#skinny Malone

[chadfallout76podcast]

FALLOUT 4:

"DEATH SHROUD" SERIES UPDATE!

Check out the AMAZING artwork tumblr artist @rad-roche did for our second installment in the Death Shroud! series. This story is titled, "The Cat's Paw", and will see an even BIGGER cast of voice actors returning to reprise their roles this May to benefit Wes Johnson's VoiceAPalooza charity drive for the Alzheimer's Association.

Please note that the voice cast list may change as more people confirm, so this is likely NOT the final art.

[illuminatedmoth]

AND ANOTHER THING while i can appreciate to a degree that bethesda tried. their fat bodies are not great imo and in starfield after i became starborn the game kept making me skinny (this has been fixed as far as i can tell but the fact it was happening) (i did not see anyone elae mentioning having that issue also unfortunately)

[monkeyssalad-blog]

Stolen Sweets (Taking A Dip) by Paul Malon Via Flickr: October 1933; anon. illustrator.

[lotsoflola]

songs that feel like dating mark lee

cherry hill - russ

ivy - frank ocean

drew barrymore - sza

feather - sabrina carpenter

skinny dipping - sabrina carpenter

love yourz - j. cole

3005 - childish gambino

adore you - harry styles

all the stars - kendrick lamar, sza

sunflower - post malone

about you - the 1975

to be so lonely - harry styles

sundress - asap rocky

passionfruit - drake

sober - childish gambino

same drugs - chance the rapper

apparently - j. cole

chanel - frank ocean

nights - frank ocean

violent crimes - kanye west

act my age - one direction

cherry - harry styles

keep driving - harry styles

shirt - sza

pink matter - frank ocean

solo - frank ocean

teenage fever - drake

night changes - one direction

white ferrari - frank ocean

pink and white - frank ocean

n 2 deep - drake, future

i wanna be yours - arctic monkeys

knee socks - arctic monkeys

all of the lights - kanye west

die for you - the weeknd

good days - sza

golden - harry styles

sunflower - harry styles

dark red - steve lacy

k. - cigarettes after sex

sex drugs etc. - beach weather

grape juice - harry styles

ever since new york - harry styles

borderline - tame impala

hold tight - sabrina carpenter, uhmeer

honeymoon fades - sabrina carpenter

1957 - milo greene

you get me so high - the neighbourhood

best part - daniel caesar, her

apple juice - jessie reyez

grapes - james marriott

romanticise this - james marriott

29 - run river north

brazil - declan mckenna

canyon moon - harry styles

nothing but you - the vamos

ribs - lorde

sex - eden

gold - james marriott

babydoll - dominic fike

3 nights - dominic fike

painkiller - ruel

married in vegas - the vamps

naked - doja cat

[artbyblastweave]

Another thing I found odd about Fallout 4's writing is that when you first encounter Nick Valentine, you meet him in the middle of a showdown with Skinny Malone, a gangster who's written as a habitual opponent of his, someone who he's been playing cops-and-robbers with for years. This is most likely an attempt to shore up the impression of Nick as the Quintessential Noir Detective- you've blundered into the middle of an episode of the Nick Valentine Show, he does stuff like this all the time. But the thing is that Fallout- and east-coast Fallout in particular- is a setting that has a hard time plausibly giving rise to a friendly-enemy cops-and-robbers dynamic, for basically the same reason that Marvel has always had a hard time establishing a persistent rogues gallery for Frank Castle.

[bakugosbratx]

Tattoo Artist Eren Jeager

Tw: tattoos, smoking, fuckboy behavior, sex for tattoos, totally self indulgent.

A/N: I had this idea while being tattooed and now here we are. Enjoy :)

Tags: @nymphoheretic @lanarist @renhoeku

• Tatoo artist Eren Jeager who has suicideboys, NBA youngboy, and Post Malone blasting in his booth. Also, listens to heavy metal, hard rock, and some alternative. He likes a mix.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager who has a shit ton of black and gray tattoos on his arms.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager who is always a little too close for comfort when it comes to tattooing his clients. His hand really doesn’t need to be on your thigh or the way he has your arm positioned doesn’t need to brush against his dick, but no one is going to complain. And let’s not forget the subtle warm breath you feel from time to time on your skin coming from him.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager also vapes a lot. His booth always filled with smoke and if you have a problem with it, you can get the fuck out of his chair.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager is actually really good at his work. He does realism tattoos really well, but he also enjoys the older style tattoos also.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager definitely let’s people give him head for a discounted tattoo.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager seems cold as fuck, not much for conversation, but he doesn’t need to. His eyes do all of the talking. If he isn’t fuckin’ you physically, he’s fuckin’ you mentally.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager is popular on social media for how hot he is. People travel to see him all of the time. His books are very full so you better never cancel.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager has a mix of patchwork tattoos and also blackout on one of his arms or legs. He always wears black skinny jeans, black vans, and a black shirt that hugs his muscles tight. Sometimes his shirts have designs on them.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager does judge you for your tattoos. If you get something simple and stereotypical for your first tattoo, he is roasting your ass lmao. “Your zodiac sign? You believe in that astrology bullshit?” Yes, my first tattoo was my Leo sign

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager drives a truck. Don’t ask me why this matters because it don’t. But it’s nice. He also has a cool older car collection.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager eventually owns a shop. Not right away due to not wanting the responsibility, but he does get there.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager has earrings. Maybe eventually small gages, but he definitely has earrings in.

• Tattoo artist Eren Jeager is always worth the money. One way or another, you’ll always be a satisfied customer.

©bakugosbratx

All Rights Reserved — I don’t give anyone permission to repost, distribute, copy or re-use my works in any way. Especially not on other websites such as Tik Tok, Ao3, Wattpad, etc.

[sassenashsworld]

Nick stucks in Vault 114

(Not cool)

The List

The hardest aspect about his position is that he cannot ignore time. Time is his greatest enemy. Time extends in vain from day to day, each divided into hours, each hour into minutes, each minute into seconds, and each second into nanoseconds, and he is unable to ignore any of them. Every millisecond passes with the same weight of worries, exacerbating his already heightened uneasiness due to his predicament and lack of information.

At first, Nick tried to appear amused, even trying to sweet talk his way out of his jail. But as the days passed, his facade began to shatter. He realized his condition was serious, and there was no magic exit. Nick had been confined in this room by his old "friend" Skinny Malone, who had a new flame—that threatened to kill him if he tried to leave.

Nick had known Skinny Malone for a long time, but their bond had never been particularly strong. However, he found himself imprisoned in this vault by the same man who had never given him any trouble before.

Another horrible thing about the place he was was the lack of sound or people to talk to. Nick had always been a talkative person, sharing jokes and stories. But now he was alone with his thoughts as company. It hadn't been a problem for him in any aspect of his life, but in such a position, it's taken on unexpected significance. He attempted to keep himself occupied by investigating his surroundings, but there was little to see.

As the days progressed into a week, Nick's anxiousness grew. He had always been a tough guy, but now he thought he was losing his mind. He wondered if he'd ever see the outside world again, or if he'd spend the rest of his life confined within this room.

Shadows crawled across the walls of Vault 114, producing uncanny patterns that appeared to move and flicker in the low light. Nick Valentine, the generation 2 synthetic detective, was huddled in a corner of his cell, staring at the door that separated him from the outside world.

He'd been here for two weeks, locked up by the lesser-known criminal Skinny Malone, and the walls were beginning to close in on him.

His mood had sunk into a deep well of depression.

He was a synthetic man, a machine designed to resemble and behave like a human being. He had no blood, bones, or human skin. He didn't need to breathe or eat, but he experienced the passage of time just like everyone else.

He was used to having control over his surroundings, but now he was being held captive. He had no weapons, no allies, and no way of defending himself. All he could do was wait, hoping that someone would come to his aid.

And he started to wonder whether anyone even knew he was here—whether anyone cared enough to try and save him.

After all, he was just a machine, a tool to be used and discarded.

