rings, having or holding depending on which golden band belonged to them? Who were they, and why, Mac suddenly found himself asking, did he care so much?

He spared a glance at Georgia’s hands. Her fingers were short but thin, with surprisingly well-trimmed nails that were currently tapping an anxious rhythm against her thigh, waiting for his response.

“Partners,” he repeated, nearly choking on the word. He cleared his throat and looked back up at her face. “I can work with that.”

She smiled, her nervous tapping subsiding as she reached for her pack, “Well then, partner, let’s get a move on. Diamond City awaits.”

-----

By the time the walls of the Great Green Jewel came into view, the sky was starting to fade from a dusky orange to a deep blue, with black encroaching on the horizon. It had been a quicker journey with just two people, but the closer they got to the city proper, the more Georgia appeared like she was walking to her tomb.

She still hadn’t told him what her business was with Valentine, even over the four days they’d spent cooped up by the river. He hadn’t bothered to press her for anything either, especially with the thought of the rings sitting heavy on his conscience. Mac couldn’t help but wonder what she planned to do once they got into Diamond City, how long they’d stay, what they’d do afterwards. Whatever she did, Mac just hoped her plan included having him there beside her once it was done.

Georgia nodded a greeting to every wandering guard patrol the closer they got, and to Mac’s surprise, the guards nodded back. When they came upon the outside walls of the city, though, she stopped at an aged statue of some old world swatter player and considered the gate, which was decidedly closed.

“Somethin’ must have happened for them to be closin’ the gate this early,” she muttered, shouldering off her pack to dig out her Pip-Boy from inside. The screen flashed on after a handful of seconds, illuminating them both in blinding green. “It’s not even seven o’clock. I mean, I know it gets dark early this time of year, but the market shouldn’t even be closed yet. What gives?”

“Well, whatever’s going on, we’re stuck out here until they open,” Mac shrugged, leaning against the base of the statue. “Wouldn’t recommend it, but if we were sneaky about it, Goodneighbor isn’t that much further. We could hit up the Rexford for the night, come back in the morning.”

Georgia shook her head, rolling up her jacket sleeve and slapping her Pip-Boy over the cuff of her shirt, “Uh-uh, not tonight. I told Piper and Mr. Valentine I’d be back in a month and we’re already a few days late—you know how I like to be punctual.”

“Then what do you suggest we do? Ring the doorbell and hope they let us in?” Mac quipped, crossing his arms. A look fell over Georgia like she was seriously considering the idea.

“Oh, come on.”

Georgia yanked her backpack onto her shoulders again and walked up to the speaker box outside the gate with purpose. “Just watch,” she said as they approached. Mac complied and watched as she stood up straight and pushed her shoulders back, even smoothing down the flyaway strands in her hair before taking a breath and pressing the button to speak. Oh, he thought as the speaker crackled to life, this should be good.

There was a gruff voice on the other side that said, “City’s closed. Come back in the morning.”

“And good evenin’ to the night shift,” Georgia replied with an eighteen karat grin even though the guard on the other side couldn’t see it. Her accent came out long and put upon, thicker than yao guai hide. “Is there a Mister Danny Sullivan on duty tonight? I come bearin’ gifts.”

Mac balked at Georgia, eyebrows raised and wondering where the hell all…that had come from. What was she playing at?

“Unless you’re a trader, gate don’t open until six tomorrow, sweetheart—” the voice began, but it was abruptly cut off by another.

“Don’t you worry about him. I’ll get that gate open for you in just a second, Miss Georgia,” the second voice said, sounding pleased as punch with themselves.

“Thanks, Danny, you’re a doll. See you in a bit,” Georgia replied, and did Mac just see her wink? He breathed a laugh through his nose, shaking his head in disbelief. Maybe those rings weren’t the bomb he thought they were. After that, the speakers crackled once more before going silent.

The act fell from Georgia’s face as she turned to him, a singular, scarred eyebrow lifting over her glasses, “What?”

“‘Thanks, Danny, you’re a doll,’” Mac repeated, mimicking her tone and batting his eyelashes before laughing outright, “What the heck was that?”

The gate began to creak open and Georgia pursed her lips at him, “Oh, hush up, it’s not like that. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Besides, I didn’t wanna be stuck outside all night, did you?”

“Hey, I grew up in a cave, I’ve roughed it plenty of times. You’d have nothing to worry about, though. I’m sure ol’ Danny boy would make sure of that,” he smirked with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. A flush spread over her face, betraying the narrowed look she gave him under the security spotlights.

“Don’t say anythin’ when we go in or I swear, MacCready—”

“Hey, hey, ease up. You got us in, I’ll give you that, so go grease those wheels,” he conceded, holding up his hands, “I’m sure Mister Danny Sullivan is waiting on—”

“I will make him leave you outside!” Georgia hissed, but he just laughed and ducked her hand when she tried to swipe at him. The gate had stopped halfway and she gave him a pointed look before she ducked under. “Not a word. I’m serious, Mac.”

“Not a peep outta me, Boss.” Despite his shit-eating grin, he mimicked zipping his lips and throwing away the key.

“You little—Danny! You didn’t have to meet us at the gate, you know you were my first stop—”

Mac did his best to school the look on his face before he ducked under, biting down on the side of his tongue to keep his mouth from moving an inch. He popped up behind Georgia to see a man a little taller than she was, with ginger hair and a boyish look to him, but he couldn’t have been that much older than either of them. Either way, nothing about the man said it was any bother for him to make his way over to her.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Miss Georgia, I’m glad to see you back.” He gave a sideways glance at Mac. “With company.”

Georgia just grinned and waved off his concern. The guy definitely wasn’t subtle.

“Can’t expect a girl to roam around the Commonwealth alone, Danny. Besides, I pick up friends wherever I go. Can’t help it,” she shrugged, putting just enough emphasis on friends that Danny picked up on it quickly. That seemed to be enough for him and he grinned down at Georgia as he spoke.

“Guess that’s just part of your natural charm,” he agreed and Mac nearly broke when he saw her roll her lips between her teeth for just a second. Ol’ Danny boy had it bad, Mac could tell. He knew in that moment, Georgia was aware she may have gotten herself in too deep.

“Guess so! Now, Danny, I’d love to stay and chat, but me and my friend over here have walked from one side of Boston to the other it feels like to sell our scrap—you know, just some ammunition for Arturo and odds and ends for Myrna—so, I was thinkin’...we could skip the bag check this time?” she asked, pushing her glasses down just a touch to look up at him from under her lashes. “There could be a little treasure in it for you. I did say I came bearin’ gifts, didn’t I?”

Mac had to clear his throat to stop a laugh from escaping him and he certainly did not miss the look Georgia shot him out of the corner of her eye while Danny lit up.

“If I didn’t know you, I’d say you were trying to bribe me, but I know that isn’t your style, Miss Georgia,” he said, though he no doubt felt flattered by the notion. “I’d let you through without it because you’re you, but McDonough’s been cracking down lately and I’ve already let you past the gate. Just after you left, we had another person lose their minds in the market, accusing someone just reading the paper of being a synth. Pulled out a knife this time, but thankfully no one got hurt. McDonough thinks putting a curfew on the gate will help keep out ‘undesirables,’ but I dunno. Not everyone coming in after hours is always unwanted.”

With that, he grinned widely at Georgia, who looked perturbed by the news before switching back to a gentle, unconcerned smile.

“Oh, that’s awful to hear, but I guess I understand,” she conceded, albeit unhappily. Then she yawned, stretching her arms. “But could we still make it fast? Like I said, we’ve been walkin’ all day and would love to catch some sleep as soon as possible.”

Danny considered her for a moment, giving a deferring look towards Mac who had long ago furrowed his brow at the mention of the marketplace incident. “I’ll try to be quick. Just let me know when you’re leaving next time so I get a chance to say goodbye…if your friend here doesn’t mind.”

Mac raised an eyebrow, giving Georgia a glance. Why the hell would he care?

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” she said quickly, suddenly growing a little testy. “But let’s get a move on, shall we? I’m likely to fall asleep on my feet.”

At the security desk, Danny barely skimmed the top of Georgia’s pack. There were two other guards, one flipping through an old catalog and the other sat in a chair with his feet propped up, watching them behind dark tinted sunglasses. It struck Mac as a little odd, wearing sunglasses at night, but he turned his attention back to Georgia, who was still working her magic.

She was chatting to Danny the entire time, giving him short little snippets of what she’d been up to since she’d been in last. She had him wrapped around her little finger, even though by that point Mac knew she probably didn’t want him to be. Danny may have been somewhat motivated by it though, given that he would have liked to lay everything inside of Mac’s pack out on the counter before she stopped him. Georgia cleared her throat and started asking him about what it was like being a security guard. It may have all been an act, but Mac would be damned if he said it wasn’t working for them.

“Well, it’s been nice catchin’ up with you, Danny,” she said once the ordeal was over. “See you around.”

“For sure,” he beamed, oblivious. “You take care, Miss Georgia.”

She gave Danny one last smile before heading towards the stairs leading to the marketplace. As soon as they were out of sight, she retreated into herself and the smile fell as she let go of a heavy sigh.

“That looked painful,” Mac said.

“Jesus, you’re tellin’ me. You’re polite to a guy one time and he thinks he’s got a chance,” she groaned, pushing her glasses up and running a hand down her face. He raised a brow at her to continue. “He needed a reason for the logbooks when I first came to Diamond City, and I overshared. Now he thinks he’s gonna get lucky.”

Mac shrugged, “If he couldn’t tell that any of that was phony, then I don’t think you can blame yourself for this one.”

“I guess. But hey, we’re inside and that’s what matters,” she said as they came into the marketplace.

The shops were still open, but Georgia steered the both of them to the side door of Publick Occurrences instead, knocking a pattern into the metal door.

“First stop is Piper. She’ll let us drop off our stuff and sleep on her couch if I promise her some news,” she told him as they waited on the reporter’s stoop.

It took a while, enough for Georgia to knock again with a little more force, but when the door eventually opened, they heard Piper speaking before she had even touched the handle.

“—supposed to be with Ellie for the night, Nat, you said—”

Half in the doorway, Piper froze when she realized who was outside. She didn’t look like the put together journalist Mac remembered from the brief time he’d met her over a month ago. Her hair was slightly disheveled and her clothes—casual, not her usual getup—were wrinkled like they had been thrown on only seconds before.

Mac couldn’t stop the snicker that came out of him as Piper froze in front of them.

“Blue! And this guy! You’re back!” she said, her body filling the gap between the door and its frame as she put two and two together. “And you’re probably looking for a place to stay because I offered you my couch when you’re in town. Because of course I did.”

Briefly, she put her head in her hand and sighed. Behind her, a low yet distinctly feminine voice called out. 

“You alright, Pipes?”

Georgia spared a glance towards him, mouthing ‘Pipes?’ with barely concealed interest and he just shrugged. Through a gap between Piper’s head and the door, Mac caught a glimpse of another woman peeking into frame. She was taller than the both of them, with strong features and pale hair that tickled her chin, and equally as messy as Piper’s. Her clothes were just as wrinkled, too.

Mac’s eyes met Georgia’s again, attempting to suppress the smirk working its way onto his face, while she looked a little pink in the cheeks at their unintended intrusion.

