I don't mean it in a mean way more of a funny way but whenever I see boone/courier stuff especially set in Novac I always wanna be the guy in the lawn chair with a beer who hollers "what happened to your wife Craig?" Just to piss him off
If I lived in Novac and this ex military dude's wife suddenly disappeared and he stopped talking to everyone and then a week or so later this courier showed up and the motel owner showed up dead and then the military dude and courier left together I would simply assume that military dude got sick of his nagging wife and killed her
a run in with powder gangers & arcade suffers the consequences
word count: 2910, my god this got away from me
ft. arcade & lee, mention of my courier lucky
incorrect wound treatment & general medically related topics, i simply couldn't be bothered after 2000 words to care about that in this silly fic
necessary backstory: lee's real name is stanley but arcade is the only one who calls him that. lee is not courier 6, but a very close friend from 6's past, & stays at the lucky 38 with the companions bc shenanigans are entertaining. also idc how stimpacks actually work, this is my sexually charged fanfic & i'm in charge
@falloutocweek
lee would never intentionally make a stupid decision. "intentionally" being the operating word in that sentence. arcade would never hold anything against the man for some of the stupid choices he makes; like the time he (unknowingly) made a dead wife joke with boone in the room, or that day he decided to try the mysterious meat from that suspicious vendor, or the time he accidentally insulted ceasar to a legion assassin. arcade would also never admit that he let's lee get away with a lot of nonsense because of the massive massive crush he's suffering from.
arcade, however, will hold "shooting directly into an enemy camp because you thought you saw a cazador out of the corner of your eye" against lee.
at the request of lucky, the pair were on the way to goodsprings on a semi-wild goose chase when out of the blue, a shot went off from behind arcade. whipping his head around, he saw lee with his rifle aimed directly at the powder gangers encampment.
"what the hell are you doing?!" arcade shouted as the members of the camp readied their various explosives and guns.
lee's eyes widened as he processed exactly what it was he just did. the two started running for some semblance of cover as lee yelled, "oh fuck! i didn't even see those guys!"
"what? what the hell were you even trying to do?!"
"i thought i saw one of those big ass bugs! i'm sorry man, shit!"
arcade had never once in his life been more exasperated with a human being.
dynamite would go off around the rock they hid behind, they would shoot back, the powder gangers would occasionally shoot at them. this went on for a few minutes, like usual, until lee bent just a little bit too far out from cover.
the last powder ganger had fired one final shot in their direction at the same moment arcade fired at the man's head.
both shots hit their targets.
lee would never consider himself a very lucky man. that was more the famed courier's shtick. finding her again and simultaneously gaining many new friends was probably the only fortunate thing that he would say had ever happened to him.
"the nice doctor", as lee referred to arcade when they first met, always seemed very interested in what lee was up to. most of the time arcade seemed to want to tag along and typically would ask plenty of questions about what was going on. Like, "stanley, are you seriously about to try to pet that nightstalker?" and "where did you even get all this dynami- wait why are you throwing them in that pit?" that second one was followed by, "no, stanley! don't light one!" all this led to lee harboring feelings that he couldn't act on because it would be better to be silently in love than losing arcade entirely.
overall, lee would say arcade was the person he was closest to after the courier, so it was no surprise that when she asked lee to do her a "massive favor" and go to goodsprings to try to get someone on board for something (he accidentally stopped paying attention) that arcade volunteered to accompany him.
the journey was mostly uneventful, well as uneventful as a journey across the mojave could be.
just before hitting goodsprings, lee was feeling a little jumpy given the, what felt like, millions of enormous irradiated bugs they passed on the way. so when he saw movement, he automatically assumed it was another gigantic insect. boy, was he wrong.
the fight had finally ended.
arcade still could barely breathe.
lee was shot.
in a half-panicked state, arcade rushed to grab his emergency first-aid kit out of his coat pocket while scrambling to where lee was slumped against the rock.
lee was groaning in pain and holding onto his wounded thigh as best he could with the rapid blood loss quickly settling in.
until they were safe and out of the open desert, all arcade could do was administer a stimpack to stop the bleeding and med-x to stop the pain.