[raatart]

a complete boycott list in alphabetical order

a complete list of companies / brands / franchises to boycott in support of palestine that i have been working on putting together for a while now.

remember to support your local businesses

stand with palestine against genocide

(Food & Beverages)

A

Activia

Acqua Panna

Akmina

Absolute Vodka

Algida

A&W

Aquafina

Alpro

Actimel

B

Burger King

Baskin Robbins

Ben & Jerry's

Bugles

Betty Crocker

Badoit

Becel

C

Coca Cola

Costa Coffee

Cadbury

Cheerios

Cheetos

Campbells

Calve

Cappy

Chiquita

D

Dominos

Dasani

Dunkin' Donuts

Doritos

Dr Pepper

Danone

Dolcela

Damla

Dogadan

E

Evian

Eden

F

Fanta

Frito-lay

Fruit by the Foot Roll Ups

Falim

Fresca

G

Gatorade

Greggs

H

Hardees

Haagen Dazs

Heinz Ketchup

Hershey's

Hard Rock Cafe

Heinz

I

Innocent

Israeli Fruits & Vegetables

J

Jacob's

Jaffa

K

KitKat

KFC

Kbueno

Kraft Mac & Cheese

Kellogg's

Kraft

L

Lipton

Lays

M

McDonald's

Mars

Marks & Spencers

Maggi

Marila

Monster

Mountain Dew

Mehadrin

Minute Maid

Milk Bar

M&M's

Magnum Ice Cream

Milka Chocolates

N

Nestle

Nestle Cereals

Nescafe

Nesquik

Nespresso

Nido

Nutella

Nature Valley

Nestle Milo

Nestle Carnation

Nestle Coffee Mate

Nestle Nestum

Nimbooz

Nestea

O

Orea

Original Shredded Wheat

P

Papa John's

Pepsi

Pringles

Pizza Hut

Perrier

Pillsbury

Popeyes

Pretty a Manager

Pure Life

Powerade

Popup Bagels

Q

Quality Street

Quaker

R

Redbull

Ruffles

S

Starbucks

Subway

Smartwater

Sweetgreen

Snickers

Sprite

Sabra

Sunkist

Strauss

Smarties

S.pellegrino

Schweppes

Sana

Sirma

Sara Lee

T

Toblerone

Tang

Twix

Tesco

Tropicana

U

V

Vittle

Volvic

W

Wall's

Walmart

Walkers

Wrigley's

X

Y

Z

7Up

(Clothing)

A

America Eagle

Adidas

Alo

Adina Eden Jewelry

B

C

Converse

Calvin Klein

Cat

Castro

D

Drew

Diesel

E

F

G

Good American

GAP

H

H&M

I

J

K

Kamili

L

Levi's

Lumberjack

M

Mango

N

Nike

O

Oasis

P

Puma

Q

R

River Island

S

Skims

Skinny Dip

St. Mark

Style Nadia

T

Timberland

U

V

Victoria's Secret

Vakko

W

We Wore That

Wyeth

X

Y

Z

Zara

(Beauty)

A

Aveda

Amika

Avon

Aussie

Aveeno

Always

Aesop

Ahava

B

Bobbi Brown

Blistex

Bath & Body Works

Britney Spears Fragrance

Becca

Biotherm

Beauty Blender

C

Clinique

Covergirl

Colgate

Calgon

Camay

CeraVe

Christina Aguilera Perfumes

Clean & Clear

Crest

CND

Cacharel

D

Dr. Jart+

Dove

Dettol

Darphin Paris

Dark & Lovely

E

Essie

Elidor

F

Fenty Beauty

Fair & Lovely

G

Garnier

Gillette

Glam Glow

H

Honest Beauty

Haci Sakir

Herbal Essences

Head & Shoulders

Hugo Boss

I

J

Jo Malone

Johnson & Johnsom

K

Kerastase

Kiehl's

Kylie Cosmetics

Kylie Skin

Kotex

L

L'Oreal

Lacome

La Roche-Posey

Lifebuoy

Lux

Lubiderm

M

Maybelline

MAC

Moroccan Oil

Maui

Matrix

Max Factor

N

Nyx

Neutrogena

Nivea

Nature's Beauty

Niely

O

Olay

Origins

Orkid

Oral-B

Oax

P

Pepsodent

Pantene

Q

R

Revlon

Rimmel

Rexona

Rhode

S

Summer Fridays

Schick

Smashbox

Sephora

Sensodyne

Skinceuticals

Skin Better Science

T

The Body Shop

Too Faced Cosmetics

The Ordinary

Tom Ford Beauty

Tampax

Takami

U

Urban Decay

Ulta Beauty

V

Vichy

Vaseline

Veet

W

X

Y

Yes to

Yuesai

Z

(Luxury)

A

B

C

Chanel

D

E

Estee Lauder

F

G

Georgio Armani

H

I

J

K

L

LVMH

Louis Vuitton

La Mer

Lavs

Le Labo

M

Mugler

Maison Margiela

N

O

P

Prada

Q

R

Raplh Lauren

S

T

Tiffany & Co.

Tom Ford

Tommy Hilfiger

U

V

Valentino

W

X

Y

Yves Saint Laurent

Z

(Tech & Entertainment)

A

Aol

Amazon

AirBnB

Apple

B

BBC

Buxton

Barbie

Booking.com

C

CNN

D

Disney+

Dell

E

Energizer

F

Ford

Fiverr

G

Galaxy

H

HP

Hyundai

Hulu

I

IBM

Intel

J

K

L

Lego

M

Motorola

Movenpick

Mattel

Microsoft

N

National Geographic

Nokia

Netflix

O

Oracle

Oxi

P

Philips

Q

R

Rolls Royce

S

Siemens

Sodastream

T

Toys R Us

U

V

Volvo

Valvoline

W

Wix

X

Y

Z

(Other)

A

Axa

Ariel

Aero

Ambi Pur

Airwick

Aroma

AVC

Amway

Ace Hardware

Andrex

American Express

B

Bounty

Black & Decker

Bonux

Bref

Braun

Benadryl

Band-aid

Barclays

Blue Cross Blue Shield

Better Help

C

Caltex

Chevron

Culligan

Citi Bank

Chicco

Cravola

Clearblue

Capital One

D

Dash

Drynites

Dosmestos

Doona

E

Expedia

F

Finish

Febreeze

Fixodent

Fairy

G

Goop

Gerber

Gys

H

HSBC

Huggies

Hayat

I

Imodium

J

JCB

K

Kimberly-Clark

Kleenex

L

Lion

Little Swimmers

Lenor

M

Mr Muscle

Minidou

Monsanto

N

Nicorette

O

Omo

P

Pampers

Purina Felix

Payoneer

Palmolive

Protex

Pull-ups

P&G

Prima

Pril

Paramount Pictures

Q

R

Rejoice

Rinso

Rogaine

S

Signal

Sensus

Sudafed

T

Tide

U

Unilever

Us Cellular

V

Vim

Vanish

Vicks

W

X

Y

Yumus

Z

(Places)

A

B

C

D

Disney

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

(People)

A

Ashley Tisdale

Amy Schumer

Andy Beshear

B

Bono

Ben Savage

Bella Thorne

Beyonce

C

Chris Evans

Claire Holt

Ciara

Chris Rock

Chris Pine

D

Demi Lovato

Dwayne Johnson

DJ Khaled

E

Eva Longoria

F

G

Gal Gadot

H

I

Ian Somerhalder

J

Jamie Lee Curtis

James Maslow

Justin Bieber

Jennifer Aniston

Jaclyn Hill

Jack Harlow

Jordan Peele

Joseph Quinn

Jack Black

K

Kylie Jenner

Kim Kardashian

Kris Jenner

Kerry Washington

Katie Perry

Karlie Kloss

Khloe Kardashian

Kat Graham

Kendall Jenner

Kourtney Kardashian

L

Lebron James

Lana Condor

Lana Del Rey

M

Millie Bobby Brown

Malala

Mindy Kaling

Mark Hamill

Madonna

N

NFL

Nina Dobrev

Natalie Portman

Nabela

Nicole Richie

Noah Schnapp

O

Octovia Spencer

P

Perez Hilton

Paul Wesley

Phoebe Tonkin

Pia Mia

P!nk

Q

R

Ronaldinho

Rihanna

S

Sofia Richie

Shaquir O'neal

Selena Gomez

T

Tara Strong

Taika Waititi

Taylor Swift

Tyler Perry

U

Usher

U2

V

Vanessa Hudgens

Viola Davis

W

X

Y

Z

[lilac-hecox]

Tagged by @polterwasteist

🎧 put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle & let your friends pick their favorite of the first five songs! 🎶

I'm tagging: @sheisaquarius-blog, @chu-tea, @wispmotherr, @punk-gremlin, @lucisthings6, @totallynotmeems, @mezz000

[chadfallout76podcast]

Stephen Russell is BACK as Detective Nick Valentine in a new original story that takes place after the event of Death Shroud!