“Yep, yeah, I’m fine!” Piper responded quickly, moving to step fully outside. “I’ll be just a second. Friend in town.”

With that, Piper closed the door behind her as quickly as she could without hitting herself with it on the way out. Georgia held up her hands before she could even speak.

“Don’t worry about it, Piper. We’ll hit up the Dugout this time,” she said and Piper deflated with visible relief.

“Thank you, Georgia,” she muttered, running a hand down her flushed face. “You’re the only person left in the Commonwealth that still has tact.”

“But you’re definitely tellin’ me everythin’ the next time I come in,” Georgia smirked. “Now shoo, don’t keep your company waitin’.”

Piper looked comparable to a ripe tato before she disappeared back into her dwelling, thanking Georgia profusely. Once she was gone, Mac let loose the bark of laughter he’d been holding in.

“Alright, alright, get it out now,” Georgia said, eyes falling towards the direction of the Dugout Inn. “Guess we’ll be spendin’ money on some rooms tonight.”

Mac quieted it down when heard the seriousness that began to pervade her voice. She fished a pouch of caps out of her pack and tossed it to him.

“Sell off all that scrap, grab two orders of noodles, then get us some rooms, my treat. Think you can handle that? I wanna touch base with Mr. Valentine as soon as I can.”

“If it’s on your tab, I can take care of it,” he teased as he caught them, trying to gauge where she was at. “Everything gonna be alright with Valentine?”

“I hope so,” she said after a pause, then straightened her pack and pushed her glasses up, trying to put on a cheerier voice, “I’ll meet you when I’m done, okay? See you in a bit.”

Mac didn’t say anything, but nodded. As he watched her retreat, he hoped that whatever she needed Valentine for, it worked out in her favor.

— — — — —

Georgia sighs as she walks away from Piper’s doorstep, leaving Mac with the easier task between the two of them. She’s had her time. She’s put this off long enough.

The walk to Mr. Valentine’s office seems almost too short, but it gives her a little more time to think (like she’d need any more after the month she’s had to do so). She wonders what the detective will have for when she steps through the door, what sort of world-shattering news he’ll give her this time. Before, it was that the person she watched murder Nate and snatch Shaun out of his arms was a man named Kellogg, and that he had been seen in Diamond City just a few months prior to her arrival. She also learned that a ten year old boy had been seen in his shadow.

She still got shivers when she thought about the man. He was the starring role in her worst nightmares, the face that put revenge in her heart like a knife, twisting it each night. She’d been apt when she described his voice like sandpaper across her face. She had been in a panic when he peered into her cryopod and called her “the backup,” but it stuck with her whether she liked it or not. Two simple words that opened up a sea of questions, but only one remained: what did he want with her son?

Before she left for a month—or, rather, if she was feeling particularly cruel to herself, before she ran away—she and Mr. Valentine had made an attempt at getting into the old house in the abandoned West Stands. She had broken six bobby pins before she finally gave up. Whatever lock Kellogg had put on his door, he made sure no one was getting in, plain and simple. Mr. Valentine had suggested talking to the Mayor’s assistant about getting a copy, but they quickly shot down the idea once they rationalized it. Given that she had taken to associating with Diamond City’s most reviled reporter and its most detested detective on the same day, all her charm could only do so much against good old fashioned bigotry. That had almost been her last straw, and she must have looked like it, too, because Mr. Valentine had put a hand on her shoulder and just told her he’d find a way to push through. She knew now that he had meant to inspire hope, to keep her going forward, but all it did was make her wish she could just stop.

Whatever vigor she thought she was going to face this new world with had disappeared when reality didn’t match up to her optimism. For the past month, she had been scared of what she’d find in chasing after the ghosts of Shaun and his kidnappers. The world Georgia had woken up in was far more dangerous than the one Shaun had been born into, even without the threat of nuclear war.

If, miraculously, the boy seen with Kellogg was her son, it meant two things: one, that after watching her own personal horror show play out in front of her, more time had passed between getting refrozen and being thawed out again, and two, it meant that she had missed out on ten or so years of Shaun’s life. Ten years possibly spent wondering if he ever had parents who loved him, when the reality was one was dead and the other a coward.

Georgia had her month of running away from her problems and not facing the truth for what it was: that her son was more than likely gone. She couldn’t bear to say or even think the other, more definitive word. She had given herself a month of putting it off and now that it was over, she had nowhere else to go.

If Nate could see me now, she thinks to herself, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s seen me at my worst.

What breaks her heart the most was that even with one parent still alive, Shaun had no one. No one to hold his hand when things were scary, no one to tuck him into bed, no one to be there for him when he needed someone—needed her—the most. She doubts there are any other Little Lamplights around to take in another of the wasteland’s lost children, and when the thought hits her, a different kind of heaviness settles on her.

She needs to tell Mac.

She’d been too fucking cagey and was starting to slip. She told him she would come clean at some point, and after tonight, it would have to be sooner rather than later. There was no more hiding it. Yes, she trusts him with her life, that much has been clear to her for a while, but they had only just breached the threshold of friends. Dumping her personal problems on top of him makes her worried she will lose the one person who wasn’t already caught up in them. Preston had known from the get go and she only told Piper on the condition that she be the deciding factor in when her interview got published. Mac had virtually no idea who she was or what her past entailed when they met, and for some reason that had enamored her enough to stick with him. For the better part of a month, between helping settlements and traveling the Commonwealth with Mac, she got to be Just Georgia. It was the closest thing to being herself, instead of General Tate or the Woman Out of Time. A savior and a spectacle. There was very little room for the person underneath.

Before she last left Mr. Valentine, she told him to take his time with her case and had put on all the old world manners she’d held on to. She thanked him graciously for his help and told him she’d be back in a month, then sobbed on Piper’s couch for two hours. She had only barely held it in before getting there—she hated crying in front of people and Nate had never known what to do with her when she did. It made her feel more than just a little pathetic.

A month ago, that walk from the office had felt miles longer when she’d been entirely focused on not breaking down in the marketplace. Now, as she realizes she’s been standing in front of the glowing neon sign of Valentine’s Detective Agency for more than a couple minutes, it still feels far too short.

Georgia snakes shaking fingers under the left sleeve of her jacket and pinches, hard enough to draw blood and focus her attention again before turning down the short alley to the detective’s door. She is in the moment now whether she wants to be or not.

She knocks first, because she’s not an animal and her mama raised her to know better. She doesn’t enter until she hears Mr. Valentine shout, “Come on in, Ms. Tate. It’s unlocked.”

Georgia pauses, smiles to herself, and turns the handle.

“How’d you know it was me?” she asks when she enters.

The synthetic man is sitting behind his desk, surrounded by a cloud of smoke that already has her itching for the carton in her pack. He has stacks of papers and faded manila folders spread out in front of him, obviously in the middle of all manner of casework. He smiles back at her, replying, “You’re the only one in this century that still has the decency to knock.”

Georgia looks around for Ellie before remembering she was babysitting Nat for the night, but beside Mr. Valentine on the floor, to her surprise, is Dogmeat.

“Well, don’t he look comfortable,” she says to him, bending down to give him a good scratch under his collar before sitting down across from Mr. Valentine. He barely acknowledges her, as if her comings and goings are inconsequential to him save the twitching of his tail saying otherwise.

“Sorry to bother you so late,” she says, turning her attention back to the synth. “Had a bit of a delay gettin’ back, but I thought I’d check in with you before I turned in for the night.”

“It’s no bother really. Glad to see you back,” he replies, always the gentleman, and nods towards Dogmeat with a chuckle. “I don’t know why he’s pretending like he’s not happy to see you too. He showed up a few days ago, looking plenty eager to find you.”

His chuckle sounds like his robotic lungs are actually capable of being affected by the haze of smoke in the room, a pack-a-day smoker’s laugh that reminds Georgia of her grandfather. It's so rough and human and familiar that it begins to calm her nerves. Even with his appearance and the general attitude towards synths in Diamond City, she has to hand it to him for knowing how to put people at ease. She wonders, vaguely, if his way with words is what drew him to his career or the other way around. She wonders the same about herself, before everything.

“Strange, because I left him with a friend back at the Castle last I knew,” she replies, picturing Preston in an absolute tizzy once he realizes he lost her dog. Mama Murphy had told her that Dogmeat didn’t really have an owner, but she knew that wouldn’t stop the man from fretting anyways.

“Minutemen keep you occupied past your shift time?” Mr. Valentine asks, picking up the cigarette filling the room with smoke from the ashtray and putting it between plastic lips.

“That, and I picked up another friend since we last spoke. Helped him out with a little bit of trouble—that’s why I’m late.”

“On time, more like,” Valentine counters as he produces another cigarette from his breast pocket and offers it to her.

Georgia didn’t realize she’d been staring it down, but she takes it without a second thought. Once she’s lit up and feeling a little more grounded, she asks, “What do you mean?”

He nods down to Dogmeat and her eyes follow. “While he’s been here, he’s certainly put in the work. Helped me out on a few local cases, actually. Folks tend to be a lot more forthcoming when he’s around. But he must have had a yearning for clues, because he started poking around near the West Stands this morning and found this.”

Mr. Valentine leans over to open one of the drawers in his desk, shaking it a few times before it finally gives. He takes something from inside and sits it down on top, moving his intact hand away to reveal a key. Georgia holds her breath.

“I tried it on Kellogg’s door, just to be sure,” Valentine says as he slides it across the desk to her. “The handle turned, but I wanted you to be there when we go inside. Are you ready?”

Georgia steels herself, lets go of the breath she’d been holding, and nods.

“As I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

-----

Mac watches the hard line of Georgia’s shoulders disappear into the alleyways of Diamond City. There seems to be a lot weighing on her now and in this moment, he can help just a little by completing his list of tasks.

It doesn’t take long to offload the scrap and sellable trinkets. The stall owners, Myrna in particular, seem eager to close up shop and give him better prices than they usually would in an effort to shoo him away faster. Mac can only attribute it to the synth paranoia.

Getting two covered bowls of noodles from Takahashi takes even less time, though he hopes Georgia comes back before they get too cold. After that, he heads over to the Dugout.

The bar is in full swing when he enters, the beat up old radio on the counter next to Vadim cranked up as high as it’ll go. Even so, Mac can hear the man shouting over the music to his patrons as he serves drinks. He squeezes past a few people surrounding the Port-A-Diner, waving at Vadim when he catches his attention. He reminds himself to remind Georgia about the beer she owes him, then makes his way to the quieter of the two Bobrov brothers.

“Oh, a customer,” Yefim says to himself at Mac’s approach, standing up from his chair where he seemed to be having no fun at all despite the packed house. “Need a room?”

“Two if you got ‘em,” Mac says, taking Georgia’s pouch of caps out of his pocket.

Yefim shakes his head, “No good. There is only one room available for the night, bed and couch. You can take it or leave it.”

Mac sighs. At least he’s not paying for it.

“Then I guess I’ll take it,” he says, handing the caps to Yefim. “We’ll make it work.”

“Room two is yours,” the man replies as he counts the caps in his palm. “Enjoy.”