"you're gonna be okay, we'll get you up and safe somewhere and everything's gonna be totally fine-" arcade continued frantically but lee couldn't focus on anything the other man was saying as the med-x set in.
he reached his hand up from where it was laying at his side and shockingly gently placed it directly in the middle of arcade's face.
arcade stopped rambling and mumbled a very confused, "what the fuck?"
"we need to get away from here, man."
arcade snapped back into reality and quickly gathered the weapons and supply bags they dropped earlier. "yeah, okay, good plan."
with a supply bag on his front and another on his back, every weapon secured on their respective bags, and an almost 200 pound man half hanging off his shoulder, arcade started navigating them back south towards the emergency service railroad as quickly as he could. getting lee safe as fast as possible was all he could focus on, he couldn't risk his mind wandering for a single second.
lee, on the other hand, was no longer even registering the pain (thank god for pain killing drugs). he was mostly capable of walking normally without pain, but the euphoric effects of the med-x and wooziness of losing quite a bit of blood were taking their toll. all he could manage to do was drag himself along, hang onto arcade with one arm thrown over his shoulders, and stare at the nice doctor.
the pair arrived at the emergency service railroad with only a couple stops where arcade administered more med-x and stimpacks.
arcade gently moved lee off of him and against a wall, dropped all their belongings at their feet, and nearly collapsed next to the other man. the combination of drugs, blood loss, carrying two very heavy bags and an entire human being, and walking quite a bit of distance, made for two very exhausted people.
they had a little bit of time to rest before the drugs wore off and arcade had to properly dress the wound, so for a while they sat together catching their breath.
lee was the first to speak, "we should build a fire so we don't freeze to death after all that."
that very unintentional joke forced a chuckle out of arcade while he stood up and stretched. "i'll start the fire, you need to keep resting before i sew you up. i can't exactly give you more med-x or you'll O.D. so it might be rough."
"exactly why i should help, the drugs are still working and i can barely feel anything," lee said this with just a tad too much excitement on his face for arcade's comfort, not like he'd let the injured and intoxicated man help in his current state anyway.
"no. the most i'll let you do right now is lay out the bed rolls. it's either you do that, very gently, or you sit and do nothing," he rested his hands on his hips before adding, "doctor's orders."
lee's small smile grew and he reached for their bags to drag over instead of a verbal agreement.
satisfied with that outcome, arcade walked a little distance from the building, taking his time grabbing dry brush and whatever else he could find that would help. this was the first moment in the nearly two and half hours since the fight that he'd had a second to think.
watching someone you have a "small little tiny" crush on get shot and nearly die, even if it was partially (completely and entirely) the guys own fault, makes some things click into place. as arcade leaned over to pick up some brush, his hand stopped mid-air, and he uttered a quiet, "oh you've gotta be fucking kidding me," as he realized the true extent of his own feelings.
meanwhile, lee, being mindful of his bullet wound, was laying out the bed rolls around the conveniently burned out campfire so that only the headrests were near each other. in his hazy mind, he pictured himself and arcade laying on their stomachs (completely forgetting that this would cause him immense amounts of pain at the moment) and talking for hours and hours into the night.
it did occur to him that arcade had been uncharacteristically frantic when he was tending to the wound. "i probably shouldn't think about that too hard, it definitely didn't mean anything." he hadn't realized he was muttering out loud, "probably was just adrenaline and fight panic, definitely means nothing." he shook his head in a misguided attempted to clear it, which only made him dizzy. apparently the last round of med-x was getting close to wearing off. lee thought, hopefully arcade gets back soon, my head's not clear enough to do this shit on my own.
ten minutes later, arcade returned to the makeshift camp carrying way more than enough supplies to keep the fire going till morning. now, lee would never claim to be very observant, but arcade's demeanor had shifted so drastically that it would be impossible for anyone to miss. the man looked the most physically tense that lee had ever seen him.
knowing arcade always appreciates his sometime s- on - purpose terrible jokes, lee made an attempt to break the ice, "what, did you see another alien spaceship or something?" he had a small smile on his face, desperately attempting to make this whole thing feel less weird.
arcade forced a barely there chuckle and went straight to work starting the fire silently.
lee thought to himself, okay, this is might just be the drugs making you paranoid, so don't start freaking out about this, he's probably being completely normal and i'm imagining this weirdness. it's fine. it's totally fine.
neither of them spoke again until the fire was going and lee was genuinely not expecting arcade to talk for the rest of the night, but he was very happy to be wrong.