Amazing, amazing artwork by @rad-roche

[atonalginger]

Through Plasma and Flames, update #24

I've got a shorter chapter for y'all today. Preston was getting worried about Chloe after she went for a 'walk' to find Valentine and learns from not so great news when she returns.

Chapter 24 is live on ao3 and you can find it by clicking HERE!

To start all the way back at chapter 1, click here.

As always a sneak peek under the read more:

Chloe shuffled into the Dugout Inn with her pack already in her hand, her shoulders slumped from exhaustion. Rudy called back to Codsworth in the kitchen for food and water and reached under the bar for a bottle of beer. Chloe tossed her gear behind the bar and plopped down on the end stool and laid her head down, nestled in her arms to block the lights.  

“I was starting to get worried,” Preston said as he walked over with Yefim, “you said finding Valentine would involve a walk, you never mentioned the walk being so far.”  

“I didn’t want to pull resources from the city,” she grumbled, “Booker met me out at the Swan Lake. Did you know that big swan float was attached to a behemoth?”  

“A what?” Yefim looked to Preston and then back to Chloe with fear, “don’t tell me you fought that thing.”  

“Had to if we wanted to reach the vault,” Chloe shrugged as she sat back up, “Booker found some notes with the thing. After reading them I actually feel bad for the big guy. At least he’s not suffering anymore.”  

“You feel bad for a super mutant?” Yefim stepped around the bar to help Rudy clean up after the late evening rush.  

“He wasn’t always green. Wasn’t always a behemoth. The notes show a fuzzy memory of being a person. He returned to that lake…or something…he used to be smart. Got turned into a monster.” Chloe sipped her beer and sighed, “but that’s done and we found Valentine in that vault.”  

“Wasn’t too much trouble?” Preston sat down next to her, “You mentioned Skinny Malone’s people were involved?”  

“Apparently Valentine was hired to find a young lady named Darla. Family insisted the Triggermen had kidnapped her. Valentine got there and quickly discovered the family were in denial: Darla ran off to be with her boyfriend, Skinny Malone. Thankfully, Valentine and Malone have history so he was captured instead of shot on sight. Got locked up in the overseer’s office.” Chloe accepted her food, pausing to take a bite of dinner roll and chew thoughtfully.  

“Don’t suppose you two were able to negotiate a release?” Preston asked.  

She huffed a laugh and plopped the roll into her mashed tatos, “no. Triggermen were all talk though; I’ve had more issues with raiders. Valentine agreed to take the job but we needed to help him meet with Darla. He needed a statement from her at the very least to give her family. Wild thing wanted to bash our heads in with a swatter but Malone stopped her.”  

“That’s a scary thought,” Yefim mumbled, “Skinny’s got a reputation for being fairly ruthless.”  

“Exactly,” Chloe took another bite of her roll and chewed. Preston could hear Giddy panting heavily, her big green body obscured by the bar as she sat next to Yefim. He could picture the drool threads hanging from her jowls as she stared up at Chloe and smiled at how purposely the medic ignored the big begging four-legged Minuteman, “once we got back he was able to immediately answer a few questions and already has a lead on this man in black. Sort of.”  

“Already?” Yefim stared slack jawed.  

“Apparently our mystery man has been seen around town before,” Chloe swirled her beer and took another swig, “Valentine has notes about a man fitting that description meeting with a local who lives up on the wall. Local hasn’t been in town for about half a year though.”  

“So not replaced,” Rudy noted, “that’s good news.”  

“Yeah,” Chloe tried to smile but there was no humor in it, “thing is the guy matches a description that makes all this more complicated.”

[yangxiaolongstan]

Nick Valentine, the magnificent Nicky V. I like Nick. I've done him once before and I don't remember much but I remember liking him. just the idea of this pre war detective brought back to life by the Institute and lost, stuck out of time like you is brilliant. one of the most genuinely creative and interesting concepts of any Fallout companion. but not perfect. so let's fix him.

I'm actually gonna start before Nick becomes a companion. Vault 114 is fun, I like how it establishes Nick as a brave guy who's willing to charge into a vault full of gangsters after a missing person. although I wish we could talk to Skinny Malone and end things peacefully before turning about a hundred men into carefully modeled red goo. I also think Nick, and all the other companions you get to meet before they become available to travel with, could gain affinity before you start traveling together. if you successfully get Darla to go home without violence and talk down Skinny Malone, that should earn you some credit with him. anyway, since I already killed Kellogg with Codsworth we're picking up Nick in his office afterwards. I like the different detective cases he's got, the mysterious stranger one is especially fun. he has nice insights in the case file quests but I wish he wouldn't just handhold you through them.

his affinity goes up pretty quick as long as you're decent. I think his morals are a good fit for his character as an old private eye. although he should like when you pick locks like Piper does.

first conversation works well. gives us a feel for who Nick is and his history. I think it's better for the first conversation to be exposition than the second. I do think it should tie into his position out of time and his disorientation in the post apocalypse more though.

Nick needs a lot more play with Kellogg. maybe have Kellogg's memories and personality help Nick figure out Eddie Winter, he needed that dangerous merc's brain to understand a vicious bastard like Winter. I'll talk more about the quest when we get there, but for now I just think it needs a connection to Kellogg to help tie Nick together a bit more. as is the Kellogg stuff feels kinda out of place

for the second conversation we get a bit more Nick exposition, he's programed with the original Nick Valentine's memories and doesn't know who he is in the post apocalypse. I really like his backstory like I said before. I might make the conversation more about how disoriented he still is rather than about how people helped him and he's trying to return the favor, but it's pretty good all the same.

I like the conversation between Nick and DiMa a lot. Nick being the start of the replacements, where DiMa is the starting point for synths not based on a person like the Coursers. also the idea that Nick was the first escapee.

75% affinity baby! third conversation. starts on a very strong note, with Nick lamenting his disorientation, and even outright saying he's not a real person. it's interesting he doesn't actually think of himself as being Nick, but I think that needed to be set up a bit more in conversations 1 and 2. and his quest starts right after, kinda weird that it's not really part of the same conversation but it happens right after.

I think Eddie should have already been running his gang. it's just bizarre that he's been alive but doing nothing. I think he could be interesting as a kind of mastermind over the different triggerman gangs in the Commonwealth. the idea that the code to get to him is in all the different police holotapes is a bit contrived but it's also super fun. I might change it but it doesn't really need to be. I like the conversation between Nick and Eddie. it fits the wackier quests from other fallout games. the final meeting between an ancient ghoul crimelord and the robot recreation of his prewar detective nemesis sounds more like something from Old World Blues than Fallout 4. Nick desperately needs better pathfinding on the way to the place Jenny died, but I like what he says when he gets there.

the final conversation is good. Nick finally makes peace with who he is and has been and recommits himself to justice. I don't have much to say about it tbh. It's well done and mostly just the culmination of his quest. I'd include a romance option but that's just because I'm a nasty robotfucker.

all in all Nick was great. probably the best written companion so far. so I probably should do the worst next, fucking Strong. then maybe Preston.

Original fixing Fallout 4 companions post

Piper

Codsworth

MacCready

Strong

Preston

[oldworldgal]

{ gen, 8k words, rated T+ }

Nick wasn't expecting any rescue party to show—but nothing surprises him more than who exactly comes knocking. Some mysteries walk and talk and follow you to hell and back.

characters: Female Sole Survivor, Nick Valentine, Piper Wright, Hawthorne, John Hancock, Skinny Malone

warnings: references to child death, canon-typical violence, brief senses of unreality

tags: Chance Meetings, Nick and Sole have a slight history (but not like that), Canon Rewrite, One Shot

link to ao3

full fic under the cut

It’s on the twelfth day of his captivity that he hears the gunfire. Long, empty hours interrupted by the sudden and muffled but unmistakable reports from some distant place behind lead and steel and dirt.

He pauses in his pacing, listening intently, gaze shot toward the lone porthole of a window in this, his cushy prison cell. Only, there’s no disturbance on the other side of that glass. A few seconds more and the great thumping slows then ceases, like the death throes of some immense beast.

His personal watchdog and unfortunate company for the evening didn’t hear it.

