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x-hollywoodghoul-x · 6 months ago

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"I'm thirty-four now. I've been out here for almost twenty years, I could've... could've found you. I could have..."

His knee still tingled with residual warmth from.the point of contact. A reminder that she was real, what was happening right now was real, and she was alive.

The bodies scattered around them and the dull ache of the stump where his trigger finger had been were a reminder of how easily this complete chance discovery could have never happened.

"I didn't even entertain the idea that you could be alive. Which is fucki-stupid, because I literally had a woman from our time take care of me."

It was surreal, hearing his long lost daughter almost swear in front of him and curb herself. As if he was in any position to rebuke her over something as trivial as polite language now, after the world had fucking ended, he'd turned into a monster, and she'd grown up without him. He'd been out of her life a hell of a lot longer than he'd ever been in it. She had no reason to still see him as any kind of parental authority or modify her behaviour out of respect for long-desd principles he'd instilled in another, more civilized life.

It still weirdly warmed his heart.

Or maybe that was just the truly obscene amount of chems and booze still blazing through his system.

"If she made it, and she wasn't in a Vault Tec facility, I could have at least thought you'd have found some other way too."

"Two hundred years 's a long time," he muttered simply, gaze drifting over towards one of the nearby dead ferals. How many years had she lasted, before she'd turned?

"Most folks don't make it to even twenty out here."

Ghouls had an edge because they aged slow, sure - and there were other pre-war ones out there. But he hadn't met any that could still make conversation this far down the line.

He was still quietly reeling over the concept. Twenty years. Twenty years, fuck, she'd have still been a child -

Keep it together.

"And yet we did. I did twice. Saw another nuke not long after,"

...What?!

A flicker of something dangerously close to horrified alarm crossed his features; The Ghoul hastily tried to shove the surge of emotion down. He felt like he was starting to fray apart, like this stranger with his daughter's memories had reached inside and pulled something important loose to unravel.

His gloved hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, fidgeting restlessly while she sawed away at the rope; the only indicator of the storm raging behind his pensive thousand yard stare as he grappled to keep his damn shit together.

"I grabbed a kid-the less dumb one of those two, and made a run for it again. Not looking forward to the third."

A half-stifled snort left him, in spite of himself, the sound falling somewhere between semi-hysterical disbelief and morbid amusement at the blasé way she spoke about it - at the way the apple clearly hadn't fallen that far from the tree, despite all this time and how unrecognisable they both now were to what they'd once been.

He felt vaguely nausous and light-headed. Whether that was from the concussion or the drugs or the absolutely batshit insane bombshells being dropped on him was anyone's guess. Maybe it was a combination of all three.

The Ghoul twitched as the final bindings came free and some of his circulation returned, but otherwise remained where he was, half-slumped back against the trolley. He stiffened reflexively when Janey leaned in, eyeing her hands as she reached up to place his hat back on his head with a smile - a move that was so heartbreakingly familiar and yet so alien that he momentarily forgot how to breathe.

"There you are."

The broad brim of his hat was a welcome refuge, helping to conceal his raw expression by the simple displacement act of looking downwards and readjusting his gloves.

He had no fucking clue how to handle this situation, or all the feelings and memories it was dredging up - things that had been buried long ago, along with his name and identity and all the foolish fucking moral principles that had been used against him over and over again. The bleed-through was disorienting and unsettling. He didn't know how to be Cooper Howard any more. He couldn't stay fully in character as The Ghoul in the face of his daughter either.

This was really not helping his headache.

At his question, Janey's smile vanished, an abrupt stormy scowl replacing it. It was an uncannily familiar expression.

"If there was any justice in this world she'd be long dead, but given that she's the fucking devil, I'm assuming she's ruling hell and the Vaults as we speak."

The Ghoul arched his bare brows at her, visibly disarmed by the depth of acrimonious anger in Janey's voice. Sure, Cooper's own relationship with Barb had gone down in some pretty bitter flames, especially with the divorce proceedings - but the one thing they'd seemed to agree on was keeping Janey happy (although their methods on that had definitely differed.)

For all the bad things he could have called his ex-wife, a bad mother had never been one of them. Even when the love between them had soured with the lies and the secrets and the eroded trust, the relationship between her and their daughter had still seemed solid enough, and he'd never had reason to doubt her love for Janey.

What the hell had Barb done to alienate her so badly?

"So you didn't stay in touch after you flew the nest, then," he inferred dryly, mulling over the possible causes for this shift in attitude.

With Barb, there had always been secrets. Things going on under the table. Subtle manipulative ploys that you didn’t even realise until after you'd already fallen for them. Everything was perfect until you looked too closely and started asking questions, until you stopped doing as you were supposed to and challenged her control.