"you'll want to up lean against the wall to help physically brace for the pain." arcade hadn't even looked up from where he had begun prepping his various supplies.
okay, so maybe this whole weirdness thing wasn't being entirely imagined by lee. definitely not the outcome he wanted, but he would be a liar if he said the whole "all business doctor" thing wasn't turning him on a little bit. yeah, get distracted by something that'll totally and completely ruin your friendship, REALLY good idea. the logical part of his brain was not winning this one.
arcade, meanwhile, was trying so hard to act normal and like he didn't just have a world shattering realization in the twenty minutes it had been since he left. finally looking up, he saw that lee was just staring directly at him and not moving towards the wall. maybe he didn't hear me. oh no, or maybe he did hear me but he can tell somethings up. hang on though, i'm acting how i always act, there is absolutely no way he knows. i always just move him if he's too close to something mildly dangerous, should i just do that? or would he sense that it's different this time and recoi- okay! calm down. just move him like always, it is FINE, RELAX.
from lee's perspective, arcade glanced up at him, stood from where he was crouched, walked the short distance between them, and carefully lifted lee to move him against the wall. holy fuck, you need to relax and think about anything else besides how hot this is. "is this how you act with all your patients?"
lee didn't intend this to have any hidden meaning or innuendo but arcade certainly didn’t know that, his face went bright red and he was suddenly thankful for the fact it was now dark out and the low light of the campfire. "i- wh- do i what?" he managed to stammer out, barely coherent.
"like at the fort? when you would… ya know… treat people?" the genuine confusion on his face went entirely unnoticed by arcade, who was trying to pretend he was busy with something inside his emergency kit.
"i mean i wouldn't usually just do that out of nowhere with someone i don't know or anything." arcade forced hinself to look up and saw the look being directed at him. "oh you meant- uh sometimes… i guess." cannot believe that even crossed my mind, get it together. "i'm going to have to remove the fabric from around the…" he trailed off and gestured towards lee's injured thigh.
"oh yeah! of course." lee stood up on his good leg and abruptly dropped his pants before arcade could process what was happening.
okay then! keep it together. ignore everything that is happening and focus on the injury right in front of you, he's just a normal patient and not someone you're in lo- NO, NOPE JUST FOCUS.
arcade forced himself to get to work, managing to avoid making only the bare minimum physical contact. under normal circumstances, this is something lee would never have picked up on but given the very strange behavior from arcade throughout the rest of the day, this was definitely only adding to the list.
lee was very unhappy with his high pain tolerance and the little bit of drugs still in his system, because that meant instead of any theoretical pain he might be in, he was only thinking about all the ways he liked arcade. letting out a groan and throwing his head back against the wall caused arcade to quickly look up with a worry filled expression, "sorry! i'm really trying to do this as gently as possible."
"it's not that! i can barely even feel whatever the hell it is you're doing down there," lee kept his eyes closed and head against the wall. how was he supposed to say anything about this when his pants were off and arcade was literally on his knees in front of him (it didn't occur to lee that the whole "pants off" thing was his own fault).
"are you sure? because we can take a break if you need it." at this, arcade completely forgot about his qualms with physical contact and gently placed his hand on lee's uninjured leg and was looking up at the man with so much genuine concern that lee was more physically pained by that than the literal gaping wound sitting right between them.
lee groaned again and started looking everywhere but directly at arcade. "i swear i'm not in pain. don't think i would be even without the drugs," he took a breath before continuing, "i gotta tell you something man, but i don't want things to be weird, ya know?"
arcade seemingly came back to himself and started working on lee's injury again while saying, "whatever it is, i'm sure it can wait till i'm done."
"i mean… i can talk while you're doing all that," he vaguely gestured at arcade's hands, "not like your hands are blocking me from saying stuff."
"unfortunately that's a fair point."
lee didn’t notice arcade's obvious desire for this conversation to be over and looked at him for the first time since arcade started treating him. he took a deep breath and quietly said, "i think you might be my best friend."
arcade's brow furrowed but he didn’t look up from his hands, "what do you mean, i thought lucky was your best friend?"