He gives a short hum in thought because the noises were… peculiar. More echo than anything, with a deep metallic timbre when they thundered into the room, emanating from a particular place. Opposite from the door and window.

He drifts toward that area now, and doesn’t have to wait long for another burst of far-off violence. The steel of his skeletal hand meets a set of standing shelves with a tap, and on hidden wheels they move easily away from the wall.

Behind those shelves, a certain panel of the fake wood vinyl has a larger gap around the edges compared to its neighbors.

And here he thought he’d already found everything there was to find in here. The terminal alone he went through five times from a sheer lack of anything else to do.

With a brief glance cast back over his shoulder, he tests the gap with his metal digits—his most resourceful set of tools, he would have to admit. Not the first false panel they’ve pried up, and he still has a bit of hope that it won’t be the last.

Once a thin fingertip is jabbed behind it, the vinyl comes away as easily as a page in a book. A solid section little more than two feet wide, three feet tall. Only when he sets it aside it doesn’t reveal any door or hidden passageway and for the first time in his operational existence he’s glad for that fact, even if it would have made his predicament a hell of a lot simpler. Going two weeks in this godforsaken box-in-a-box without spotting it simply would have been too much. He’d have hung up his hat on principle.

But what does lie behind that panel might be even more curious.

Five circular vents, each about the size of a plate of Port-a-Diner pie. The radial slats are all shut tight and each vent has a little handle that could be levered out and pulled clockwise a short distance, presumably to open them.

“Huh,” Nick Valentine says.

Someday he’d have to answer once and for all the question that nags at him the most: why exactly mysteries are so prone to finding their way onto his lap even when he’s not looking for them.

But for now, at least he has something to do.

The preceding minute and a half of silence is cut short by two dull but decisive bangs, each chased by a faint metallic rattle. It ceases just as the synthetic polymer that serves as Nick’s skin touches the first vent. Still, he thinks he can feel the last traces of reverberation, picked up by the filaments winding through his endoskeleton all the way down to the fingertips of his left hand.

He waits. Whatever it was, it’s probably now over before it even really began. There’d been no less than five shmucks at the front office alone when he himself had strolled into the Park Street station a week ago, and many more besides from there to the vault entrance itself, from which he suspects the sound first originated. And they all are armed to the teeth. (How confident he’d been then, that he and Malone could have worked this out like decent men. Like old acquaintances if not old friends.)

But then—there it is again. No more than ten minutes go by before another ruckus kicks off. And this next volley of gunfire is a prolonged spat, more unsettling the longer it goes on, accompanied by indistinct shouting. Whoever’s here, it is one hell of a party.

It’s the second vent that shudders ever so slightly this time. Flicking that particular handle out and easing it down rotates an interior plate just enough for a yawning void to peek through the slats. Just enough for the gunshots to become not exactly clear but a hell of a lot sharper: the tell-tale rattle of a whole fleet of weaponry that he doesn’t have to guess at the make and model of, having been prodded and jeered at with them enough times these past two weeks to last him a couple more generations. That many automatics working together forms the rhythmic and systematic sound of manufacture, a diligent and savage machine, but behind it are a few stabs of sound that are certainly a pistol or two, punctuated by the booms of some maniac with a shotgun. Boom. Boom-boom. Two maniacs with shotguns?

So perhaps four people total, if none of the SMGs making up the industrial clatter are on the away team. Too few to be a rival gang, not enough explosions or general chaos to be raiders. But the notion of a rescue party seems unlikeliest of all; all of three people outside this vault are aware of Nick’s last known whereabouts and none of those people are crazy enough to pull off this stunt, which is sounding mostly like an interesting way to die by suicide.

Nick closes the vent again and sticks on his thinking cap. (That is, he resumes his pacing and taps out his last prized cigarette, jabbing it between unfeeling, crumbling lips. He doesn’t light it just yet—if all else fails it could still come in handy, if not as a tool then a bargaining chip with some particularly dull and desperate tough.) The gunfire continues, muted once again. Just firecrackers down the street, lit by the neighborhood kids.

There’s no telling what Skinny Malone plans to do with him. If it were only Skinny he were dealing with, the gangster might let him walk. But not with that new moll by his side. She knows just what buttons to push and where they are.

The only thing Nick detests more than being locked in a room with absolutely nothing of interest for two weeks is leaving a case unresolved—or letting it end unhappily. Tragedy is already too common in their current era for him to not fight for something better, come hell or high water—but right now, his priority needs to be getting out. There’ll be more happy ever afters.

Second-best case scenario, he can use the ongoing chaos to his advantage and slip out between the cracks one way or another. He’s made crazier escapes. But if the assailants are actually here for him—wishful thinking—there’s not much he can contribute from inside this private little retreat of his, much as he’d like to.

Just as he turns to complete his ambulatory circuit he pauses, thinking back to the first day he’d been thrown into this office. Going through the various drawers and cabinets had produced the construction plans for the vault. And wasn’t the map divided into sections, delineated by pen, by hand? Numbers One through Five?

Nick wheels around and grabs for where he stashed it, wedged beside a drawer in the desk, sure it would be useful. When it’s laid out on the ground out of sight of the window, with one rusty phalange he traces the section labeled ‘2’—Maintenance, right at the edge of the unfinished excavation site. There’s a tumbleweed of scribbled ink; a rough dot in the middle of the hallway that he would bet his hat marks the location of a suspect and oddly conical air duct. Rather effective at funneling sound right up to the Overseer’s office through a network of metal tubes that perhaps would have been replaced with a more sophisticated system had the vault ever actually been completed. A simple method reminiscent of the old Old World, but there’s some artistry to it. He could at least hand them that, the nosy, voyeuristic bastards.

If he can’t physically help his unknown hypothetical saviors, he could at least keep track of their progress and maybe suss out their destination. Won’t do him much good if they drop dead at the front door.

For an hour he listens to the intermittent bouts and tracks their movements from one section to the next, his optics flicking from the map to the little porthole window that serves as his only view of the world outside every time he has to inch open a vent to get a better bead on their location. It seems more and more unbelievable that the man on the other side of that window hasn’t heard the gunfire, even as the party draws closer. But then, the large gaps between volleys seem to suggest that many of his gracious hosts are being caught unaware. Turns out that vaults aren’t just marvels of architectural engineering and capitalist greed and moral deficiency, but of soundproofing as well.

Or maybe Dino just fell asleep outside. Surely Nick couldn’t be that lucky.

Regardless, the longer the racket drags on and the closer the newcomers get to the atrium, the more Nick can’t help but get his hopes up, to the point where the long stretches of silence in-between become somehow even more worrisome than the gunplay itself. It’s a veritable war out there, the whole of the Malone Crew bearing down on this small, over-ambitious force.

And still they push forward. And still their guns number four. The sheer force of will or providence or skill or even luck is nothing short of inspiring. Nick finds that he’d like to get to meet them after all, whoever they are.

Perhaps it is this thought that finally ends his own internal war that he’d been conducting, judging what horse to bet on, what his best move might be. To play it safe and hide and wait for his mysterious benefactors to scour every last inch of the vault when their bloody work is done (because no scavenger worth their salt would pass up a locked door in a vault) and jump out when the time is right? Or to hope for friendlies and maybe distract his guard dog from their arrival? Maybe even send him packing, if Nick could play his cards right.

The gunfire draws ever closer to Vent 4. Passes right beneath it, and away again. The inky dot is just a few halls away from the Atrium.

What’ll it be, Nicky? Hope or hide?

“Ah, hell,” he finally mutters, making it to his feet with the creak of a joint or three, a ting in the left knee in particular, which hasn’t sounded quite right since his date with a certain young lady and her baseball bat. There was only so much repair work he could attempt with what he had on him and what he could find in this glorified box.

He needs eyes on the door to the Atrium, and he’s gotten pretty damn tired of sitting still and shutting up for days on end, anyway.

Nick straightens out his shirtsleeves, fastens the cuffs, snatches his coat from the back of the mostly dismantled office chair. Everything is put where it ought to be: coat slipped on, collar straightened, wall panel placed over the vents, shelves in front of the panel, and finally the map tucked into an inside pocket of the coat. He suspects no one here is going to need it anymore after today.

His last cig he holds casually aloft between two skeletal digits as he approaches the window, casting a glance up and down the walkway outside, across the atrium to the door on the second tier walkway below, and over the tables and their assorted relics and detritus on the open bottom floor. No sign of Dino, but no sign of any of his fellows, either.