Once inside the room, Mac throws his pack onto the couch pressed up against one of the walls. He decides Georgia can have the bed—besides, there’s a chance she might fall victim to her own manners and tell him he can have it anyways, just to be nice. His stomach growls when he sets the bowls on the low coffee table and he wastes no time in inhaling his own. The warm broth and the soft yet slightly rubbery noodles fill him better than anything he’s had in the last month. When he’s practically licked the bowl clean and Georgia still hasn’t shown, Mac decides to relax a little. Surely her business with Valentine, at this time of night, wouldn’t take too long.

So he waits. He goes through the remaining inventory of his pack, counting and recounting caps and bullets.

And he waits. He pulls out his journal and doodles in the back of it, then starts on another letter to Duncan that doesn’t get very far after the standard “Hey there, kiddo. It’s Dad” before he puts it away again.

And he waits. He speeds through an issue of Grognak twice by the time a knock—the same pattern he heard knocked onto Piper’s door—comes from outside the room, making him jump. Mac doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he’s killed enough of it waiting on Georgia.

He hops off the couch to answer and when he opens it, the look on her face is all it takes to let him know something is very, very wrong. Tears streaks and red eyes make not the perfect picture of his friend.

Whatever went down with Valentine didn’t go too well by his count. He quickly ushers her inside and waits for her to say something, anything, so he doesn’t have to pull out the there, theres and the it’ll be alrights just yet. He’s never been the best at comforting people; it went hand in hand with his poor bedside manner. But by the looks of it, Georgia is in need of some sort of…sympathy, he supposes. He’ll make it work.

She doesn’t speak though, not until she takes off her pack and sits down on the bed, head in her hands. It’s awkwardly quiet for a few tense moments. Mac is watching the rise and fall of her back, wondering what angle he should come at her with, when she takes a deep breath.

“So, uh, obviously I’m not doin’ too hot right now,” she begins. She still won’t look at him and her voice shakes. “But don’t feel like you need to do anythin’ about it, alright? I just wanna explain myself.”

Mac is more confused than he’s ever been. What is he about to get himself into? Despite his confusion, he’s still curious. He can’t help himself. He nods.

“Okay,” he says slowly, leaning against the wall with arms crossed.

Georgia sucks in another breath, preparing herself before she speaks again. Her words are hoarse and paper thin this time.

“By now I know you know somethin’ is…up with me, for lack of a better word, so I’m just gonna come out and say it, okay? It’s goin’ to sound insane and crazy and, and made up, but you can’t make fun of me,” she tells him seriously, words pouring out of her like water now, and he holds up his hands in defense. Whatever she’s about to tell him, she’s treating it as grievously as the bombs.

“I make no promises,” he says, trying to add some levity to the situation, but it’s apparently the wrong thing to say. Her head whips up to look him in the eye, expression fierce in spite of the watery look in her eyes.

“RJ,” she pleads and he folds instantly, giving her an apologetic look.

“Sorry. Continue.”

She sniffs and wipes her nose on her sleeve, but then he sees one of Georgia’s hands disappear up the opposite one, catching how she flinches in a way that makes him just a little more concerned than he already is.

“I told you that I wasn’t technically from a vault,” she starts again, trying to find the right words. Mac feels a tingle run up his spine—is she finally about to tell him what he’s been wondering and theorizing about for the past month? “And I’m not. I mean, I spent some time in one, way longer than I thought I did, but…”

She trails off with a distant look in her eyes, the same one she’d gotten in the diner when she told him that story about dance halls. Georgia flinches again and tears her gaze away from the wall she had started to bore a hole into. Mac feels incredibly awkward now, unable to move a muscle, but he listens with such intensity it makes his teeth grind together.

“I’m not technically a vault dweller,” she says again after a moment, and meets his eye, “because Vault-Tec fridged me up for two hundred years and only thawed me out a couple months ago.”

Mac almost laughs outright, thinking she’s playing some elaborate prank on him—a great use of her planning skills, for sure—but stops himself when Georgia doesn’t crack a smile after. Surely she had to be fucking with him, right? Because not even in his wildest theories about the woman in front of him did he ever think to consider that she was a pre-war popsicle. It wasn’t exactly his third or fourth guess, either.

“Believe me or don’t,” she says when he fails to say anything back, “but it’s the truth and nothin’ but.”

The more he considers the idea, the more everything about her starts to fall into place. The Rad-X. The manners. The penchant for old world trinkets. Her teeth, her skin, her god damn hair. She was a walking relic of a world gone by, a living ghost from the time of dance halls and classrooms full of healthy children. A time before the bombs. To think that she had been there before everything went to shit…

Mac has so many questions rattling around in his skull. But only one manages to make its way out.

“How?” he asks after a moment.

“Cryostasis,” she explains, the word coming bitterly from her mouth. “They froze us. We were warned just a few minutes before the…before the end. We almost didn’t get in.”

She stops and this time when she flinches, her fingers come away from the inside of her sleeve smeared with blood. Mac’s expression hardens at the sight.

“What the hell are you doing to yourself?” he demands, crossing the space between them before he can stop himself. She moves away from him when he gets to the bed, holding her arm to her chest with a frown. “Georgia, you have blood on your hands.”

“I’m fine,” she hisses, and she has to know she doesn’t sound as convincing as she thinks she does, because her voice cracks in the middle when she speaks again. “I’m not hurtin’ myself, I’m just, I just—”

Mac sets his jaw and points an accusatory finger at her arm. “Pull your sleeve up then. Prove it.”

Georgia throws him an impetuous look, but relents when he crosses his arms to tell her he’s not going to let this pass. She huffs a sigh and doesn’t look at him, yanking up her jacket and the sleeve of her button up to reveal her work. All along her wrist are scarred and scabbed over crescent moons, evidence of finger nails dug into the skin until they drew blood. Three new clusters still have fresh smears around them.

“Georgia.” He can’t stop the twinge of pity that comes with it.

“I’m fine,” she tries again, though it's obvious by now that she doesn’t even believe herself when she starts to tear up again. Mac sighs, shaking his head.

“Just stay there,” he tells her, and goes for his pack. She doesn’t respond as he digs around for the medkit and snatches the roll of bandages from inside. He presents them to her without much fanfare.

“Do you want to do it, or do you want me to?”

She gives him a petulant look, almost childish as she says, “Will I need to pay you for it?”

Mac rolls his eyes, annoyed, but takes that as an answer and tentatively sits down beside her. The mattress doesn’t sink under his weight as much as it does for her—he realizes now that pre-war, she must have had access to the best, non-irradiated foods money could buy. She’s probably never known a life full of hunger and wanting, and for a second, envy surges through him before he remembers the moment they’re in, gripping the bandages tightly. Petty jealousy has no place here when she’s been nothing but helpful and kind to him, even if she’s being a pain in the ass right now. But right now, she needs his help. He gestures for her arm and she slides it over to him without a word.

Mac unwinds the bandages, rolling out a length that should wrap around her forearm more than once. If anything, it’ll stop the current bleeding and hopefully get in the way of any further marring.

“Vault-Tec told us they were decontamination pods,” she says, almost startling him. “Gave us some vault suits and told us to hop on in. God, we were so fuckin’ stupid.”

He says nothing as he starts to wind the bandages around her arm. Still, with the way she keeps saying we, he has a hunch about who else went into the vault with her. He makes sure the bandage is just tight enough that trying to wiggle a finger under it is more hassle than it’s worth. As he touches her skin, though, he realizes why she always felt so cold. A lingering remnant of her time on ice.

“We didn’t realize what was happenin’ at first,” she continues listlessly. “One second I’m in the pod, waitin’ for a bullshit decontamination process to start, and the next I’m wakin’ up to see a stranger pointin’ a gun at my…at my…”

He looks up to see her staring off into space again, her face shiny with tears. Gently, he shifts beside her on the mattress and she starts a little, coming back to the moment like she had suddenly forgotten he was there until he reminded her of his presence.

“Mr. Valentine told me the stranger’s name is Kellogg,” she says, voice feather light but the most coherent she’s been so far. “He’s the man who killed my husband and stole my son out of his arms. That’s why I’m workin’ with Mr. Valentine. To try and find him.”

Mac stops, both because he’s finished wrapping her arm, and because he needs to let the real bombshell she just dropped settle over him. Her situation hits him right where it hurts, makes his chest burn with paternal instinct. All this time, he’d known more about her than he’d ever thought. He knew what it was like to lose a partner, but to lose a child, too, a son…Christ, Mac doesn’t even want to consider it. He feels compelled for a moment to share a bit of his own past, tell her that he gets it and commiserate a bit, but he’s barely handling Georgia’s cascade of emotions. He doesn’t need the added difficulty in dealing with his own.

“Ask your questions now,” she tells him, “or forever hold your peace.”

Mac considers the moment for a while. There’s so much running through his head right now, a thousand things he wants to know. Eventually, after a breath, he settles on one.

“Two hundred years old, huh?”

“Technically somethin’ like two hundred and thirty-four, but who’s countin’?”

The corner of Mac’s mouth twitches. “You’re like something out of a comic book, you know.”

The corner of her own mouth flickers. “Oh yeah? What’s my hero name?”

He thinks for a minute. It has to be good.

“What about ‘The Cryo-General?’”

A sad, pitiful laugh comes out of her, but it’s a laugh nonetheless. It’s snotty and wet and a little gross. Mac lets himself grin just a bit.

“We’ll workshop it,” she says, and takes her arm out of his lap to wipe at her eyes.

“Can I ask you another question?” he asks. She nods. “What did you think of the wasteland? When you first got out?”

He remembers Flora telling him once that she thought she had walked out of Vault 101 and straight into hell. An apt first impression of the Capital Wasteland as far as he was concerned.

Georgia doesn’t miss a beat. “That roaches the size of a toddler were a bit much.”

Mac’s laugh causes a smile to fully settle onto her face and for that, he’s grateful.

“Dogmeat was there when I went to Mr. Valentine’s office—don’t ask me how,” she says after a quiet moment. “We broke into Kellogg’s old house and found some things we can use to track him. Mr. Valentine said a Commonwealth dog like him could sniff a man out for miles.”

“I believe it,” Mac nods. Dogmeat was nothing short of an impressive companion, one he suddenly began to miss.

“So we’re goin’ out tomorrow mornin’ to find him. Bright and early,” she says and looks him in the eye, making him hold her gaze. “You don’t have to come—”

He interrupts her before she can even finish the thought. “Didn’t you say you used to be a teacher?”

The dissonance is enough to stop her in her tracks. “I—What?”

“I just thought that meant you would be smart enough to know that I’m damn well coming,” he says with finality. “You helped me take out the Gunners like what, five days ago? And you don’t think I’m gonna be settling our score still? If you won’t take those caps back, then I’m coming with you.”

Georgia almost looks like she’ll start crying again and Mac is scared she might before she wordlessly throws her arms around him. He’s sitting sideways next to her, so it’s a little uncomfortable and it catches him entirely off guard, but he only flinches a little. She squeezes harder than he thought she could. Her head is next to his shoulder when she whispers “thank you” into his sleeve. He gives her arm a tentative pat before she releases him, face flushed.

“Sorry,” she says, taking off her glasses and using the edge of her shirt to clean the lenses. “I…Thank you, MacCready. RJ. You’re a real good friend.”