"well she definitely used to be, but we don't really know each other anymore. she doesn't remember anything from us growing up together and i don't really know the person she turned into." there was a beat before something seemingly occurred to him, eyes widening, he added, "i mean we're definitely still pretty close but we don't know each other like we used to."
"and you think that you and i are closer than the two of you?" arcade was finishing wrapping gauze around lee's thigh, grateful for the slight distraction.
"well yeah, we definitely hang out more with each other than anyone else i think," lee shrugged.
taking way longer than actually necessary, arcade continued to secure the gauze in place. "okay."
pushing through the conversation was all lee could do at this point, "and i might maybe sorta wanna…" he looked at arcade's, who was still pretending to adjust the gauze. maybe the whole truth of the matter would ruin everything if arcade was this uncomfortable just dancing around the topic. "do you wanna go watch the performers at the atomic wrangler when we get back?"
now, this was not what arcade was expecting to be asked. making eye contact for the first time in what felt like ages, he replied incredulous, "is that… did you actually want to ask me that?"
"mhm, for sure!" lee plastered a smile on his face, hoping the low light would conceal how he actually felt.
arcade, suspicion written all over his face, cautiously answered, "i guess, if that's really what you were going to ask …" he removed his hands and said, "oh, i'm all done now, you can readjust."
lee stood to right his clothes while arcade put his medical supplies away, both silently agonizing over the situation.
lee had the thought that maybe today just wasn't the day for life changing reveals, oh well there was always tomorrow.
"I'll admit, even at the end of the world, it's still nice to have a smoke break with you."
chat we r so back, im doing fallout oc week as an attempt to get back into art + fallout hell yeah
Medic Maggie McCoy is from Freeside, and she enlisted in the NCR both out of fear of a Legion takeover and to earn NCR citizenship, that would offer her more opportunities and safety... One tour of duty later. Well at least she's got that juicy citizenship.
Thanks to @falloutocweek for putting this event together!
[ DO NOT REPOST / STEAL / USE TO FEED YOUR AI ALGORITHM ]
FALLOUT OC WEEK — @falloutocweek
Day 03: Raison D'être. The most important reason for someone/something's existence.
This theme was perfect for Nora, the wife of my Sole Survivor, Shepard. Her story is so tragic, and it's her death that sets the events of Fallout 4 into motion, on top of the kidnapping of baby Shaun.
Nora is, really, Shepard's biggest motivator though. Yes, he wants to find his son, but when everyone tells him it's hopeless—or outright impossible—to track down an infant? He reminds himself that giving up would disappoint Nora. That she would tell him that no matter what, there is always a way. It's what she's told him in the past. Told him when he lost his eye and his leg, or when he felt like giving the Veteran's Hall speech was pointless in the face of the growing war...
She is his reason to keep going. She always has been, since the moment she stepped into his life.
And I wanted to kind of portray her as a Saint with this, hence turning the cryogenic pod into a stained glass mural with an accompanying halo 💕
being emotionally vulnerable with the emotionally unavailable
word count: 720
ft. kathryn roth & deacon
necessary backstory: kathryn is a synth and found out the first time she went to the institute, the thawing did happen to human kathryn like 40 years ago, shaun wanted to see the different choices a synth version would make
snippet of a fic i'm working on where kathryn grapples with being a synth
@falloutocweek
{under the cut bc i'm not evil}
sanctuary was uncharacteristically lively. the railroad and minutemen having come together to rid the commonwealth of the institute together. everyone was deservedly celebrating.
almost everyone.
deacon was taking a break from the festivities and smoking away from the crowd when he saw kathryn sitting on the bridge. to deacon, this didn't make much sense, given that she was the one who organized and executed the entire plan. she should be in the middle of everyones' praise, not sequestered away. grabbing two beers, he walked over.
"you look like you could use a drink."
kathryn looked up to deacon handing her a bottle with his signature smirk. when he finally saw her harrowed expression, his face dropped. "holy shit, are you okay?" he took a seat next to her.
"i killed him," she whispered, barely audible.
"what are you talking about exactly? we've kinda killed a lot of people the past few days."