“What’s a guy gotta do for some decent conversation around here?” he calls out in the crankiest voice he could muster.

There’s a pause, the scrape of chair legs across the floor, a leisurely tap. tap. tap. of footsteps before Dino’s form appears, smug as ever, hands tucked in his pockets.

Nick was right. The man hasn’t a single damn clue. And there’s no movement in the rest of the room that he can see.

Nick composes his expression into something he hopes is monumentally unimpressed. Not that this particularly pugnacious foe is difficult to goad. “You’re still here? Ah, and here I was hoping for something civil.”

“What’s the matter, Valentine?” Dino jeers. “Ya gettin’ bored? Want a snack?”

He rolls his cigarette between three fingertips, considers it briefly while he speaks. “Dino, you and I both know the only appetizer with which you’re familiar is a knuckle sandwich. And not a particularly good one, I’d wager.”

No dice. The man doesn’t spare a glance toward the object of temptation. Not a smoker. But at least he loves to hear himself talk.

“Naw, don’t be sore about Darla givin’ you what-for. The leg still in three pieces? Ya lookin’ to own a matchin’ set, that it?”

Nick doesn’t have to look directly at a certain door across the room to see it open as the goon chatters on, oblivious. Now or never. He can use the threats and the topic of Darla to pull the ace from his sleeve: an important morsel of information he’s kept in mind from years past, about a certain little black book belonging to a certain ironically named mob boss, and the nature of the names written within back then. It’s sure to keep his attention, at the very least.

Nick opens his mouth and Dino’s blood and brains explode across the window with a crack. His body flops to the ground.

“Christ,” he sighs quietly to himself. Well, that’s one way to solve a problem. He looks to the proffered smoke in his hand, what could have been a peace offering, and at that turn of events finally lights it up with a few flicks of his lighter. He raises it in a silent salute. So long, Dino, you sorry jackass.

His imprisonment, it seems, is finally coming to an end one way or another. Whether what’s next is better or worse remains to be seen.

It’s quiet outside, and difficult to see through the red painting most of the glass. Only the faintest shuffling; steps on the stairs. Detectable only through the echo it sends through the room.

Though weaponless, Nick Valentine readies himself. Come what may.

And still he could not have prepared for the face that pops into the window, peering around the gore.

“Nicky,” Piper chides with a relieved grin, “we gotta stop meeting like this.”

“Piper?” He manages to keep his composure though the revelation could have bowled him over. Piper lead the charge into a vault through what must have been dozens of mobsters, and survived? She’s a decent shot, but running and gunning isn’t typically her style. And last he knew, she was on an extended investigation in Southie. He gives an astounded chuckle, shaking his head. “I’m always happy to see your face, Ms. Wright, but never more than in this moment.” There’s a flash of movement behind her, a single person rushing past.

“And you look like hell,” Piper replies with a brief glance spared toward the terminal barring his exit. “Geez, Nick, what’d they do to you?” At this she looks genuinely disturbed, eyes lingering on oil stains and fresh damage to his jaw. Not even the worst of it, since she can’t see the torn pant leg. One of his best pairs, of course.

He waves away the concern with a tap of his cigarette, dispensing flakes of ash to tumble through the air before returning it to its perch between his lips. “I’ll be fine, as long as you get me the hell out of here. Boredom is the mind-killer, Piper, and the amenities here are somewhat lacking.”

Before she can reply there’s a faint beep from the terminal, cracked in record time, and a muffled, indistinct voice. Piper’s visage disappears from the window, and he follows suit.

Nick stands a few feet back as the door hisses open, but his reporter friend isn’t the one it unveils.

The woman standing in the doorway, light pouring around her into the dim office, seems more a vision than something of this grim reality. An ancient kind of beauty, something that peers out of a magazine, something from so long ago that it might as well have been from a different world altogether.

Strangely familiar. The kind of beauty that has gone long extinct.

It’s not even the measure of her looks, necessarily. It’s the particular quality, from the neatness of her brows to her unblemished skin all the way down to the way she’s tied off her button down above the waist of her jeans, making a hundredfold hand-me-down look like the height of fashion. A faded red is even detectable staining her lips.

The only things anchoring her in this world are the grime on her clothes, the threadbare patches, the submachine gun cradled in the crook of a lightly bandaged arm that also bears a near-pristine Pip-Boy. The way a few runaway brown curls have escaped her ponytail to cling to the sheen on her neck. And then the blood flecking her shirt. Some of these don’t seem to suit her, but actually a few kind of add to her charm.

And when she in turn first sees him, those blue eyes narrow inquisitively, as if discerning something.

That specific look sparks something buried deep, a fish nibbling at the surface of a murky, neglected pond. Nick starts to shuffle through the filing cabinet that is his memory, searching.

Whatever she was looking for, she finds it fast. Disbelief relaxes her eyes and she gives a half-laugh, mouth slanted in awe. Shouldn’t those lips of hers be painted a dusty rose?

“Detective Valentine,” she greets, like she knows him. Her voice, low but soft and suited for late-night radio, is definitely colored with recognition.

Recognition…something about that voice…

A hand curls to prop itself on a protruding hip, and those nails should be jewel-toned, and longer, and not chipped.

A sense of unreality instantly descends over him. Or it would if not, he suspects, for the fact that his synapses are synthetic. It hasn’t escaped his notice these past decades that he owes his sustained sanity to his mechanical body.

“Holy Hell,” Nick says eloquently, and the cigarette drops right back out of his mouth to scatter sparks on the floor, forgotten because he has remembered. The sleek skirt and heels, a courteous smile but decisive questions. The daily impeccable cascade of side-parted waves. The bands of brown around her pupils, islands nestled in the blue.

All of a sudden, he’s not the only specter of the 21st century.

“Montgomery,” is the name that finds its way to his mouth, a lightbulb beginning to flicker on behind his optics, the years flipping all the way back to the earliest files in the cabinet. What was her na—? “Natalia,” he says in revelation, sure this time. “The hit-and-run in front of Castello’s.” A shake of his head. “How the hell are you alive?” And—he doesn’t voice this thought—still in the condition you’re in?

“Whoa,” Piper answers in her stead, looking between them in bafflement, “whoa, whoa, hold on. You know each other? You didn’t say you knew each other.”

The woman opens her mouth, hesitates. “What you had said, I—I just didn’t think it could possibly…”

“Well, well,” chimes in another familiar voice from down the walkway, albeit this one with the tonal quality of sandpaper in a box of rocks. “200 years and the gals still chase after ya. And I thought I had game.”

It effectively broke the spell over the impromptu reunion and Nick follows that voice outside to meet the rest of the crazy crew they’d gathered. And in terms of mugs he wasn’t expecting to see today, on a scale of Piper Wright to Natalia Montgomery the glazed eyes and beef-jerky complexion of one John Hancock ranks somewhere right under halfway. The ghoul stands at the railing, frock coat, tricorn, and all, a double-barrel resting against his shoulder in a deceptively casual manner. The pale lenses of his eyes occasionally rove the floors below, keeping a sharp look out despite all appearances.

“Ah, Mr. Mayor,” Nick says at the sight. Not often you see him outside of his domain, but this perilous endeavor made a hell of a lot more sense now. He knew Hancock to be more than slightly insane on his best days. “Well, I guess now there’s no use asking who popped our friend Dino, here.” His optics stray to the body between them, the pooling blood just now slowing to a crawl. Shame about the suit.

“What can I say,” Hancock replies with a vicious nonchalance, suddenly producing a 10mm from his coat and spinning it once around his trigger finger. “I don’t take kindly to people threatening friends of mine.” He smiles. “I’m considering us even now.”

Nick eyes him with some skepticism as he steps to the body of Dino to see if he couldn’t secure a weapon of his own. His revolver is surely a lost cause by now, stashed somewhere in the depths of the vault. “You would.”

The ghoul flips the pistol once more, offering the grip towards the old-but-newcomer, and Montgomery takes it with a degree of uncertainty. “Thanks for the loan, doll.”

There’s a handgun in the waistband at Dino’s back and Nick slips it free. An aging Mauser in remarkable condition, with its slim protruding barrel and boxy magazine. A similar enough profile that it should fit the shoulder holster beneath his coat. He pulls back the hammer and checks the magazine. 9mm is rather rare in the Commonwealth, but with the firepower surrounding him, it’ll do for now. Gun like this shouldn’t go to waste, in any case. It must have cost a fortune. Or a life.