“Hey, you’re fine,” he tells her. “This is what friends do, right?”

She puts her glasses back on and leans over, falling towards him slightly on the mattress.

“Then can I be a hundred percent honest with you? As a friend?” she asks.

“More honest than you’ve been already?”

Georgia looks over at him and nods once. Mac nods back.

“I don’t even know if I’m even ready to find him,” she says quietly, like she doesn’t want the world to hear, but once it’s out it’s like she can’t seem to stop it. “I’ve spent all this time avoidin’ the truth like the plague. I tried to justify it, that runnin’ around with a Minuteman was me tryin’ to make this place even just a little bit safer for my son when I finally found him, but fuck if this new world doesn’t suck sometimes. I mean, you can’t go anywhere without runnin’ into mutated abominations around every corner and you heard Danny talk about that synth incident in the market—that’s the second one in as many months, Mac. Why should I even try to bring him into a world like this, when this entire time it’s more likely that he’s probably better off dead—”

“Hey,” he says sternly, cutting her off, “don’t talk like that. You don’t know for sure.”

She’s probably right, but it’s the one fear he can’t validate. Not with his own son’s life hanging in the balance back home.

“And that’s the worst part,” she whispers. “Sometimes…sometimes it feels like the not knowin’ is more bearable than knowin’.”

“Well,” Mac breathes, “how do you know until you know?”

She considers his question for a moment, running her hands down her face as she sighs, “Does it make me a shitty mom that I still don’t know the answer to that?”

“I think the fact that you’ve fought like hell to even get here means you’re the best damn mom in the Commonwealth,” he tells her, entirely earnest. “I don’t think you would’ve come this far if you didn’t want to know.”

Something inside her brain seems to slot into place at his words. It takes her a second, but Georgia starts to return to the person he knows better, the bright, actionable woman he’s known from day one. He’s glad she wasn’t lost entirely.

“We’re gonna have an early start tomorrow,” she tells him, and he can already see the gears turning in her mind. “Mr. Valentine will be taggin’ along and Dogmeat’s back on deck. I don’t know what we’ll find or where we’ll end up, but if it brings me closer to finding my son, I want to go after it if I can. No matter the cost. Are you sure you still want to come?”

For the first time tonight, there’s conviction in her voice, a promise behind her words and she means every bit of it.

“It’s not like I have anything better to do,” he says and she smiles. “I don’t think I could stay behind even if you asked me to.”

“We’ll say that’s because you can’t bear to part with my company, and not because you can’t let go of a debt,” she laughs, giving him a gentle punch to the shoulder. “But like I said, early start tomorrow. So which room am I in?”

“Oh, uh. This one. Yefim only had one room available,” he says and pats the mattress beneath them. “You can have the bed, if you want it.”

In a move surprising even him, she takes the bed without complaint or counter-offer. Later, in the middle of the night when the sag in the couch brings on aches in his back, Mac only feels a little bit annoyed.

[gordopickett]

And If It’s Not Okay... (For All Mankind post-s2 fix-it fic)

*** Chapter 37 is up! ***

Chapter Title: A Spark and a Decision

Chapter Summary: Tracy confronts Karen about her affair with Danny.

And for those who would like to read the chapter here on Tumblr...

*******

Tracy rapped her knuckles on the Baldwin front door. She hadn’t planned to show up there. Not at first, anyway. But then when Gordo had said that he was going to meet Ed for a drink at the Shamrock, Tracy got to thinking about Ed and Karen. And about Karen and Danny.

Karen and Danny.

They had slept together. Tracy didn’t know the extent of it. She didn’t know if there were real feelings on both sides. She knew that Danny was in love with Karen – or thought he was, at least. Tracy regretted not talking to Danny about it further. But she had wanted to give her son space. She knew he was embarrassed about the whole thing, but she should’ve pushed it. She should have gotten Danny to talk more about it.

She knew that Gordo had. He had talked to Danny about what had happened with Karen. And Gordo had shared a lot of it with Tracy. But it wasn’t the same as talking directly to her son. And Tracy knew she should have done that before Danny left.

Tracy just hoped that Danny would be able to move forward in Annapolis. She figured the time away would be good for him and help him get Karen out of his head.

Tracy still hadn’t been able to wrap her mind around it fully. That was why she had shown up. She needed answers. She needed to hear it from Karen. She needed to know why her best friend had had an affair with her son.

The door opened a few moments later. Karen stood on the other side of the threshold.

“Tracy,” she said, surprise in her voice. “Hi.”

“Karen,” Tracy said by way of a greeting.

“What’s—What are you doing here? We didn’t have plans, did we?”

“No,” Tracy said. “I just thought I’d stop by. Catch up.”

“Oh, okay.” Karen offered a smile as she moved aside and opened the door more. “Well, come on in.”

Tracy stepped inside and waited for Karen to close the door. Then, the two of them walked down the hall and into the living room, taking a seat on the couch.

“How are you?” Karen asked.

“Good,” Tracy said. Other than thinking about what had happened with Karen and Danny, it was the truth.

“That’s good,” Karen said. “The ceremony yesterday was incredible. Congratulations again.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I offer you a drink?” Karen asked. “Or something to eat?”

“No,” Tracy said. “No, thanks. I’m good.”

“All right. So, what’s new with you? The last time you were here, things were rocky with Sam.”

“Yeah,” Tracy whispered.

She had come over to talk about Karen and Danny. About what the two of them had done. About what Karen had done with Tracy’s son. But she hadn’t figured out what she wanted to say. She didn’t know where to start. Karen didn’t seem to know that Tracy knew anything about it. Karen was still acting like normal – acting like she always had in their friendship. Tracy assumed that, once it was out there – once Karen knew that Tracy knew about the affair – that things between them would change. And as upset as Tracy was about what happened, she also didn’t want to lose her friend.

So, instead of immediately confronting Karen about the affair with Danny, she engaged in the subject of Sam.

“That’s over,” Tracy said. She was leaning forward on the couch with her forearms resting on her knees. She looked down at her hands. She still wore her wedding ring.

“What?” Karen said, surprised. “I mean, I know you said you didn’t think you were in love with him anymore, but I didn’t realize things were going to end so soon.”

“Neither did I,” Tracy said.

“When…”

“Yesterday. After the ceremony.”

“Oh, Tracy,” Karen said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks.” Tracy sighed quietly, twisting her wedding ring around her finger. She wanted to give it back to Sam at some point. She wasn’t ready to see Sam again so soon after their breakup, but she was ready to be rid of the reminder that her second marriage had failed. She would take off the ring when she got home – well, her temporary home at Gordo’s – and give it back to Sam the next time she saw him. Whenever that would be.

“What’s the news with Gordo?”

Pulled from her thoughts, Tracy looked at Karen. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you said you’re still in love with him, right? That you always will be. Does that mean you two are going to get back together?”

“I don’t know,” Tracy said. “Not right now. I need some time to process what happened with Sam.”

“Are you still staying there? At your house?”

“Yeah. Well, my old house.”

“What?”

“Gordo’s,” Tracy clarified.

“You’re staying at Gordo’s?”

Tracy nodded.

“But nothing’s going on between you?”

Tracy shook her head. “I told him I wasn’t ready to think about another relationship just yet.”

“That makes sense. How did he take it?”

“Pretty good, I think. He’s just glad I’m staying at the house, with him and Jimmy.” Tracy paused. “But I know he’s hoping that we get back together eventually.”

“Of course he is,” Karen said. “Do you think you will? Eventually?”

“I’m not sure,” Tracy said. Then, with a smirk, she added, “You know him. Gordo Stevens has a particular kind of charm.”

“Yes,” Karen said.

Tracy looked at her, locking eyes. She found herself saying, “You know the Stevens appeal very well, don’t you?”

Karen furrowed her brow, searching Tracy’s eyes. She shook her head momentarily as though not understanding. But then she stopped, her eyes widening a bit.

“Oh, Tracy,” Karen whispered. She closed her eyes and lowered her head.

“You just weren’t going to tell me?”

Karen re-opened her eyes but didn’t meet Tracy’s. “I don’t know. It’s all been a little crazy lately.”

“Right.”

“I didn’t want to upset you. I knew it would, and I—I didn’t want to lose you.”

“Why did you do it?” Tracy asked.

“It wasn’t planned,” Karen said. She paused for a few moments before adding, “But it was a decision I made.”

Tracy waited, letting her friend explain. She wasn’t sure there was an explanation good enough for what Karen had done, but Tracy wanted to hear her out. She wanted to know exactly why it had happened. Why her son had had his heart broken.

“I swear, Tracy, I didn’t mean to hurt him. And it—Honestly, it wasn’t even about Danny.” She paused, seeming to gather her thoughts. “Ed and I—We haven’t been right for a while. We’ve been okay. We’ve gotten along. But somewhere along the way, I realized that I’m not entirely happy with the way our marriage has been going.”

“So, my son was a pawn in your marriage problems?”

“No,” Karen said quickly. “Well, not intentionally. I had never thought about Danny that way before. Ever. But then one night, we were at The Outpost late, closing up. We had the jukebox on, and we were dancing, and then he…”

“He, what?”

“He kissed me,” Karen said. Then, she quickly added, “I stopped it, and—and I left. Honestly, I thought that was the end of it. But then, days later, we were closing The Outpost again. He wanted to talk about it, but I didn’t. But then he was saying that he couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss, and I don’t know—He seemed to see me. And he liked me. And I hadn’t felt a spark like that in a long time.” She sighed softly. “And I don’t just mean romantically. I realized I hadn’t felt a spark in any way for a long time.”

“What do you mean?” Tracy asked.

“My whole life has been about Ed’s career. Our entire marriage has revolved around the Navy and NASA.” She paused. “After Shane died, I realized how ridiculous those rules were. How ridiculous it was for me to be the obedient, dutiful housewife, doing every single thing in furtherance of my husband’s career.” She looked at Tracy then. Softly, she said, “I know you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Tracy did know. Before becoming an astronaut, that was exactly how Tracy had felt as well. That her entire life and marriage revolved around Gordo and his career. She had needed something of her own, and when the opportunity had presented itself, she had gone for it with everything she had.

“I never had that,” Karen said. “What you had. What you achieved for yourself back then. What you’re still achieving.” She paused again, still looking at Tracy. Her eyes glistened with tears. “You found something you’re good at. Something you love to do. And you’re doing it. You’ve been doing it for years.”

Tracy nodded, not interrupting.

“I thought I had that with The Outpost. At first, anyway. But over time, I realized that I was still living in this astronaut world. The Outpost is an astronaut bar. And maybe—maybe I’m meant to have a life revolving around that in some way. But I just feel like The Outpost isn’t it. I feel like it’s too connected to Ed. Too connected to his world.” She paused and inhaled deeply. When she let it out, she said, “I need something that is more mine. Something less connected to Ed. Even if that something does end up being space- or astronaut-related, I need something just for me.”

“I get that, Karen. I do. But what does that have to do with Danny?”