"i- i killed shaun."
realization finally dawned on the man and he sighed before reassuring, "i mean, ya kinda just did what you had to? i know that's probably not helpful but i- it's true."
she didn't register deacon even speaking and continued, " i killed my son. i mean i know he wasn't really my son, but i remember remembering him being born i guess. which is an insane thing to think about because the only thing i actually remember before 'waking up' was the morning of the bombs dropping, which isn't even a memory of mine, so again i don't know why i even care because none of that even happened to me an-"
"hell of a time to process the whole 'you're a synth' thing," deacon interrupted, "didn't you found that out months ago?"
kathryn sighed and laid down, avoiding any accidental eye contact. "it didn't really hit me until now, apparently. i think i was just so focused on survival and taking out the bad guys or whatever to think about it at all."
a few minutes passed with only the distant sounds of the party before she spoke again.
"he treated me like a zoo animal."
deacon turned and looked to urge her to continue.
"after he told me, i mean. that i wasn't technically a real person. when the experiment concluded or whatever."
"it was a couple days before anybody saw you, is that what was happening?"
her eyes got watery, "him and some of the scientists probed me with questions over just about everything under the sun. they didn't even tell me directly that there had apparently been an issue with putting 'real' kathryn's memories into me." she took a deep breath before continuing, "i had to overhear that from the next room."
"you do know you're a real person right? that's like sort of the whole point of the railroad," he couldn't stop the uncomfortable chuckle that came out.
kathryn looked over with a small smile, "it's really endearing that you're letting me throw all this at you when i know how much you don't like 'real talk,'" she added finger quotes for emphasis.
"yeah yeah, whatever. you're my friend and i care about you and," he let out a noncommittal sound, praying to a god he doesn't believe in, that his face would stop feeling so hot and the conversation would just move on.
kathryn laid back down with a very satisfied smile on her face and kept talking. "ironic that you're probably the best one of my friends to handle this specific mental breakdown." at his confused (and still very red) expression she continued, "i just mean grappling with the fact that everything i thought was real about my life isn't."
it did occur to the man that there were definitely at least two better candidates, "i think you're forgetting about the actual best one."
genuinely confused, she asked, "who's the actual best?"
"strong, obviously. "
she sat up with a very over-dramatic head roll, threw her hands up, and exclaimed sarcastically, "right! of course! how could i possibly forget? strong. so silly of me."
"completely unforgivable, really."
he asked, after a beat, "you wanna go try and fail to beat my highscore in zeta invaders?"
"like you would ever be able to dethrone me as the one true champion."
"well let's go find out who's actually the best then."
deacon & kathryn have a "will they, won't they" thing going on, lots of tension, trust issues, & never ever giving up the bit; in short, they're annoying (affectionate)
meet my mostly canon compliant fallout 4 oc, kathryn roth! she is so sad and definitely not hiding it with a carefully regimented routine, what are you even talking about?
not totally happy with how these came out but they're also the first full pieces I've ever done digitally so they could be worse
Day 3: Memory or Raison D’être (the most important reason or purpose for someone or something’s existence)
Day 4: Favourite Weapon or Patching Up
Day 5: Pinup or OC x& Canon
Day 6: DLC or Radio
Day 7: Free Day
Monday 9th- Sunday 15th March!
Rules and taglist below the cut:
- Please tag all your works/posts with #fallout oc week 2026, #Fallout OC week and @ this blog! If your work is on Ao3 please also use the tags, and add your work to this collection https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Fallout_OC_Week_2026 (which is called Fallout_OC_Week_2026)
- An OC must be a major character in your work!
- No shipbashing or anti-OC content (please do not be mean to anyone else! This is about love and community)
- ANY ship is allowed! Enjoy yourself!
- You can make any form of fanwork, such as fanart, fanfic, a moodboard, a collage, an animation, an edit, something physical, etc... So long as it stars an OC!
- Please tag everything clearly, especially NSFW works!
- No Al "art" or "fics", etc. Spell check is fine, don't worry.
- Prompts:
- Day 1: 10 Years Later or Pre-Game & Post-Game
- Day 2: Companion(s) or Faction(s)
- Day 3: Memory or Raison D’être (the most important reason or purpose for someone or something’s existence)
tangentwithtanner
yousharknotpass
kianamaiart
izzy806
gummygunk