Nick looks to the grisly corpse below him. Well. Two lives, now.

Lastly, he checks the man’s pockets for extra ammunition and comes up with three clips in one and in the other, a familiar rectangular silhouette. “Ah,” he says as he pulls out the cigarettes and gives the pack a shake. More than just a few. Dino was holding out on him, the rascal. “No wonder. Cheers, pal,” he adds in farewell before finally standing to rejoin his rescue party.

With most of their greetings over with an uneasy quiet had settled over the group, each holding their weapon ready with varying degrees of confidence. The only expression visibly flagging was that of his former acquaintance, the ex-lawyer. This is new to her; the shooting, the blood, the death. He’s seen a similar look on more than one Vault Dweller, not to mention a certain wearable computer. Really, it was as if their last acquaintance couldn’t have been all that long ago.

Mysteries abound.

Nick looks to the other two in turn. That accounts for two pistols and a shotgun. “So, where’s the fourth member of this little get-together?”

Montgomery looks to him in momentary surprise and begins to motion over the railing with a tilt of her head, her lips parting before:

Tap-tap. A metallic knocking. From below.

“Heads up,” Hancock mutters, and everyone drops to a crouch in concert.

In the ensuing silence voices could be heard below and behind them, further away than the alerting sound, in a hall that leads to the living quarters and, naturally, the way out.

There’s a duet of clicking safety switches alongside him and they all aim towards the bottom floor and wait. With a setup like this Nick can begin to see how at least some of the mobsters didn’t stand a chance. His optics rove for any hint of the mysterious fourth individual, hoping they’re nowhere in the line of fire.

A door hisses open.

“Dino! Quit razzing that detective and go grab Simon, you’re late for the game.”

A pause.

Again, louder. “Hey! Wake up sunshine; move your ass! You two ain’t clearin’ us out this time!”

A longer pause, a shuffle. In the corner of Nick’s vision, Hancock adjusts his grip, eager but calm.

“The hell…?”

A second voice. “Well, where the fuck is he?”

And then several pairs of shoes against concrete, unhurried. At least three people.

Nick’s finger brushes the trigger. One trilby appears out from under the walkway below them, then another, tilting up—he begins to squeeze—

A boom, and blood blooms out in a fan-shaped array below them. Cries of impact and surprise.

Thump. One body.

Boom.

Two bodies.

One staggers backwards, further into room and into view, bumping into a table. “Oh sh—”

Nick pulls the trigger.

Thump. Three bodies.

They wait. The sound of a shotgun cracking open, shells slipped inside, and snapped back shut. “We’re clear. Better get moving.”

And golly, he knows that one too.

A handsome face of dark brown skin and close cropped hair pokes out from under the walkway and peers up at them as Hawthorne emerges from the corner where he’d hid. “Hey there, Nick. Glad you’re in one piece.”

“Hawthorne,” he greets with a slight tip of his hat as he stands again, “Good to see you.” With each new face, he understands more and more how they could have made it this far. Hawthorne is a talented gun-for-hire, has a steady head on his shoulders, and is always willing to help friends. A good man.

His expertise, Piper’s instincts, and Hancock’s brutal will to do whatever’s necessary make for quite a cocktail. Time will tell what Montgomery brings to the table, he supposes.

“All this for little old me?” Nick muses once they’d reconvened on the bottom floor. “Hope I’m not the one footing the bill.”

“Couldn’t abide by our favorite detective being in need,” Hawthorne grins at him. “My gran would be real upset, after what you’d done for Freckles.”

Nick pats him on the shoulder in greeting and gratitude while Hancock and Piper search the fallen, dispensing (or pocketing) ammo and caps. “We certainly can’t have that. How is Eustace?”

“Still waiting on that afternoon tea.”

“Ah,” Nick says regretfully. “I keep meaning to stop by. The work piles up.”

The man nods sagely. “Cheating husband, priceless missing artifact, getting kidnapped and held prisoner for weeks. I know how it is.”

Nick chuckles. “Oh, I’m afraid I walked right into this one. They didn’t used to be so bad,” he says with a glance back to the bodies before he pokes his head into the hall ahead, pistol at the ready. Quiet and still as the grave. “But what changes a man more than time? And misguided affection, I guess,” he continues, mostly to himself. And grief. He looks back to his friends. “Speaking of, any sign of the man himself?”

Hawthorne gives a grim shake of the head. “Not yet.”

“Still can’t believe the great Nick Valentine got taken out by Skinny Malone of all people,” Hancock approaches with jangling pockets. “This guy is smalltime. Couldn’t find his own ass with both hands.”

“Turns out trust may be the most dangerous possession of all,” Nick surmises. He glances between the others. “We all set?”

Weapons are once again readied and they advance. Nick witnesses the group’s careful gameplan in real-time, how they compensate for Montgomery’s inexperience with Piper shifting in front and her retreating behind, and Hancock and Hawthorne taking point for both of them with the scatterguns.

They find themselves in the lavatory, two groups of showers and toilets on either side of the long hall, and each room is quickly declared clear.

Nick positions himself by the door at the end and nods to the others. Hawthorne takes the other side, raises three fingers, then two, and then one. Nick hits the button and braces.

The door doesn’t move. Doesn’t even make a sound.

“Hell,” he mutters, inspecting the panel. One obstacle after another. “They can’t even maintain such an exceptional hideout? …This’ll take me a minute.” At least it’s not a tumbler lock. With the current company present, he could do without the comments from Piper about his phalange being hinge-deep in a keyhole.

“So,” she starts anyway, looking between Nick and over her shoulder at their new friend. He nearly gives her a warning look, but a different topic has her attention, for once. “About you two knowing each other.”

Halfway back down the hall, Montgomery is testing a water fountain and looking in surprise at her Pip-Boy when it fails to give any cautionary tck-tck-tcks.

“A passing acquaintance in the courtroom,” is Nick’s answer as he inspects two wires, prepares to strip them. It was so long ago. A different life entirely.

“Oh?”

“I… was a defense attorney,” the other woman says at length as she swiftly shrugs off the pack on her back, a military-issue brown canvas rucksack in shockingly good condition. There’s a name embroidered on the flap, one N. ANDREWS.

“And you were both on the same case…?” Piper asks, needling for details. She does love to hear about how justice used to function. When it actually did.

“Well, this one wasn’t typically my beat,” he says simply, and Montgomery smiles as she digs out a canteen and two stocky brown liquor bottles.

“He was the witness, actually,” she elaborates. She dumps out one bottle of not-quite-clear liquid and starts refilling them with the most precious commodity of all in their new age.

“Guy ran his Corvega into a man in front of a sandwich shop and took off,” Nick explains. “Broke a leg and fractured two of the unfortunate victim’s ribs, if I recall. Only reason Nick was involved was good timing and a weakness for mortadella on focaccia.”

The professional façade on Hawthorne’s face cracks as the man looks at him perplexed and asks, “I’m sorry, whattadilla on fuck-a-what?” and Piper gives a snort in laughter.

Montgomery’s eyes linger on Nick in silent question, probably at the usage of the third person. But it will be awhile before he digs into that particular bag of cats.

“So, what happened?” Piper looks back at the former attorney. “You defended the guy?”

She sighs, and Nick has to give a chuckle at the memory of the trial. He speaks up again when she doesn’t, apparently reticent about that particular client. Or maybe speaking of that other life at all is simply too painful. Perhaps the wound, too fresh?

“Well, the one they dragged in was practically a kid, barely twenty-one. Matching description, but all Nick had seen was a white guy, brown hair, skinny physique. Red Corvega, polished to a shine, no license plates. Fresh off a lot. And this kid—Johnny was the name?”

“It was.” She leans against the wall watching him, slight smile and far-off gaze warring for dominion on her features.

“So Johnny had a decent alibi, a less-than-decent father, and a shiny red Corvega with nary a dent or even a scratch.” He pauses in his work, lost in his own thoughts. “Even I wondered if it was the right guy. Then three days into the trial—after a couple delays—young Johnny finally takes the stand. Only, Ms. Montgomery here requests that the court allow him to testify in the narrative. The judge grants her request, she sits right back down, and Johnny is told to continue his testimony without questioning. And the kid was none the wiser that his attorney just signaled to the court that he was lying through his teeth.” He can’t help but laugh again, shaking his head. “I hadn’t seen someone crucify themselves through perjury so thoroughly. Well—he hadn’t. Nick hadn’t.”