“Nothing,” Karen said. “Not really. Like I said, what we did wasn’t about him. It was about me. It was about me needing to feel happy again. It was about me needing to feel joy and to do something fun. Something that made me feel good about myself.” She paused before cautiously saying, “In that moment, I felt good. Danny was seeing me. Something Ed hadn’t done in a long time. Not really. And that felt nice. It wasn’t about it being Danny. It was about being seen. About feeling that spark. About feeling like something else was possible. Something more than a life revolving entirely around Ed’s career. So, I fueled it. I embraced that spark and let it make me feel like the world was possible. Like there were so many more options and opportunities out there.”

“I get what you’re saying,” Tracy began. “Trust me. You know I’ve been there. But Danny?”

Karen nodded, lowering her gaze again. “I didn’t realize how he felt. Honestly, I wasn’t really thinking too clearly in that moment. I was just feeling, and what we did was completely in response to that.” She paused before adding, “Believe me, Tracy, if I could undo it, I would. I didn’t know he had such strong feelings for me. I had no idea. I thought it was just a shared moment between friends, that’s all. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized how strong his feelings were.”

“Are,” Tracy corrected. “How strong his feelings are.”

Karen nodded again but said nothing.

“He thinks he’s in love with you, Karen. And what you did—You really messed with his head and his heart.”

“I know,” Karen whispered. She looked up at Tracy again. At regular volume, she said, “I wish I could take it back. I never meant to hurt him, Tracy. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“Does that mean you don’t have feelings for him?”

“I know he thinks he’s in love with me,” Karen began, “and maybe he is, in his way. But I don’t feel that way about him. Like I said, it was a decision I made in that moment. I let my desire to be seen and feel joy again cloud my judgment.”

“So, it really wasn’t about Danny?”

“Of course not.”

“So, you’re saying that if someone else – someone other than Danny – had been there that night, and they had made you feel joyous and seen, that you would have done that with them instead?”

“I don’t know,” Karen said. “Maybe. All I know is that it wasn’t about Danny at all. I don’t feel that way about him. I never have. I feel terrible that he has gotten hurt because I didn’t think through my actions.”

“Yeah,” Tracy said quietly. She didn’t know what else to say. She hated that Karen had hurt Danny. She hated that her son was confused and heartbroken. But she also understood where Karen was coming from because Tracy had been there herself. She hadn’t cheated because of it – no, Gordo had done enough of that – but she knew what it was like to feel unseen. To feel unappreciated. To feel like the spark had gone out in life. And she knew what it was like to have that spark rekindled. To feel happiness and excitement again. It was the way she had felt when becoming an astronaut. She had found something for herself, and she had jumped in headfirst. Tracy just hated that the spark for Karen – the thing she had jumped into headfirst – was an affair with Danny.

“I hope you can forgive me,” Karen said quietly. “But I understand if you can’t.”

Tracy nodded. She inhaled deeply, letting it out slowly. “I think I just need some time,” she said finally. “To sit with this for a while.”

“Okay,” Karen said. “I understand. Take as much time as you need.”

[firstkanaphans]

The final chapter has now been posted 🧡

I cannot thank y'all enough for supporting this fic! The fact that this many people are still reading AkkAyan fanfic 2 years after the show ended is a testament to this fandom and the amazing people in it. I hope you enjoy the ending and hopefully, I'll have a new project for you soon 🫶🏻

[prolix-yuy]

Best Laid Plans

Dieter Bravo x F!Reader Editor "Murch"

Dieter Bravo, legendary Hollywood playboy and a tabloid's best friend, never thought he was worth much more than a good night to a parade of faces. Until Murch, the editor on his film, turns his world upside down. Now he's got big plans to do the same as he drags her into the deep end of his hedonistic life. He's got a guy for everything, but she's got something he's always wanted - a big enough heart (and patience) for him to fit in.

The Plan (and All its Iterations)(12.2k)

Capturing the attention of infamous actor, drug addict, man slut, hot mess Dieter Bravo was not on your bingo card. But when he invites you to a house party you have to come to grips with the fact that he’s offering you much more than a few free drinks.

The Booth (and All its Misuses)(4.4k)

Dieter is pushing boundaries with the roles he takes. And with you.

The Sunrise - A Bangathon Drabble (933)

The First Date (Coming Soon)

[megumiifushiiguro]

“Paul. Dinner. Don't forget," Logan said. He cleared his throat. "I didn't forget.”

[4th-make-quail]

do you have an idea for when the new fic will drop🤲🤲 i’m so desperate for more zamasian and you write them so well

I'm hoping sometime this coming week, nonny! My FFXII Week starts on the 9th (along with my new job) and I have a few things I want to write for that, plus I don't think I'll have the mental capacity in my first few weeks of the new job so I wanna get this done before both of those things! oh yeah i'm also doing Communal Creators from the 15th of Sept to 15th of Oct where I'll be working on an older wip and then christ... Yuletide is Incumbent.... and the gunkink flash exchange I'm planning on running in Nov sometime..... perceive my fucking gantt chart lol

unfortunately this end of the year is usually fairly busy for me with exchanges and things, so potentially this might be the last zamasian I can write before then, UNLESS I get it for my Yuletide assignment :DDD buuut that won't reveal until Christmas lmao, AND since Yuletide requests aren't visible I can't even game for zamasian so it'll be in the hands of the ao3 exchange matching gods! although tbf the creation period for Yuletide is really long so who's to say what else I can fit in during!!

i digress. however, I just did another two sprints and now we're nearly on 2k so you know, it do be coming!!

[druidgroves]

Chapter 11: Just In Time

Fandom: Fallout 4 Words: 8,557 Characters: Georgia Tate (Canon Divergent Sole Survivor), RJ MacCready, Original Characters Notes: content warnings for game-standard violence & gore. otherwise, enjoy !

read on ao3 / read on tumblr

Because of—or perhaps in spite of—hope, things didn’t go south as much as they had gone shit-fucking sideways. Which was another way to say they lived, but not without scraping their way to a win nearly every step of the way.

Mac should have known something was wrong as soon as they were ready to head out. In hindsight, it should have been more obvious. When they started on the road again, Georgia had lagged behind a bit after having taken point the day before. The usual pep in her step had been traded in for overcompensation for a foot that hadn’t fully healed. He knew she wasn’t totally healed, had that aching suspicion that she hadn’t been entirely truthful when he asked her. He wouldn’t have cared as much if she weren’t literally helping him wipe out an entire Gunner squad that deemed him Kill On Sight. She hadn’t complained one bit either, which should have been another tick in the “something is definitely fucking wrong” column, but Mac had been too in his own head about what they were getting ready to do to fully realize it.

He had been full of anxious energy all morning, but forced himself to keep his cool as they traveled to the interchange. Evidently, he’d been doing a piss-poor job of hiding it, because Georgia had pinged him almost immediately.

“You alright, Hotshot?” she asked quietly as she sidled up to him, and leaned in close to give them some semblance of privacy. Her voice had a nervous edge to it despite her efforts to bolster him with the nickname, but it gave Mac some measure of comfort to know he wasn’t the only one feeling the same.

“You know how it is, just about to face a whole group of people that want me dead,” he replied with an attempt at a nonchalant shrug. He was aiming for a joke, too, but it didn’t quite land judging by the look on Georgia’s face.

“Well, we’ve got your back,” she said, and made a little gesture to the rest of the team. “Tell us how you want us to go at it, and we’ll work from there, alright? You make the calls.”

Honestly, Mac should have expected it to all go south the moment she handed off the reins to him so casually like that, looking to him to lead instead of the other way around. It shouldn’t have surprised him so much—this was his personal business anyways—but he’d been so used to her calling the shots that it made the role reversal that much more jarring. It occurred to him then that Georgia must have been in a similar position when she was made General by virtue of simply being there, as she described it, responsibility thrust onto her shoulders. He had punched someone for the position of mayor, though, so he was familiar with undertaking responsibility. It was just the fact that she put the lives of her people into his hands, meaning he really, really couldn’t afford to fuck up.

Mac decided to converge with Curtis about the approach, given his knowledge of the Gunner base. Curtis suggested going in from the northeast, away from the main road. He said the squad stationed there had put up what he called a “multi-purpose extortion playground” that their group needed to steer clear of—the Gunners forced tolls, supplies, or even the lives out of the hands of those just trying to pass through. He had described it with such venom in his voice that his comical demeanor had been nowhere to be found. Mac reminded himself not to get on the man’s bad side.

“They’ve got two lifts at opposite ends of the highway that they use to get up,” he explained, describing the layout as they walked. “The one close to the road is guarded at all hours, but there’s another one we’ll come up on the way we’re going. They’ve got it hidden away as an escape option, but they only ever had one guy guarding it.”

“We’ll split the group then,” Mac decided, running the plan through his head. “Have one team take out the guards near the main lift, meanwhile the other team focuses on the back entry. Classic flank maneuver.”

The rear attack consisted of Georgia, Gonzalez, Hollow, and Collins. Gonzalez would take out the guard with her silencer and get them in after the frontal assault distraction provided by Mac, Curtis, and Buckley. It had seemed like the start of a good plan, really. Curtis did his best to describe a mental map of the place for everyone, and when they started to stake the place out, they even thought they had run into a bit of luck.

The interchange itself was high above, covered in sheet metal and branded with the Gunners’ insignia. A few of the Gunners were on the edge of the road and had started taking pot shots at a passing herd of wild brahmin during their silent approach. They were all looking down their scopes and completely distracted.

“Stupidest way to pass the time that they’ve picked up yet,” Curtis had said once Gonzalez reported back from her forward scouting mission. After discussing the details, they reviewed the plan once more and got ready to split into their groups.

Before they parted ways, Georgia pulled Mac to the side, facing away from the rest of their team.

“Just wanted to say good luck,” she said, bumping him with her shoulder. “We’ll make it through, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he replied, trying to convince himself more than her. There was no backing out now, not when they had come this far. “Just…Try to save Winlock or Barnes for me, alright? It’s personal with them. You know how it is.”

“Consider them all yours. See you in a bit, Mac.” She gave him a small, encouraging smile.

“See you in a bit,” he echoed back, gripping his rifle tightly as they took off with their groups.

The opportunity with the brahmin allowed Buckly, Curtis, and himself to get into position in order to deal with the three guards posted around the main lift. Mac settled into his spot, and once he saw the other two find their own through his scope, he lined up his crosshairs with his target and waited for another shot from the overpass. One was near the lift and two were at opposing guard stations, eyes on the road ahead where helpless traders and settlers were more likely to pass through.

The success of Georgia’s group hinged on his own group timing their shots perfectly with the ones being aimed at the herd of brahmin. If they could manage to pull it off, Mac thought, they might actually get the upper hand.

A shot rang out from the overpass, and in the split second between its firing and the echo it left behind, Curtis and Mac took out their respective targets with a sniper’s grace (though Mac would say he was the cleaner shot). Two bloody holes appeared in the temples of two different Gunners as they fell from their guard stations.

It would have been perfect, flawless even, but Buckley had only managed to clip the last Gunner in the shoulder. She’d had just enough time to slap her hand over the lift button, sending it up before Mac had her in his sights. The lift began to rattle upwards while the woman began to choke on her own blood, dead before the three of them could make it out of hiding.

“Shit,” Mac cursed before he could stop himself, shooting out of his position like a bat out of hell, “shit, shit, shit, shit.”

Curtis reached the lift before he did, his long strides catapulting him up the stairs of the platform. The lift itself had already started going up, and they would have to wait for it to stop at the top before coming back down. They all seemed to come to that realization as gunfire began echoing off the road above them.