By the sounds of it, that probably hadn't changed much.

"...What'd you find out?"

This time, it was Janey who looked away. From her expression, it must have been pretty bad.

...Did it have anything to do with that second nuke she'd mentioned having to run from?

The Ghoul felt an awful chill settle in his veins as he listened to Janey's explanation.

Cryo. Experiment. Fleeing. Nuke.

...Oh, fuck.

"...Shady Sands." He'd heard about the city getting turned into a crater. Had been quite literally in a box underground when it happened, of course, so he hadn't yet seen the extent of the damage for himself.

"That was meant to kill you?"

Had Vault Tec really nuked a city just to deal with some runaway loose ends? Given that they'd most likely dropped the bombs that ended the world themselves just to try and secure their monopoly on the future of humanity, one surface city outside of Vault Tec'a control was hardly going to be too much collateral.

But the concept that Barb could have really greenlit - or at least not contested - the decision to kill her own daughter was a a different and much more personal atrocity.

The shock of it felt muted, somehow. Probably because it was like the fifth shocking thing he'd learned today, and his head was a buzzing static cloud of cottonballs mixed in with lots of tiny angry hammers.

The nausea swelled. He turned to the side abruptly and retched, spilling the contents of his stomach onto the floor. On the up side, he felt marginally more sober afterwards. On the down side, he was really making a fucking awful impression on his long-lost daughter here, and part of him was dying inside about it.

"...You were s'posed to be safe," he rasped out, unsteadily wiping off his mouth with the back of a gloved hand. There was an awful tightness in his chest, and he was vaguely aware that he was shaking.

"S'posed to be in one of the good vaults."

Fuck, he'd basically handed her over to Barb on the assumption that his ex wife had secured that much for them, with all her ruthless networking and sales pitching.

"I.. I didn’t know. I'm sorry."

@savingthrcw

"I was searchin' for you"

That won him a smile - it was weird, to actually smile, not just a little tug at the corner of her lips signaling she found something incredibly funny or endearing, like with her dogs. Weird also to think that she could still feel like a kid, when she hadn't been one ever since she had realized her mother had killed her father-almost, almost killed him.

"You were a kid. Nothin' you could've done, darlin'."

"I'm thirty-four now. I've been out here for almost twenty years, I could've... could've found you. I could have... I didn't even entertain the idea that you could be alive. Which is fucki-stupid, because I literally had a woman from our time take care of me. If she made it, and she wasn't in a Vault Tec facility, I could have at least thought you'd have found some other way too." And then things could have been so different. She wouldn't have been the leader of one of the biggest settlements of raiders, for one. But then, she was also in a place where she could keep those little yellow vials coming for him, something no honest person could offer. But God, had she known, even at fifteen, she would have gone to war for him.

She didn't fully needed the confirm, but when her father remembered the little rule the marines had taught him, she felt she could breathe more easily. Had he not, she would have been forced to keep her guard up, keep suspecting foul play from her mother again. "If it's bigger… don't bother runnin'." "And yet we did. I did twice. Saw another nuke not long after," she was far too happy for that topic to come up, in a way she wasn't familiar with; so much relief and joy filling her chest, that even remembering another 'worse day of her life' couldn't put a damper on that. "I grabbed a kid-the less dumb one of those two," she stopped cutting through the rope for a moment to point at her back, where Roy and Pat had been standing earlier, "And made a run for it again. Not looking forward to the third." That would just be her life, wouldn't it? Hank was in Lee's hands now, but she wouldn't put it past him.

His rope had been cut, and to stop herself from hugging him, if only because she wasn't ready yet, she reached for his hat, which had been abandoned on the floor - same hat, or at least same type - and put it back on his head, flashing him a bright smile, "There you are." She remembered having one just like that, a precious memory, but had never found another one like it. Not that it would go well with the raider wardrobe, but back in the day, before life had kicked her down one last time, she had thought about pulling the whole 'sheriff' thing and openly and shamelessly fight for the good side. Rose would have loved it. She had thought her father would too, considering that was his 'role'. But life had gone another way.

And she was reminded of it when he asked the question.

"...How'd the vaults keep you alive this long? Where's your mom?"

Her - far more familiar - scowl was back, with the added bonus of the spark of nearly constant anger in her eyes whenever her mother was a topic of discussion. "If there was any justice in this world she'd be long dead, but given that she's the fucking devil, I'm assuming she's ruling hell and the Vaults as we speak. We were in cryo, that's how we are still alive." She looked away, there was too much hatred in her to allow her to look at her father directly when speaking of that monster. "I don't know if you learned about this before the end of the world, but every Vault was supposed to run a different experiment. Ours was 31, management, pre-war people getting unfrozen and pretending to be just your regular vault dweller, controlling the lives of 32 and 33. Making them 'just right'. I bolted at fifteen with a woman from 33 and her kids, she had figured it out too... Hence the nuke." Blinking, she thought about it for a second, then tlted her head and looked at him again, "Been a while since I spoke to someone I could tell 'hence' to."

