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mightypocketcow · 2 years

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Just Sarah

A little Fallout 3 Sarah Lyons and Three Dog friendship fic I wrote as part of Fallout February for @halkuonn / @ninthcircles -- contains swearing, but so does the game, so it’s fine right?

“Sentinel Lyons, the broadcaster would like to speak to you, ma’am.”

Sarah Lyons took off her helmet and sighed. They had just finally finished taking down the Super Mutants that had trapped the infamous Three Dog in his station for the last two weeks, and it would make sense that he would want to talk to her, as the leader of the Lyons’ Pride squad. But it wasn’t often that she didn’t even get a chance to clean the blood off her power armor before whoever it was they rescued wanted to speak to her unless they were immediately in front of her. Someone of Three Dog’s “status” was usually more formal, and wanted a chance to meet the entire squad, or give some kind of gift in return.

“Thank you, Scribe Jensen.” She had protested her father’s decision to send a small group of young Scribes along with the squad to gather information from inside the station and the surrounding area, but ultimately it was the Elder’s decision. She was just glad that there weren’t any unnecessary; these new Scribes seemed to actually be able to stay out of the way of her Knights in a firefight.

She passed several of her Knights on the way to the staircase, holding her helmet on her hip and letting her gun stay in its holster on her waist. She wasn’t about to go meet someone new while unarmed, regardless of Three Dog’s status or reputation.

Or how much she secretly enjoyed his radio show whenever she was in broadcasting reach.

She climbed the stairs with what she felt was an appropriate amount of caution. Sure, she may be meeting someone new, but she had no logical reason to be afraid or cautious at all, so she allowed herself the minimal amount of caution possible; the part of her that always remembered her training was not allowing a complete lack of caution.

Still, she almost felt she was overthinking it. She had heard Galaxy News Radio many times over the past couple of years, and though she had never met Three Dog before now, she knew that whatever he wanted to talk about, she was probably approaching the situation far too formally.

She came to the door and hesitated for a moment, her own enjoyment of the show giving her a wave of nervousness, before she pulled herself to her full height and knocked.

A familiar voice called out, “Sentinel Lyons, come on in!”

Hearing his voice say her name made her nervousness both escalate and melt away.

She opened the door and saw Three Dog leaning back in his chair with a cigarette in his hand and his feet on his desk. He grinned when she stepped inside, and threw his arms wide.

“There’s the Brotherhood Badass of the hour!”

“It is a pleasure to meet you.” She said almost stiffly.

“Oh, cut the formal bullshit. I’ve heard so much about the famous Lyons’ Pride and how you’re the best of the best of the Brotherhood of Steel. I am honoured, truly…” He stood and gave a low, sweeping bow. “…to meet the famous Sentinel Sarah Lyons.”

Sarah’s breath caught in her throat and she choked for a second before she replied in a shaky voice. “You’ve heard about me?”

“Course I have. Though you’re definitely younger than I thought you’d be, kid, with all the accomplishments you got under your belt. There’s nothin’ that goes on around the Capital Wasteland that I don’t know about. I got eyes and ears everywhere, and people like to talk a lot once you get them going.”

“That is definitely true.” Sarah agreed.

“You’ve heard my show before, right, Sentinel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shit, Sentinel, don’t call me sir.” Three Dog let out a laugh that did genuinely sound like a bark. “I don’t outrank you and I certainly ain’t becoming part of your Brotherhood anytime soon to change that.”

“Would you prefer I just call you Three Dog?”

He grinned again. “That is my name, isn’t it? Don’t wear it out.”

“Alright.” She was certainly still a bit uncertain on how to approach this conversation. There weren’t many people around her that she called by their actual names instead of a title, and not many people that seemed so casual when they talked to her. Usually she was talked to as a Sentinel, with a certain level of respect and awe, and while it was fitting of her status, it was occasionally lonely.