“Huh,” Piper says in amazement, and Montgomery picks up the thread.

“He turned out to be a real ass,” she muses. “Sought out a pro bono defense to try and prevent dear old dad from finding out.” The ponytail swings side to side as she shakes her head, mystified. “Sure did pay to have his car fixed up real quick, though.”

Hancock gives a faint derisive scoff, “Sounds too complicated. Guy like that? Thinking he’s better than everyone else? Can’t imagine having to stick up for scum like him.”

“He wasn’t exactly the type I was in it for,” she admits, giving a light shrug.

“Ah, you did good,” Nick tells her, and snaps the panel shut to bring himself back to the present, so he can stop being two different people in two different timelines. Most folks involved then are dead. That particular brand of justice doesn’t matter to very many people now. And fewer every day. Damn, he finds himself thinking again, optics flicking to the earnest face of the brunette down the hall, recognizing someone drowning in grief almost as if he were looking in a mirror. Who dragged you into this mess? And: is it any better than dying to nuclear fire? “Think I got it working again. Get ready.”

“He-ey,” Hancock says appreciatively when the door actually opens and nothing jumps out to kill them. “Nothing better than a multitalented dick.”

Even Piper rolls her eyes at the double entendre, although she’d laugh at it coming from anyone else. In fact, Nick is pretty positive he’s heard her say something very similar. It’s almost a miracle they’re not friends.

They form up and move forward.

What follows is a nightmare maze of thin hallways and branching living quarters everywhere Nick looks, a guy with a gun in any shadow; many, many stairs, over which his left knee has severe complaint—and one aforementioned poker game they do interrupt, which John proceeds to pick clean, whistling.

But they do well for themselves, faring even better with the addition of Nick and his new 9mm. Montgomery tucks herself behind crates and corners and pillars and lays covering fire with her borrowed SMG while the others pick their targets off, one by one. There’s certainly plenty of .45 to spare.

But still no sign of the head honcho. When they get upstairs to the depot, there’s no one at all until they open the door to the vault entrance.

And who else could be standing there at the very end of it all but Malone, blocking the way through the vault door. His expression alone could kill, not to mention the armed entourage of three men and his new flame.

Nick holds his hand up, specifically to stay Hancock and his twitchy trigger finger. There’s still a chance, whether Skinny really deserves one or not. Darla does. Her parents do.

The tactical calculus is apparent on the mob boss’ face. They could all certainly be wasted in seconds, easily—but then there’s the old history between them, and the fact of a certain mayor of Goodneighbor. A rival of Malone’s, to be sure, but one with far more influence and power than he, especially with a vault of dead henchmen.

Not to mention the fact that Malone isn’t exactly fond of shooting women. History has proven that to be a fact.

“How could you do this to me, Nicky?” Skinny is imploring him, equal parts anger and betrayal. “Busting in to my digs? Shooting up all my guys?”

“Me? I just spent two weeks in a damn lockbox, Skinny,” Nick says, affronted. “You did that. I came here looking for your two-timing dame, and when things got violent you stood by and watched. None of this would have even happened if she wrote home more often.” He eyes the dame in question, equipped with a metal bat he’d rather not get reacquainted with. Even as the one with the least blood on her hands, she might be the genuine problem here. A real agitator, that one.

Darla just hisses at her paramour, electing to ignore him. “I told you we should have just killed him. All that sentimental crap you gave me about the old times, look what happened!”

“Darla,” Malone says in warning, “I’m handling this. Skinny’s always got things under control.”

At this moment that couldn’t be further from the truth. Nick has to make him see that. “Skinny, you’d better take a good long look at who all just came knocking. And that was just for my sorry hide. Who do you think is gonna come looking for them?”

The gangster’s eyes waver from him to his companions. To Hancock.

“My people would burn this place to the fucking ground,” the ghoul at Nick’s side says matter-of-factly. Then he opens his mouth again, and the vicious smile is audible. “Not that any of you are gonna keep me from walking out of here.”

Nick grits his semblance of teeth. The mayor’s input will be not exactly helpful, if Darla’s tightened grip is anything to go by.

On his other side, Montgomery lowers her gun in a show of faith, splays her empty hand in more an entreaty than a surrender. She speaks not to Skinny, but to the woman beside him. “Darla,” she beseeches, “your parents just want you back home.”

“That’s a load of bull,” the gun moll spits back, focus narrowing to a single point at the words. “My dad doesn’t give a damn. He was waitin’ for me to go.”

Nick has plenty to say on the subject, but he and Darla already got off on the wrong foot, to say the least. And he figures Piper and company must have done their homework and gotten their information from dear Ellie—so he keeps his mouth shut and Montgomery continues.

“If that were really true, do you think they would hire a detective to find you? They’re worried sick. They don’t want you to throw your life away. For this.” She brandishes her empty hand at the group’s earlier handiwork; a man with buckshot filling his chest. “It’s never too late to go home.”

That strikes a chord. Darla stops short, her shoulders dropping just a fraction. “I…”

“Hey!” Skinny Malone barks at Montgomery. “I’m in charge here. You got something to say, you say it to me. Unlike all of you, she’s right where she belongs.”

Nick sighs, digging in deeper. It was over. The boss just hadn’t realized it yet. “This is the road you walked, Skinny,” he says. “And it only has one destination. You really think this is how Lilly June would want things to be?”

Burning eyes turn to him. “Don’t you give me that. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You got no idea. None.”

But the name had gotten Darla’s attention, as it was meant to. In fact, it had drawn a couple of glances. “Lilly? Who the hell is Lilly?”

“No, it’s not—it wasn’t like that,” he says in a near-panic. And maybe it’s cruel, to twist the knife like this. But that didn’t make it any less true.

“Oh yeah? Then what was it like, Skinny?”

“Darla,” he pleads, “we can talk about this later.” Behind them, even his henchmen had relaxed their postures, tossing looks to one another.

And Darla just shakes her head. “God. My ma was right. You gangster types are all talk. Puffed-up windbags.”

“Wha—?”

But her grip on the bat was already loosening, and it drops to the floor with a sharp ring. “I’m outta here. We’re done, Skinny. It’s over.”

“Wait! Darla, where are you…” His own gun hangs limp at his side, and his protestations fade when his supposed sweetheart doesn’t even look back as she walks away. Finally, he turns back to Nick. “I can’t believe you would do this,” he says again. “First my crew, then you cost me my girl.”

“It’s for the best, Sal,” Nick says calmly, using a name not spoken in years. “You’re no good for each other. I thought you’d recognize the signs, after all this time.”

“Out,” he replies, thoroughly demoralized. “Get out. I never want to see your face again.”

Nick starts to walk. Past his old rival-turned-familiar face, and past the henchmen who look none too impressed after that display. They might not be sticking around, either. “So long, Skinny.”

The others follow quietly, and no one stops them from leaving.

Hawthorne lets out his breath when they’re across the dig site, part relief and part awe. “Nicely done. I’d always heard about you talking folks down off the ledge. Glad I got to see it for myself.”

Nick nods, optics straying to Montgomery, quiet and thoughtful. She didn’t do bad, herself. He always was impressed by her way with words.

“Who is Lilly June, Nick?” Piper asks quietly as he leads the group toward a service entrance, nervous glances cast over her shoulder.

“Lillian June Malone,” he reflects, hand automatically straying to the pack of cigarettes in his pocket at the memory, for his second smoke of the night. For once, Hancock doesn’t complain about him wasting it. “Salvatore ‘Skinny’ Malone’s little girl. She would have been fourteen, now.”

“His daughter?” parrot both Hawthorne and Piper, aghast.

He flicks his lighter, each strike the memory of little shoes on quarry blocks, jumping from one to the next to the next, until…

“Aw, geez,” Piper mutters under her breath, adjusting her cap and pulling it down tight. “Don’t go making me feel bad for the guy.”

“He’s made nothing but bad decisions ever since,” he says, looking up at the ladder leading topside before he starts to climb. “One after the other.”

There’s a pause, and then Montgomery’s low voice joins the conversation for the first time in several minutes. “There’s a lot of things someone might be driven to do, after a loss like that.”

From his perch at the top of the ladder, finagling with the exit hatch, he can only barely hear Piper’s low exhalation, and he looks to see Montgomery with an arm wrapped around herself. She looks lost. The sight sets his clockwork ticking with the implications.