#fallout rp #they're really getting into the meat of it now lmao and it's such a mess #what a family reunion

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the-dragon-hearted · 1 month ago

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Part 1

There is a universe, somehow, where everything aligned just perfectly and left four desperate children on Silco's doorstep. A universe where Piltover is just a bit more ruthless: where Vander's connections aren't trustworthy and where his foolish sentimentality wins.

Vander's arrested, in Vi's place. He's so proud of her for trying to do the right thing - but he'll not make a sacrifice out of Felicia's daughter. The violence in the streets has to stop and Piltover won't stop until it has someone to blame for the theft. So the Hound becomes a sacrificial lamb.

But remember, his agreements are flimsier, and the trust between enforcer and undercity is as thin as the razor blade Mylo keeps in his pocket. The gold-trimmed enforcers aren't happy with a Hound dressed in wool - they want the girl. The one Jayce identified. Some pink-haired snot-nosed filthy brat. The thief. The terrorist.

They labeled her a terrorist: Vi. For a near-harmless explosion in a district she would've been beaten in, just for the grime in her hair.

And the Hound won't have that.

For the second time in his life, Vander's knuckles are stained with enforcer blood and the undercity begins to burn. Vi's next to him, eager to fight, but scared. She's just a kid after all. Always eager. Always scared.

Claggor, Mylo, and Powder come running as they limp back to the Last Drop. Powder's too busy crying into Vi's shirt to pay much attention to the screams outside. Reinforcements are just a few minutes away. The rats of the undercity retreat to spare themselves from the brutality beneath an enforcer's heel and the streets grow quieter and quieter. They all know how to slip away when the time demands it, but this is more than sneaking through the sewers and waiting for the storm to pass.

The enforcers, the council, Piltover: they'll keep coming. The blood on Vander and Vi's hands ensures that much. And they don't want him -

He looks to where Vi is hugging Powder back, a: "Sorry Powpow," being breathed. "Didn't mean to scare you -"

He can't let that happen. He can make himself the bigger problem - the biggest threat and that will buy the kids time and give those rich bastards a victory.

But then... it'll just be them.

Claggor's strong, Mylo's sly, Powder's clever, and Vi is brave. They're all tough as nails and they'll make it. At least until this underbelly starts ripping itself around. Vander's a smart man who knows what will happen in his absence, the cannibalistic tendencies of desperate people who need scapegoats.

And Vi's already willing to play the martyr. She proved that much. No, if he leaves he needs to leave them with something. Anything. Something that's as willing to fight for their future as...

That's when he gets the terrible idea. Right around the same time he hears the tell-tale racket of enforcers running down cobblestone. He grabs a bar napkin, and Claggor bars the door. He fumbles messily around for a piece of graphite or a damned pen.

Vi pushes Powder behind her and grabs a half-empty bottle from a table. There's a shatter as she arms herself with razor glass. These kids are well versed at making weapons, they have to be.

They'll only get better at it if he finishes this note. He's signing their lives away to a different demon. There's no guarantee they'll live long enough to give him the note. It's a terrible idea -

"I'll never betray Zaun's children"

Powder's climbing behind the bar with him, clinging to his leg. Mylo climbs over the other side, fiddling with a collection of rusty steak knives. Claggor's grabbed a chair and broke it, two wooden beams in either hand.

Suffocating in the streets is better than dying on a bridge.

"Take this," he gives it to Vi before slipping on his knuckles. "Find Silco. Ask around, and he'll find you."

"What?" it's a challenge from her. She's ready to fight to keep what she has.

She doesn't realize that every fight comes with a loss. And eventually, it's going to take everything from her. Once you bloody those knuckles you never stop - not really.

But not today. Today it'll only take him, and hopefully, she'll remember what they talked about. She'll remember that despite this shitshow - he's proud of her for finding a peaceful solution. He's proud of her for putting down those fists.

But there was no way in hell he was going to let her go.

"Take care of each other," he orders slipping on his other gauntlet. Mylo and Powder stare at him with wide eyes. Claggor's lip is trembling.

"Remember. Remember, to look out for each other!" he orders.

"No!" Powder seems to understand now as Vander pulls the bracings away from the door. She scrambles over the bar with a muffled wail. Mylo stops her right as Vander throws the door open.

"Vander!" Vi screams, but the hound is loose.

He's in the streets and he's set about making these fools remember why they follow the light. Why they fear the undercity so badly they chase its children to sate their fury. Dark things live in the undercity. Zaun's children are raised in air so heavy it turns their lungs to iron. Her streets sharpen their teeth and build calluses over their knuckles until the only thing they feel is the warm crimson in their wake.