“So, Sentinel, I wanted to ask if the Brotherhood would like to form a partnership relationship with yours truly. I need protection, and you guys need a place to bunker down away from the almighty Citadel.”

Sarah thought for a moment. It would certainly be beneficial, and the Brotherhood could use the inside information that Three Dog seemed to be so good at obtaining.

“You don’t have to give me my answer right now, if you gotta go talk to some higher ranking person, or your dear ol’ Daddy Lyons.”

Sarah resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I don’t have to consult anyone about where the Lyons’ Pride decides to make their base. I just have to inform them of decisions I make.”

“Well, then.” Three Dog raised an eyebrow and smirked a little. “You can make your decision however fast or slow you want. Just try to keep those green muties away from me in the meantime, if you don’t mind.”

“You have a deal, Three Dog.”

~~

“And here she comes again.” Three Dog grinned and threw his arms out as she walked in the door, as had become the usual.

“Good afternoon, Three Dog.” She let a smile drift onto her face.

“So, Sentinel – fuck it, can I just call you Sarah?”

This took her off-guard more than anything he’d said over the last three days that the Lyons’ Pride had been camped out here, and she had talked to him twice since first meeting him, each meeting bringing more unexpected conversation than the last. It was incredibly rare for someone to address her by her first name.

“I… I suppose.” She responded, still surprised.

“What’s with that face? Nobody ever call you by your own name before?”

“Not very often. I’m always just Sentinel Lyons, or Knight Lyons or Squire Lyons before that, or the Elder’s daughter. I only ever get called Sarah by my father, when I am being scolded.”

“Well, shit, Sarah.” Three Dog gestured to the chair in front of his makeshift desk. “Take a seat and stay a while. I don’t bite.”

Sarah hesitated less than she initially had at his door when she’d met him for the first time, but the hesitation was still there; was this even appropriate?

“I won’t tell your dear daddy that you’re out on the field making friends instead of killing zombies and muties.” He teased.

She felt her face flush somewhat as she took the seat.

“You can take the power armor off too if you want to.”

“It’s too much hassle.” She lied dismissively. Truthfully, it would feel like she had crossed a line of their formal relationship to take off her power armor when meeting with him.

Three Dog looked at her with a raised eyebrow, seeming skeptical, but he moved on anyways. “So, you never had a friend before or what?”

“I have friends.” She said almost defensively.

“The members of your Brotherhood Badass squad don’t count, Sarah. They’re your subordinates. They gotta like you or else.”

“That’s not true.”

“Really? You ever get to know any of them off the field? Do you know Paladin Vargas’ favourite colour?”

She didn’t respond.

“Everybody needs friends, Sarah. It ain’t healthy for someone to be ‘Sentinel’ all the time. It’s gotta be lonely.”

~~

“You ever been in love, Sarah?”

Out of all the questions Three Dog had asked her over the last two weeks in his mission to become her friend, this one was among the most unexpected.

She leaned back in her chair – as always, still wearing her power armor – and looked up at the ceiling, thinking back to the Scribe she had lost her virginity to when she was a teenager. Was she in love with him, or was he just entertaining because of how much her father disliked him? “No.” She said after a moment. “Have you?”

“Yeah.”

His answer surprised her more than the question. She looked back at him and he removed his sunglasses – a rare occasion, but it had happened a couple times when their conversations got more personal.

“Want to talk about it?”

“His name was Jonathan.” He paused after that, seeming to study her face for a reaction, but he wouldn’t find one. Some Brotherhood members would have been offended by the reveal, but it was neither offensive nor surprising to Sarah after two weeks of daily conversation with the radio host. Besides, she knew of several queer Brotherhood members, and none of them performed their duties any worse or differently than the ones who were not.

“I met him in Rivet City while I was stayin’ with my friend Shrapnel. He was a caravan guard, and they were just supposed to be passing through. But through God’s hand or some weird shit like that, the gal he was guarding got sick with something, and they had to stay for a good bit while she recovered under Doctor Li. You ever met her?”