Mac’s blood ran cold.

Georgia.

“Can’t this thing go any faster?!” Mac snapped as Curtis slammed the call button over and over.

“C’mon, you piece of shit fucking goddamn—” Curtis growled, his string of profanities unceasing until the thing had finally come back down, the gunfire above never stopping.

The three of them jumped onto the lift, Buckley spouting off apologies the entire way up, and what they were met with on the overpass was chaos.

Any thought of a plan went out the window as a decked out assaultron immediately came into view from behind a hollowed out bus. As it began charging the laser beam in the center of its plated face, all three of them took aim at the red dot like a bullseye. Before it could fire, their bullets converged and it exploded into metal and wires.

A blast of heat hit Mac in the face when it did, and he hoped the explosion didn’t singe off his eyebrows as he shouted to Curtis, “You didn’t think the assaultron was worth mentioning?!”

“That one’s new!” Curtis shouted back as he took cover behind a concrete barrier while Mac ducked behind the shell of the bus. “My bad!”

Buckley had gone somewhere off to the right, evidence of his direction in the sound of opposing gunfire being abruptly cut off. Once Mac had pulled all his limbs behind his own cover, his eyes darted across the overpass frantically, looking for one person amongst the bullets pinging off support beams and old vehicles. Curtis moved from his cover just as Collins ran by with the ends of her hair on fire, and Hollow’s voice could be heard yelling something panicky. Gonzalez was shooting from behind an old Nuka-Cola machine while her arm bled from a bullet to her bicep. Everyone else was accounted for—but no Georgia.

Mac didn’t know how many Gunners there were. All he could do was aim at the turret spitting bullets at Buckley as he came upon one Mac remembered from his time on the squad. He didn’t feel too bad as the turret exploded into a ball of flame, distracting the Gunner—he was a Corporal if Mac remembered right—just long enough for Buckley to pick him off.

Then he saw both of them at the same time: Winlock in his Gunner green breastplate, eyes focused through the scope of his weapon, a perfect O+ making a target on his temple, and a suit of power armor off to the side looking ready to crush a panic-stricken Georgia underneath its foot.

Mac had always prided himself in thinking on his feet and making tough choices in high stress situations. It was what had made him a good mayor, what had allowed him to survive for so long in the wastes, and what kept him with just enough caps to get by. In the space of a heartbeat, he made the easiest choice he could have made in the moment.

The unprotected head of the Gunner, who must’ve forgotten his helmet in the chaos, burst like an overripe mutfruit as Mac pulled the trigger. Georgia managed to roll out of the way just enough for the foot to come down on the edge of her jacket instead of the middle of her torso. She popped up behind a metal barrier a second later, pulling her shotgun up and aiming it right at Winlock.

He couldn’t blame her for taking the chance: it was the perfect shot. The whole thing couldn’t have been lined up better if even she had planned it, Winlock’s back to her as he looked down his scope at—

Oh fuck.

The red beam from Winlock’s laser gun burned through the meat of Mac’s right shoulder as he narrowly ducked and rolled his head out of the way. The smell of burning flesh quickly began to coat the inside of his nose and throat as he clamped down on the wound with a litany of curses. He could pick out the sound of Georgia’s gun firing again, followed by an errant yelp from Curtis and one of Collins’ homemade frag grenades exploding in the distance. His shoulder screamed in pain at him, but he ignored it to lift his rifle again and take aim at a Gunner hiding behind a stone barrier.

The shot went wide when he pulled the trigger, the kickback against his burning shoulder nearly making Mac’s vision white out. He fell out of his cover just far enough for his target to be quick on the uptake. Pain split through his left side as he fell, trying desperately to scramble back behind his cover. He looked down at where he felt the pain, at first feeling warm, then very, very wet. The bullet had just barely missed some vital organs, but that didn’t make it scream any less as blood gushed from the wound.

Firmly hidden behind the bus again, Mac forced his breath to steady and began putting pressure on the bullet hole, relieved to find an exit wound not even two inches away from the entry. If he could just stop the bleeding, it’d be an easy fix. Hopefully.

“Mac!” Georgia was suddenly on her knees in front of him, her voice shrill and spitting words faster than he could make out. Her eyes went from his blood covered hands to his face and back. “Oh, fuck, are you okay? What can I do? What do I need to do? Mac, tellmewhatyouneedmetodo—”

“Medkit—from my pack,” he hissed through gritted teeth, pressing down harder on his side. Georgia’s eyes were bloodshot with panic and as wide as dinner plates behind her crooked glasses. “If you can get to it—”

“No time,” she said, rolling around to the other side of him as she tore off her pack, shaking hands fumbling through the pocket on the front. She pulled out a stimpak of her own, then looked panickedly between the burn on his shoulder and the bullet wound bleeding freely at his side. Mac was trying to staunch the blood flow as best he could, but crimson seeped between his fingers and stained everything in its path.

“Which one is worse?!” Georgia cried as a bullet whistled past her head, making her yelp and duck.

“Which one—Which one do you think is worse?!” Mac shot back, but then she stabbed him with the stimpak, narrowly missing the hand on his side as she traded the needle for her gun. At the sight of the stimpak she left inside him, Mac allowed a guttural “fuck” to leave his mouth. Georgia, meanwhile, took aim on one knee and pulled the trigger. He heard a body fall and felt fear pulse through him as he realized how close the person had come to their shared cover.

After that, there were a panicked few seconds where Mac could only hear the drumming of his own pulse in his ears while the stimpak injected its contents. Georgia whipped around with her shotgun, eyes wide and wild as she tried to pin down any more Gunners. The both of them flinched when they heard Curtis’ voice echo off the concrete.

“Sound off!” he called somewhere from their left.

“Here!” Mac and Georgia shouted together.

“Mac’s down!” she shouted after, then quickly leaned back down to look him over as they heard Gonzalez, Collins, Buckley, and Hollow shout back from their various spots across the base. Everybody made it out.

Relief flooded through Mac’s entire body at the same time Georgia yanked the stimpak out of his side.

“Jesus christ,” he groaned, pressing his hand harder against the steadying flow of blood, “you weren’t kidding when you said you were bad at this.”

Georgia shoved her arm back into her pack, handing him the first piece of cloth she could find to help with the blood: a folded pair of tube socks. By that point, a puddle of the stuff had formed underneath him and filled the air with a coppery scent. Despite the mangled application of the stimpak, the pain in his side began to slowly reside. He’d need stitches, but the bleeding was beginning to stop at least. Mac’s head fell back against the hull of the bus, shoulder stinging still—the only good thing about laser rounds was that they cauterized the wounds they left behind.

“Christ alive, Mac, I thought you were dead,” Georgia heaved, collapsing next to him against the bus. He looked over at her, hands all covered in his blood and staining parts of her clothes. She wasn’t crying, but her voice sounded like she wanted to. “I watched you go down and I couldn’t see you, and—”

“It’ll take a lot more than these bastards to get rid of me,” he said, and a grateful, nervous laugh escaped her. “My side is gonna be bruised from that stimpak if I don’t bleed out first, though.”

“Oh, shit, right. Someone come help me get Mac up!” she shouted, and in an instant Hollow was hopping over a concrete barrier. One eye was swollen shut and his lip was busted, fresh bruises blooming underneath his skin like he’d gone ten rounds in the ring.

“You should see the other guy,” he said as he leaned down to help Mac up. An expression crossed Georgia’s face like she most definitely did not, but it quickly morphed into one of pain as she tried to stand.

She cursed up and down through her clenched teeth, clutching at her foot as Curtis appeared around the corner of the bus. He helped her get upright, keeping as much weight off her foot as possible.

“The one in the power armor, I tripped over my own feet tryin’ to get away from him,” she explained. “I might be back at square one. Sorry for ruinin’ your hardwork, Mac.”

Mac only shook his head as Hollow and Curtis guided them towards the makeshift med-bay Collins and Buckley had started setting up in the Gunner’s openair sleeping quarters. They navigated around the cooling bodies that he noticed Georgia avoided looking at too directly. Mac, on the other hand, was happy to see them rot.

He had caught sight of her job on Winlock earlier, but as Hollow helped him sit down on an old bed, he saw three bloody holes in the middle of Barnes’ chest near a ruined turret. The overpass reeked of sweat and blood, leaving a metallic taste in Mac’s mouth.

Georgia thanked Curtis as he put her on a bed nearby. Collins, whose hair was no longer on fire but now had charred and uneven ends, helped Gonzalez to one of the beds as well. She had a bullet wound in her non-dominant arm, but had largely stopped the bleeding with a ripped part of her shirt. Buckley came running up with a bottle of clear alcohol he’d snatched from one of the tables scattered about and presented it to the group.

“For disinfecting,” he said as they gathered, and began treating their wounded.

“How’s everybody feeling?” Curtis asked. A resounding groan came from the rest of the group.

“I thought we were fucked for a minute there,” Gonzalez said as Collins popped the cap on the bottle and doused her hands before passing it to Buckley. “What the hell happened with you guys? By the time I took out that back guard, you hadn’t even made it up.”

Buckley suddenly looked sheepish. If he had hit his target right the first time, maybe they wouldn’t have walked into the pandemonium that met them on the overpass. Mac cleared his throat as he took out his medkit.

“Had to wait for the stupid lift to come down,” he said before Buckley could explain himself, catching his eye along with Curtis. “I guess they kept it up as a security measure. I’m just glad it didn’t completely screw us.”

“Well, you can’t—ah, ow, ow, ow—account for everything,” Georgia said in between a pained noise as she removed her boot. “We all made it out in one piece, didn’t we?”

“Speak for yourself, General,” Collins grumbled as she uncapped a stimpak, the blackened ends of her once long hair hanging around her face. “That stupid assaultron nearly made me bald.”

A round of laughter shot through them as they continued to patch everyone up. Mac pulled out his own needle and thread while Buckley pilfered through what the base had in the way of medical supplies. Stimpaks and an extra needle were passed between them all, sterilized with the bottle of liquor and a flip lighter to boot.

The bleeding on his abdomen had mostly stopped, and once he cleaned it away, Mac bit down on his scarf and began to stitch himself up. It wasn’t the first time he’d done his own doctoring, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. The Med-X in his kit whispered his name but he refused to give into it; no telling when a situation would arise where he’d need it more. Once he was done (with not even a whimper every time the needle pierced flesh), he tied off the thread and cut it with his knife.

The burn on his shoulder was an easier fix. A can of purified water and a roll of clean bandages later, Mac was fully patched up. The rest of the group were nearly done as well, save for Georgia, who sat on a bed with her foot propped up on top of her backpack. She had a stimpak in her lap, trying to decide the best way to go about sticking herself with it he supposed. When she caught him staring, she perked up and Mac shook his head at her in slight exasperation.

“Give it to me,” he sighed, gingerly pushing himself off his own bed and walking over with his hand held out.

She gladly handed him the stimpak as he sat at the opposite end of her bed and got to work. The rest of the team had started picking over the base for anything else useful they could take. Weapons, chems, and ammo were plentiful, leaving the two of them to talk in semi-privacy.