Vander had hoped he'd never do this - be this. But jaws shatter under his fist faster than glasses fill with his whiskey. He's good at this. Always has been. The kids slip away - he knows that much.

Everything else is a bit of a blur. He glimpses Ekko, once, on the rooftops. The boy heads after the other four and Vander is thankful for that. Benzo didn't survive the first wave... he doesn't have much chance to reflect on that because there's another enforcer in his grip and a new scream in the air.

He buys the kids plenty of time. Too much time.

Enough time for all of Zaun to hear the news: the Hound's fighting back! Five enforcers are dead! Six! Ten! Enough time for Vi and Mylo to find their informants.

Silco isn't exactly a subtle name. He's well hidden, that's true, but a familiar blond limped his way over to one of the abandoned warehouses after Vi kicked the shit out of him. Word on the street is that he's in with someone named Silco. Doesn't mean much to the informant or to Vi.

It's enough. They slip into one of Zaun's many industrial districts just as Vander finally falls.

Piltover's attack dogs got him - they would eventually, he knew that much. A wild hound is fierce but numbers always win. Part of him's happy to die on familiar cobblestones. Better than the cool stone of prison - better than anything Piltover had in mind for him. This way, the kids would know what happened to him. They wouldn't do anything stupid.

Well... they'd probably still do some stupid things. He coughed out a laugh, blood hacking out of his lungs as it all began to fade. Good. They deserved to be a bit stupid. They were kids...

Just kids.

Hopefully, Silco remembers that...

Silco? Oh, Silco remembers. He'd been making a plan revolving around that. Kids are foolish. Kids are loyal. Children are painfully easy to manipulate and kill. Children are easy to make disappear.

Killing Vander and his children was quite literally on his upcoming schedule. It was going to be a glorious sort of revenge, making Vander watch it happen - helpless to stop it as he drowned in his own pacifism. It was going to be inhumane. The final nail in Silco's old coffin.

So pardon him for taking a moment to stare at the victims delivered to his doorstep. Half of him wants to laugh. The other half feels like he's been shoved back into that damn river.

The children only stare back, wide-eyed and curious. Scared too... haunted in some wonderfully poetic way.

"Can I help you?" Silco demands cooly after his disbelief has been satiated.

The pink one steps forward, naturally. She's Vander's little favorite, his poster child: basically a replica. Taking charge is probably laced in her veins.

She hands him a napkin.

"He told us to come here," she breathes, and it almost sounds like a prayer.

Silco cannot focus on anything but the napkin.

"Well... not here," the wily boy in the back disagrees slowly as he gives a scathing glance to a dead mouse in the corner. "He told us to find you."

Silco watches them carefully and then unfolds the napkin. If this is a trap it's ridiculous and definitely not Vander's idea. Perhaps these children are simply suicidal - or stupid.

He reads it.

Pauses. Reads it again.

He glances to that pink one again: Violet. Felicia's daughter. The other one is to her right, clinging to the elder's bruised knuckles. Powder... right?

Mylo. And Claggor.

Vander's children.

Vander's children!

He reads it one more time.

"It is kind of messy," Claggor's sheepish tone contradicts his appearance sharply. "He was in a rush -"

"I can read it," Silco snarls. He whirls around and plunges further into the bowels of the warehouse.

The children follow, blindly. Because they were told to. They follow the devil into his den because Vander told them to.

Why Silco let them, he'll never be able to explain. Never. Why he didn't finish was Vander started: destroy all remnants of their old life, including those damned children - he'll never say.

He can't. Because Vander sent him his children and a note. It changes nothing.

Except it changes everything.

#Arcane #AU #Fanfiction #I guess #idk I may write more #Vander #Silco #Vi #Powder #Mylo #Claggor #If the stars aligned I do believe Silco would've raised those kids #Ya know how Vi just has to call Cait “cupcake”#Yeah #That but all Vander has to do is tell Silco “I trust you” and Silco's whole worldview falls apart #Yeah yeah the man I was died in that river #But did he? Are you sure??#Also this is 100% an excuse to write the eventual family reunion with Warwick #Which would theoretically be hilarious #After all the angst of #what happened to you?#Paired with the yummy: “I survived but at what cost" parallel between the two dads #Followed by Silco's: “YOU FUCKER - YOU LEFT ME WITH YOUR KIDS WHEN WE WERE MORTAL ENEMIES! I COULD'VE KILLED THEM!”#The kids be like this is our Dad #The drug lord Silco #and this is our other Dad #The warcrime Warwick #We love them very much <3 #We gotta Part 2 and a Part 3 now for the AU :D

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