It’s a dark, cloudy sky above when they’re finally standing in the street, but Nick is thrilled to see it all the same. If he closes his eyes, the fresh breeze feels almost like it used to.

Dawn is just a handful of hours away. Home, even closer.

“I, ah, wanted to say,” he finally starts, turning to the others, “thank you all for coming. Truly. I was sure I’d be stuck in that office until the world ended all over again.”

“Ah, quit it,” Piper chides with a gentle knock against his shoulder. “No need to thank us. I wasn’t about to leave a friend down there. You know I don’t have many of those to spare.”

“Diamond City folk should take care of their own,” Hawthorne says. “It’d be a better place for it. And you’re the one who showed them that, Nick.”

“Aaaand that’s my cue,” Hancock says, stepping away in the direction of Goodneighbor. He lifts the front of his hat with a finger, revealing more of the American flag tied like a bandana around the remaining strips of his scraggly and stained blond hair. “See you around, Nick. Welcome back.”

“Hancock,” Montgomery is the one to call before he can turn away. “Thank you for the help.”

He nods at her. “Remember our deal and we’ll be square, sister.”

And that’s certainly interesting. Nick isn’t sure it necessarily bodes well.

As the ghoul walks away, a distinct feeling strikes the aging synth. A feeling that John may have looked at how things turned out for Malone, and seen opportunity for himself and his people.

And next time, Malone won’t be so lucky.

Nick tips his hat down and turns away. Someone should make better use of the vault anyway.

Montgomery catches his attention then, as she detaches the drum magazine on her scavenged SMG and he watches her unceremoniously dump the gun in the mud, stashing the ammo. Whether the look of distaste he caught in her eyes was more at the firearm or what she had to do with it… perhaps time would tell.

One final look is aimed at the retreating form of Goodneighbor’s macabre mayor before they start their own way back to Diamond City, and Nick falls into step beside his good friend. “Piper, if I’d known I was the one getting in the way of you two working together, I would have gone to ground ages ago.”

As predicted, she gives an exaggerated groan. “Don’t start. Every other word out of his mouth just bumps him further up my list. If it was just the two of us we would have killed each other before we even got in the door.”

“Every other word, huh?” Nick ponders. “Well, it’s an improvement.” He can spy the edge of a smile on Montgomery’s face, behind the evident exhaustion now that the adrenaline of fight-or-flight was ebbing. John’s charms had clearly worked on her at least a little bit.

“I may not agree with all the guy’s methods, but he didn’t seem that bad, really,” Hawthorne was saying. “At least, not nearly as bad as I expected. Not as bad as the stories.”

“No, not you too,” Piper mourns.

The gunhand gives a shrug. “Sometimes, you need a guy like that on side. Like when dealing with an army of gangsters out for blood,” he offers, and she grumbles in turn.

They continue on in this manner for a time, and Nick hangs back a few steps to walk alongside Natalia Montgomery, mystery woman of the hour. She offers a slight smile, looking more haggard by the minute.

“I, ah, got the impression there was a particular reason you came to find me,” he says quietly, “And I’m betting the story is a long one.”

Her gaze suddenly averts to look up into the midnight sky and she blinks hard. Even in the subdued moonlight, he can see how her eyes start to shine in mere seconds.

He bets she’s been barely hanging on by a thread for a while now. Ahead of them, he spies Piper glance back for a few moments, a knit of worry to her brow. Gal got attached quick.

Finally, Natalia takes in a long, slow breath, lets it out. “Yeah. It is.”

“Bit of a walk back to Fenway,” he reasons. “How about you tell me about it on the way, if you’re up to it. That way when we get back, you can get some sleep and I’ll get to work. And then we can tackle it fresh-faced in the morning.”

A twitch at the edge of her mouth. “No vacation for Detective Valentine, huh?”

“Not when I’m needed. And I don’t sleep. One of the rare perks of this rig,” he says, motioning to himself with a skeletal hand. Besides, he’s certainly had enough idle time lately.

Another deep, steadying sigh as her arms wrap around herself, a look cast up and down the street. After a few moments she speaks, and her voice wavers like the water of the Charles. “Yeah. Okay.”

And she begins.

Nick crushes his cigarette underfoot, dispersing the last wisps of smoke into night air. He tucks his hands into his pockets, looks up at the roiling clouds threatening an early September rain.

And he listens closely to the whole, sad story.

[ibbity]

Operation "romance Preston" is now a success. It ended up being delayed slightly due to the fact that for some reason he decided to start idolizing me in the middle of rescuing Nick Valentine and tried to initiate the final affinity conversation while we were actively running away from Skinny Malone. This was not optimal, so I did not pick up the conversation cue right then lmao. Instead we went to Goodneighbor and went down to the Third Rail for a little jazz, and Preston wandered behind the partition next to the stairs and started the affinity conversation again. Obviously I went straight for the "romance" option and heyo! Magnolia was singing in the background, it was so nice. We had a previous affinity conversation under the same circumstances, so it was like a callback in a movie.

I've seen people complain that Preston is too low-key and not expressive enough when you romance him but honestly I think that's just how his character is written? He's clearly more of an internalizing type who doesn't like to make a big emotional display and being slightly awkward and unsure of what to say when caught off-guard with something significant tracks. I liked his response anyway, felt realistic and I find emotional restraint where there's clearly a lot behind it more appealing than just throwing it all out there at the slightest prompt. Also, dude's just coming out of an extended phase of suicidal depression, it would be odd if he started skipping and squealing. Anyway, my girl got her man first try and I'm pleased.

[fallout4-reacts]

Masterlist

Rules

You're free to continue to ask; I did not close them

Thank you for your ongoing encouragement

Stay tuned, I didn't give up the list

Meanwhile : No Skip November

2024-11-20

Thank you for continuing to provide me with such creative ideas. I'll do what I can to soon end the current queue (Up to date)

Sole who cries in their sleep

Sole's reappearance as Nuka World's Overboss after months

Sole jerryrigging a prosthetic arm (4 companions)

Deacon try to make a joke to Curie (incorrect Fallout 4 quotes)

Sole who still sees feral ghouls as human

Sole who hums or gets watery eyes when super comfy

Sole who goes to freakish extents to keep up with their pre-war skincare/hygiene

Sole "adopting" a baby deathclaw and keeping it like a pet

Sole with a low int but max luck

Danse is dense

Sole recruiting Kellogg and/or post!quest Virgil?

Sole getting infected with FEV but not a super-mutant yet (Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4)

Fem/gender neutral Sole who used to be a spy/special agent pre war

Sole romancing Kellogg

Sole lost a lot of weight (comp seeing a pre-war photo)

Sole jokingly flirts but panics when companion flirt back

Potential dialogue (situation) that’s missing from the game (part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - Bonus)

Companion walking on a nude Sole (non-sexual)

Skinny Malone orders his goons to eliminate Nick

Sole betraying the BoS to save a child synth

Sole is actually an Enclave remnant

Sole finding a former degree/award for some massive achievement

Sole with a really slow reaction time

What did the companions do to stop a Frank Horegon brought back to life by a mad scientist

Sole getting surprise adopted/kidnapped by a very protective Mama

Sole who has a mutation like a Big Horner's horns from FNV? (Romance -smut warning) (Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3)

MY VISION OF THE COMPANIONS

Ideas about every important NPC (Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 -

Sole having nature powers

A very touchy Sole (crushing companions react)

How companion+ Sturges + Desdemona + Kent would react to SS asking for $#% (smut warning?)

Nora being the notorious serial killer the Boston Butcher

Sosu saying "dildo of consequence rarely arrives with lube." To Mayor MacDonough

Random kisses whenever Sole feels a surge of affection

Sole becoming the mayor of Diamond City and...

Sole staring down at a nuka cola and they ask "How the fuck did bottle caps become a currency"

Sole drag the companions (as a group) to an old baseball/basketball court

Companions and Maxson (minus Strong) reacting to a pretty young sole knowing how to survive

Companions react to a sole that has become a conspiracy theorist

Companions react to a super genius SS

Companions reacting to someone reestablishing broadcast on TV

Companions confession being interrupt (Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5)

Companions react to Sole negotiating an alliance between the Minutemen, the Institute, and the Railroad (Titan ask)

[roystory4]

being an older model gen3, skinny malone believes nick is human and not a synth, which leads to some great misconceptions about mira