“You know, I don’t think we’d keep ending up here if you had just stayed off your damn foot,” he chastised, taking a look at it. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it was when she first injured it, but it still wasn’t pretty. “This is what, the fourth time I’ve been at your feet this week?”

“Fifth, actually—how quickly you forget, Doctor MacCready.”

“Funny. You should do stand-up,” he replied with a flat look at her foot. “Oh, wait, you can’t.”

“You could stay there, y’know,” Georgia said as he flicked the cap off the needle of the stimpak. She took on a playful grin as she mused, “Wouldn’t mind bein’ worshiped like that, come to think of it, like some kinda goddess.”

Mac felt something lurch in his chest, and instead of acknowledging it, he simply stuck her with the stim. She yelped in surprise and he had to hold her leg down by her ankle to keep her from knocking the needle around.

“Ow! Jesus, warn a girl next time,” she huffed as the swelling began to subside.

“I will when you start to save some ego for the rest of us,” Mac replied once the stim was empty. “But hey, after all of this, I guess I’ll be singing your praises. We sent a message to the Gunners loud and clear.”

“Do you think they’ll retaliate once they find out?” Georgia asked, her foot twitching slightly as he reached over to his medkit for some bandages.

“The way these lunatics work, you’d think they would, but I know better,” he said as he began to wrap. “For them, it’s always about the bottom line. They lost this entire waystation, and believe me, that cost ‘em big. Besides, they have no way of knowing any of us were involved.”

With the amount of chaos he’d met when his group came up to the road, there was no way that he would have ever been able to pull the whole thing off by himself. Hell, even a team of seven people didn’t come out the other side without more than a few scratches. He had to hand it to them though—a group of Minutemen had wiped out an entire Gunner squadron without any losses. After Quincy, it was no small feat. Sure, they couldn’t go bragging about it without all their sneaking around being exposed, but Mac was sure that wiping out one more stain on the Commonwealth wouldn’t go unwelcomed. It felt like a weight had been lifted off of his chest, a new reminder that he didn’t have to keep looking over his shoulder anymore, and he had Georgia to thank for that.

He’d have to thank Curtis too, given that he’d helped plan the whole ordeal (Mac theorized that he’d never hear the end of it if he didn’t). The man and his squad had been the difference between a long life and a short death, but it was Georgia that Mac owed a personal debt to.

“Anyways,” he continued once he was done, “I guess I owe you a favor now. After all, you hired me, but I’m the one that dragged you out here for this.”

Georgia’s expression screwed up in confusion. “What? No,” she said like he was speaking nonsense. “Remember our whole friendship conversation? This is what friends do. Well, maybe they don’t really go out of their way to take out a buncha people that wanna murder you, but times have changed, I suppose. I have your back is what I’m sayin’, and so do the others. Besides, you literally saved my ass from becomin’ feral food. If anythin’, I owed you.”

It’s not like you haven’t done enough for me already, a thought flashing across his mind whispered, almost startling him at the nakedness of it. He let go of a nervous laugh and brushed it away.

“That was me doing my job,” he said instead, and began to dig around in his pack. “I was just your merc back then. You’re still one up on me, and I like everything to remain nice and even.”

He fished for the caps at the bottom, pulling out three pouches of fifty each.

“I want to give you back the caps you paid me in Goodneighbor. I’ll still stick with you because that was part of the original deal,” he said before she could protest, “but now we’re even. To me.”

“Mac,” she insisted, attempting to shove the caps back when he held them out to her, “I’m not takin’ your money. You got it fair and square anyhow.”

By now, Mac knew Georgia wasn’t the type to hold this over his head, but he still couldn’t help the knee jerk reaction he had to the idea of leaving debts unsettled. Anyone else and they’d keep it over him and dangle it anytime they wanted something from him. With Georgia, he had a hard time imagining that scenario. She seemed to play just as fair as he did, when it counted.

“Fine,” he relented, already thinking of ways to sneak the caps into her pack anyways, but went ahead and stowed them back inside his own. As he did up the straps the others approached, looking eager to leave.

“If you’re done, we might wanna get outta here soon,” Curtis said, shoulding his laser rifle. “They didn’t have any radio communications set up, but I know they send runners to check in every now and then. We don’t wanna be here when they come.”

After a round of agreement, the team got ready to move out. They picked the place clean of supplies and put the Mass Pike Interchange behind them as they traveled back to their own base. Mac was glad to be done with it.

With Georgia’s foot reinjured, she was supported the entire way back by Curtis, who seemed the least injured of them all. Mac could walk, but the burn on his shoulder made shooting his rifle a painful and near impossible ordeal. Thankfully, Buckley and Hollow had put themselves in the positions of rear and front guard to help compensate for both of the group’s snipers being put out.

They decided to go back to the house they had camped out in the night before, getting back sometime in the middle of the afternoon. It was still empty and the group wasted no time in settling back down inside. They collapsed over chairs and couches, an ache in their bones that only a high stakes firefight could provide. Back in relative safety, things would start to move a little slower.

The rest of the day was spent napping and recuperating until later in the night, when Curtis offered to cook up dinner. They still had enough in their shared bag of rations and anything they took from the interchange to make a decent meal. When Georgia offered to help cook, though, Mac shot her down with a glare.

“If you re-mangle your foot a third time, I’m not fixing it,” he warned and she just laughed.

“Alright, jeez. Sorry, y’all, looks like you won’t get to taste my cookin’,” she said as she leaned back down on the couch she had claimed. “Not to brag, but I’ve been told I make a mean radstag and pota—er, tato stew. Maybe next time.”

They shared a laugh while Curtis got to work on building a fire in the rusted out grill on the porch. The rest of them gathered around a wobbly coffee table and started a game of cards when Hollow pulled the deck out of his pack and began to deal everyone in.

“Oh, fuck off with that look, Frankie,” Collins grumbled during their third round, folding her hand to Hollow’s shit-eating grin before throwing her cards down on the table.

They had been playing for bullets instead of caps, the pile between them growing with every ante, and Hollow had been wiping the floor with them for the most part. Gonzalez had folded earlier, and Buckley had opted to sit back and watch after all the bullets he’d started with ended up in front of Hollow. Georgia had a modest amount still left in front of her, her glasses pushed to the top of her head as she kept her cards close to her chest.

“I told you guys not to play poker with him,” Curtis called out, the smell of grilled wild corn wafting through the open door. “He’s a filthy cheat and he knows it.”

“I do not cheat!” Hollow proclaimed, shooting up from his chair.

Mac caught a glimpse of Hollow’s hand as the man stood up—four of a kind to his own straight flush. His poker face had been solid, but the luck of the cards hadn’t graced him until that moment.

“Don’t get too cocky now,” he said to Hollow as he spread his cards out on the table, watching the Minuteman’s still bruised face fall. “Straight flush.”

The others began to holler at his cards and give Hollow a hard time before Georgia chimed in, a deceptively sweet smile on her face as she tutted them, “Ah, ah, ah. Read it and weep, y’all.”

She threw down her hand—a royal flush to the tune of the suit of hearts—and the group went wild. Hollow tossed his cards, swearing up a storm as Gonzalez chided him for going all in in the first place.

“Are we playin’ for keeps or is my victory…hollow?” Georgia grinned, sending another wave of laughter throughout the group.

Mac chuckled, sliding his own cards into the middle of the table. “I didn’t know you were such a card shark.”

“You should see me play pool,” she told him. “My grandpa taught me, turned me into an absolute monster by the time I was seventeen. Last time I played, I had seven grown men nearly snap their pool sticks.”

“Remind me not to play against you,” he laughed as Curtis announced that dinner was ready.

The rest of the night was spent eating, drinking, and playing cards, and Mac couldn’t remember a time when he last felt genuine camaraderie in a group like this. Between a few more hands of cards and a bottle of whiskey pilfered from the Gunners passed between them all, Mac felt good. Like actually good, his worries seemingly melting away for the night. Sure, he still had the big stuff to think about—Med-Tek, the cure, Duncan—but with the Gunners off his back, he could afford to relax for a little bit.

Mac hadn’t been able to trust many people in his life as a general rule. But watching Georgia and her Minutemen laugh and recall their taking of the interchange with added creative liberties, he thought that maybe, just maybe, he could trust in other people to be good, too.

-----

“I’d ask if you want to come back to the Castle with us, but I don’t think that’s an option for you right now,” Curtis said the next morning when the group was ready to head out. He gave a pointed look to Georgia sitting on the couch, her wrapped foot propped up on one of the arms.

The rest of the Minutemen had packed their things, leaving her and Mac to go back to their HQ. Their leave time was almost up and they would be expected back soon if they didn’t want suspicions to be aroused.

“We’ll stay here for a few days so we can both heal up a little more, but I’ve got stuff to take care of in Diamond City anyways,” Georgia informed him, making Mac’s curiosity pique from where he sat in a chair across from her.

“Suit yourself,” Curtis said, and after splitting up the rest of their spoils from the Gunner base, bid his farewell. “We’ll see you later, General T.” He threw a glance towards Mac before he left, “And don’t be a stranger, MacCready. Hope to see you again next time the General’s in town.”

With that, after a series of thank yous and goodbyes, the team of Minutemen disappeared down the road, leaving himself and Georgia alone.

“So,” she said once he came back inside the house after watching them leave, “looks like we’re gonna be here a couple days, at least until you take me off forced bedrest.”

“I wouldn’t have to force you if you would just stay off it,” he pointed out, then leveled her with a speaking look. “After you’re better, though…Diamond City? I thought that was just the cover to get Preston off our backs.”

A deep sigh left Georgia’s lips, but she nodded anyway. She didn’t look too pleased at the thought, going uncharacteristically quiet. It seemed that there had been some truth in her lie.

“Mr. Valentine is helpin’ me out with some stuff. I have a case with him,” she said eventually, twiddling her fingers and avoiding his eye as she talked. She still hadn’t told him the whole story about her and Piper rescuing the old synth, telling him he could buy an issue of the Publick like everyone else.

But Mac wasn’t stupid. She was working with a detective for crying out loud, it couldn’t have been more obvious that she was searching for something. For what exactly, he had no idea, but he knew it had to be tied up in all of her personal junk by the way she frowned just from mentioning it. Whatever she was looking for, it had to be important enough for her to risk her neck for the pile of nuts and bolts.

Mac wanted to prompt her for more, but she leaned up halfway on the couch to look at him suddenly.

“Hey, can I ask you somethin’?” she said, head cocked to the side.

He raised an eyebrow. “You kinda just did, but yeah, go ahead.”

The flat look she gave him quickly fell to one of worry and uncertainty.

“Why did you join the Gunners?” she asked, catching him entirely off guard. He didn’t know what he had expected her to ask him, but it hadn’t been that. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she added quickly, “feel free to veto it.”

Mac shook his head, catching her off guard as much as she had caught him. With what she had put on the line in helping him, he had quickly come to the conclusion that telling her how he got into all this mess in the first place was something he felt she deserved to know.

“I came to the Commonwealth a little under a year ago,” he started, trying to find the words. “Made a pretty decent name for myself before I heard that the Gunners needed some sharpshooters. Biggest mistake of my life.”

He exhaled a sigh as Georgia listened, avoiding her piercing stare. He was hyper aware of everything under it, but resolved to look at the river sparkling in the midday sun through the broken window just past her.