“Not that I remember.”

“She’s fun. She’s got that no-nonsense doctor attitude, but I got her drunk once and she went on about this guy she used to have a crush on who married her best friend and had a baby with her... anyway, not important. Jonathan had to stay in Rivet City for like two weeks or something, and so one night I offered to buy him a drink, and we got to talkin’ and he said something about an ex-boyfriend, and I was all excited, because not everyone talks about that shit out loud, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it. One of my squad has confided in me about it in the past, and I learned that some of the others in the Citadel are less than pleasant about it.”

Three Dog scanned her face for a moment. “It’s Dusk, isn’t it?”

Sarah blinked. “How the fuck would you know that?”

He chuckled. “The queers always know, Sarah. I call it the ‘gay-dar’. That’s trademarked, don’t steal it.”

She let out a laugh. “That’s pretty clever.”

He smiled. “Anyway, so I told Jonathan I was into dudes too, and he started flirting with me, like right away. He kept talking about how he wanted to take me back to the Weatherly and show me a good time. So I told him that he better live up to his word.”

“And did he?”

“Do I look like the kinda son-of-a-bitch that kisses and tells, Sarah?”

“Yes, actually.”

Three Dog laughed loudly. “Alright, you got me there. Yeah, he definitely lived up to it. And he kept livin’ up to it for the next couple weeks while he was there. We didn’t just stay in the Weatherly either – we would walk around the boat, even walk around outside as long as at least one of us was armed. It was usually him, since I’m terrible with guns.”

“I can teach you to shoot sometime.” Sarah offered.

“Nah, I don’t like them much. But Jonathan was a real good shot. He could get one of them feral ghouls from two miles out with a pistol.”

“No kidding? Maybe I should recruit him to the Pride.”

Three Dog’s smile was sad. “He ain’t gonna be much good to you unless you like corpses in your squad.”

“Shit, Three Dog, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to –”

Three Dog held up his hand. “How would you have known he was gone? I hadn’t finished my story yet.”

Nearly a full minute of semi-awkward silence followed. “You can finish the story now, if you’d like.”

“Well, I already spoiled the ending.” Three Dog chuckled under his breath. “There’s not much else to it. One day Doctor Li said the caravan chick he was guarding was cleared to go, and they had to take off. A week later, some other caravan guard came to Rivet City sayin’ that a group of them had been ambushed by Raiders and a bunch of traders and guards had died. I asked him about Jonathan and he said he didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry.” Sarah said again.

“Why are you sorry? It’s not like you killed him.” Three Dog raised an eyebrow and smirked, but the smile wasn’t in his eyes. “Unless you’re a Raider in disguise and haven’t told me.”

“I promise I’m not.” Sarah stood up, suddenly making a decision. She took a few steps away from her chair and a hissing sound escaped her power armor as she stepped out of it.

Now in just a deep red jumpsuit, Sarah looked back at Three Dog and opened her arms as if displaying herself. “Just me.”

Three Dog chuckled again. “Wow, you just lost about 100 pounds in thirty seconds. The other girls must hate you.”

Sarah let out a laugh. “I figured after a personal story like that, we’re friends enough for me to step out of my comfort zone more – literally.”

He put a hand over his heart and gasped dramatically. “We’re friends, really? I’m friends with the great Sentinel Sarah Lyons?”

She snorted. “More like you’re stuck with me now, Three Dog.”

He smiled, and it finally reached his eyes. “I guess I can tell you my real name now.”

“Really? I thought your name was really Three Dog.” She said sarcastically.

“I’ll tell it to you if you agree to come be a special guest on GNR.”

“Not on your fucking life.”

[This was my first time writing for any Fallout game and it’s been a while since I played 3 so it may be a bit out-of-character, but I hope it was enjoyable!]

#fofebruary23 #my post #my writing #fallout 3 #three dog #sarah lyons #galaxy new radio

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