“They were animals. Killed anything that moved if it got in their way,” he spat out. “You saw them taking potshots at those brahmin. Those could have fed a small settlement for weeks and they were just…killing them for the hell of it. I went with them for a while because their caps were good, but…I’m not proud of it. I…I wasn’t at Quincy, if that’s what you’re wondering. That wasn’t Winlock and Barnes’ squad, though I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded if they had been there anyway.”

“Would you have gone?” Georgia asked, quieter than she had been.

“What?”

“If Winlock and Barnes had been there, if your old squad had decided to go to Quincy, would you have gone?” she repeated. Her stare had turned serious, solemn even.

Mac thought for a moment, mulling over his morals and his conscience. Individual contracts were one thing, far less personable than wiping out an entire settlement. The idea of that much blood on his hands in one go—men, women, children—made his stomach turn.

 “I…No, I don’t think I would have.”

Georgia frowned, searching for words. “Then why did you sign up with people like that?”

“I didn’t know how bad they were at first and I was…desperate,” he shrugged, leaning back in his chair like he wasn’t still desperate for every cap he could get his hands on. “The Gunners just paid the best. I know that’s not much of an excuse, but…eventually it started to catch up with me, so I quit. I’d been out for about two months before you showed up in Goodneighbor.”

“Two months? Then you must’ve quit—”

“A little while after Quincy, yeah. Final straw, I guess.”

Quiet fell between them and when she didn’t respond right away, Mac ran his hands over his face and braced himself for her judgment. He deserved it, given what he had been willing to put up with before his departure. The kidnapping, the extortion, acting like nothing better than a souped up-raider gang. Most obviously there was the murder, and sometimes—hell, a lot of the time—it wasn’t even contracted. Even then, no contract was too bloody, too grizzly, or too brutal for the Gunners if there were enough caps in for it.

 But when he lifted his head and finally met her gaze, it was without the malice or resentment he expected. Instead, what he saw was more of that sympathy she seemed to dole out for him so easily.

“Well, then I’m glad we met when we did,” she said finally, “and not any earlier or any later.”

He couldn’t stop the breath of a laugh that escaped him, the noise causing one corner of Georgia’s mouth to quirk up in a smile.

“Me too,” he agreed, then curiosity poked at him. “What actually made you hire me in the first place? Especially after I told you from the start who I used to run with.”

An eyebrow raised behind her glasses. “I already told you why I hired you. I did that favor for Daisy—”

“No, I get that, but still, you could’ve backed out on the favor. So why me? Why not stick with Piper or Preston or one of your Minutemen?” he pressed.

“I…dunno. When I walked into the Third Rail and heard you gettin’ picked on by those two assholes, I just thought you looked like you were in a tough spot. Thought maybe I could help out,” she shrugged, laying back down on the couch. “You looked like you needed it anyhow.”

Mac couldn’t help but stare at her. How deep was this woman’s kindness that she took one look at a shitty little fuck up like him and decided she wanted to help before ever getting to know him? She helped him again when she insisted on splitting their jobs fairly, again when she called him a friend, and again when she agreed to help take out his former squad. Lucy would have called people like Georgia helpers, those who had been dealt their uneven share of awfulness in life but came out the other side with a good enough heart to keep pushing on. Mac had always seen Lucy as a helper, and he was sure she’d pin Georgia as one, too. He didn’t know the exact details of Georgia’s past that shaped her into the person before him, but whatever it was made sure that if the two of them stuck together, Mac would never stop owing her.

“Oh. Then uh…I’m glad we met when we did,” he reaffirmed, and cleared his throat.

“Glad you think so,” she replied, her usual verve returning as she spoke. “Now, if we’re gonna be here for a few days, we’re gonna need to entertain ourselves.”

“What, is my company too boring for you?”

“After yesterday? Mac, you’re the most excitin’ thing in my life right about now,” she grinned. “And considerin’ you’re the one who told me to stay off my feet, be a darlin’ and get some stuff outta my pack for me, will ya?”

“You’re not the only one with healing injuries, you know,” he pointed out as he ran a light hand over his side, but he was already getting out of his seat to walk to where her pack was leaning against the side of the couch. “What do you need?”

“Screwdriver in the side pocket,” she said as he bent down carefully, the arm of the couch obscuring her from view. “And that desk fan over there—I’ve had my eye on it ever since we first settled down.”

Mac huffed a laugh as he began rifling through the outside pockets of her pack, thinking now would’ve been an opportune time to sneak those caps in. “What for?”

“Copper wires, scrap metal, more screws than you would know what to do with—a whole treasure trove if you know how to take it apart.”

At least it wasn’t old postcards and matching cutlery she was after. When she wasn’t reading or poking around for good scav, she was usually taking something apart. He’d seen her strip typewriters, hot plates, and telephones down to their base parts, keeping what could sell and what she said would be useful in the settlements. She had told him once that every little bit counted, so now if he could find that damn screwdriver…

Mac flipped open one of the pockets on the left after the right yielded only more loose screws. The other seemed empty at first, which struck him as odd the moment he opened it, given how much junk he was used to her picking up. What wrapped around his fingers as he dug inside, however, was even more odd.

Looped through a simple leather cord with a knot at the end were two shiny gold rings. As he shifted them around in his palm, one slightly larger than the other, he caught sight of something written into the inside of each: To Have inside the bigger one and To Hold on the smaller. He knew what kind of rings they were, even if he had only ever seen them on the hands of those with more caps than he’d ever see in his life. They were wedding rings.

They were the only things inside the pocket and suddenly Mac felt like he was snooping around where he shouldn’t have been.

“Oh, shoot,” Georgia’s voice said, and he quickly stashed the rings back where he had found them before she managed to scoot down to him at the end of the couch. “It might be in the front pocket, actually.”

“Here you go,” he said, immediately snatching the tool from said pocket and holding it out to her. He crossed the room to grab the desk fan and sat it on the couch next to her. “Have fun with those. I’ll, uh…I guess I’ll read some of my comics again.”

“If you ever want to borrow any of my books, you’re welcome to,” she said as she put the fan in her lap. “I think you might like The War of the Worlds. Might do you some good to read somethin’ other than a comic book.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve read plenty,” he said with a dismissive shake of his head, decidedly uneager to go perusing through her pack again. “Besides, comics are easier to carry.”

“Well, you got me there, but the offer’s still open,” she conceded, then went to quietly stripping the fan, leaving each of them to their own devices. But even with his comic pulled out, Mac had a hard time focusing.

Wedding rings. Had she found them at some point on the road, hoping to sell them whenever they made it back to the city? Probably not; if they had been just another piece of scrap she picked up, they wouldn’t have been in as good a condition as they were, shining like they were brand new. They were on a strip of leather long enough to be a necklace, kept safely tucked inside her pack by themselves. No, the rings weren’t something she happened upon—they meant something to her.

Was she married? She hadn’t mentioned anything about a family save for a grandfather who turned her into a pool shark. Then there was the something—someone?—she was searching for, turning to Nick Valentine for help…

It didn’t add up. Either Mac was thinking about it too hard or he had stumbled into more parts of her past that she hadn’t yet shared. He couldn’t help but wonder if she had a partner out there, someone waiting for her to return to them. But if she did, it didn’t make sense as to why she had both rings (if they were hers and if he wasn’t latching onto another wild theory about her personal life). She was definitely the sentimental type, that much he could be sure of, so what if…?

There were plenty of people in the wasteland who were no strangers to loss, and something in Mac’s bones told him Georgia wasn’t either. Her evasiveness about her past, the rings, the fact that she was working with Valentine, all clues that lead him to his natural train of thought: she had to be looking for a missing partner. Unfortunately in the Commonwealth, “missing” was usually a euphemism for “dead” or “snatched by the Institute”, but Mac wasn’t about to be the one to tell her that. The synth gumshoe with the neon signs could take that fall whenever they made it back to Diamond City.

It was better that she knew that, he thought, just to get it out of the way and quit holding out on hope. “Dead” was much more final than “missing.” If someone was dead, it left no other alternatives for their whereabouts or their safety. If someone was missing, though, it provided too many options, too much fear. Did they just run off, or did the Institute take them in the night? Were they kidnapped by raiders or taken out by the natural horrors of the wasteland? “Missing” bled out hope like hemophilia and made the inevitable truth that much more painful. In a way, Mac was grateful he knew Lucy was dead, as horrible as the thought was. He had no choice but to move on instead of spending the rest of his life wondering, both for his own sake as well as Duncan’s.

Even still, his thoughts settled on Lucy. They hadn’t really been married in the traditional sense; no one had done a ceremony over them, there had been no celebration with friends, and rings had always been out of the question. Once Duncan was born, though, it only seemed natural to fall into the habit of calling each other husband and wife. It had felt like the grown up thing to do at the time. Two teenagers and a baby taking their jab at playing family.

But what would Lucy think of him now, though? He’d always been a bit of a cynic, but now his dedication to being a realist was born more out of what it took to survive in this world than thinking it was naturally against him like when he was a kid. Lucy had always seen the best in him, and once upon a time he had tried to be the man worthy enough to be her husband. He had been her little soldier, wielding his gun in defense against the worst parts of the world. If she could see him now, running around the Commonwealth far away from his old homestead with Duncan, would she recognize him? Would she understand he was out here trying to save their son? Why he had to fall back on old habits to keep himself afloat?

“Ow, fuck,” Georgia hissed to herself, startling Mac from his thoughts. She dropped a piece of the fan into her lap as she sucked on her thumb.

“You alright?” he asked, voice low and hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You good?”

Georgia pulled her thumb away from her mouth, waving it around as if that would make the pain dissipate faster. “I’m fine, just cut my thumb a little.”

“I don’t want to be the one to tell Preston that his General got taken out by tetanus, so I hope your shots are up to date,” he told her. A sharp laugh cracked out of her, making him grin.

“More than you know,” she laughed, wiping the remnants of the blood on her thumb across the top of her jeans before going back to her work with a smile.

Never, not once, in his entire goddamn life had RJ MacCready done anything so good as to deserve Lucy or Duncan or the life they had shared, however briefly. Watching Georgia work, though, and thinking about the good they had done together, maybe he could be the man Lucy thought he had been, but this time for himself.

[reddwarf93]

I need at story where Bucky and Pepper meet up regularly for coffee and gossip. One of the frequent topics of conversation is how their husbands want to fuck each other so bad it makes them look stupid.

They've already had The Conversation with their respective partners about polyamory/open relationships/ having an Exception, that's not the problem they're having. The problem is getting Steve and Tony to swallow their damned pride and just *talk* to each other again.

Devious plotting ensues.

I think both Steve and Tony are absolutely FURIOUS that they fumbled each other respectively. Like they lay awake at 2 in the morning absolutely fuming. Steve grinds his teeth so loudly Bucky begs him to shut up.

Tony doesn't leave the workshop for days so fucking pissed he fumbled Steve, trying to get his mind of things. Pepper yells at him to just call Steve, or at least to work on something for SI, but Tony just started the 22nd version of Cap's Shield.

Neither does anything about it, they're just fuming silently.

[firstkanaphans]

Chapter 9 is now up! Go forth and be horny 🧡