Today’s disabled character of the day is Daisy from the Fallout series, who has maxillofacial and other traumatic injuries. She also has radiation poisoning
Wraith in the Ruins: Meanwhile, Back in Goodneighbor IV
Mac and John
Takes place just before Wraith wakes up.
Trigger warnings: canon violence/ language/drug, alcohol and gun use
GAME SPOILERS!
Please enjoy!
“Grrrroooonnnnppp pop pop pop!” MacCready’s stomach was on empty and he was positive it had begun digesting itself. His overhead was too high and he’d been skimping on food. In an effort to live off the land, he had set some snares near a mole rat colony, but had returned to find someone had helped themselves to his catch as well as his equipment.
Daisy was in the back looking for his special order and so her shop essentially unguarded… and those Fancy Lads snack cakes looked awfully tempting…
MacCready would normally have no compunctions about swiping something he might need, or want, but Daisy trusted him and he genuinely liked her…
“NNNNNnneeeerrrroooooo poooooop!” His stomach made his decision for him and he deftly swiped the pink package off the shelf and stuck it in his coat.
As he was removing his hand a vise-like grip closed around his wrist. Twisting his arm back behind his back, someone strait-armed him into the wall. He felt the smooth coolness of a very large knife laid against his cheek even as the smell of mint was harbinger to a voice like honey poured over gravel, “Well now, what exactly were you thinking there boyo? I’m pretty sure those cakes weren’t yours for the taken’. And I don’t take too kindly to folks stealing from my people, you feel me? Might be you need to lose a digit or two, learn you a hard lesson.”
MacCready tried to push himself off the wall, but the ghoul was like iron. Frantically trying to come up with excuses he was relieved to hear Daisy’s voice, “No! Wait Hancock!” She was waving her arms over her head as if the mayor was across town, “Don’t go slicing him up just yet; this is that sniper kid I was telling y’all about.”
Hancock gave one extra little push to emphasize his ire then released him, “They say ‘first impressions are important’. I’ve gotta say, I’m not impressed.”
Daisy wasn’t exactly sure why Hancock was angry until MacCready rather sullenly slapped the cake box on her counter. She took one look at his gaunt frame and decided to give him a break, “Oh honestly John, the cakes were part of his order! You shouldn’t jump to conclusions Mr. Mayor.”
Hancock’s eyes narrowed, unconvinced. MacCready was rubbing his wrist and arm with a mutinous expression and he flinched when Hancock suddenly spread his arms out wide, “Welcome to Goodneighbor. Now I guess I need to consider my own first impression. Heh!”
“Oh you made one alright.” MacCready was practically chewing his tongue in half to avoid saying anything to make the volatile mayor gut him. He had never met Hancock, but he had heard things… things that made sure everyone knew that this was not a ghoul to fuck with.
“Finish up your business then come up to my office.” Tipping his hat to Daisy he sauntered away.
MacCready watched Hancock’s smooth swagger for a second before turning to face the ghoulette. Looking at her from the top of his eyes, he did his best to look winsome and forlorn, “I’m sorry Daisy.”
“You’re sorry cause you’re caught you mean!” She had her arms folded and was clearly pissed, “I recommended you to Hancock based on Carol and Greta’s word. ‘He’s a good kid, even if he’s rough around the edges’ they said. Ha!” Unfolding her arms, she stabbed MacCready in the chest with a finger, “That ghoul there,” She pointed the other hand after Hancock, “has a heart of gold. But don’t y’all think for two seconds he won’t end you if he thinks you’re hurting anyone of us.” She tapped him on the chest, “And don’t y’all think you could take him in a fight when I don’t think even KL-E-O can take him!”
“I’ll take him to paradise, baby!”
MacCready laughed, “I’m sure you would KL-E-O.”
Hancock was seated on his favorite couch, arms across the back to either side, looking all the world like a king on his throne. MacCready knew that the striking redhead standing just behind him was Fahrenheit and that she was reputed to be almost as dangerous as the mayor. All in all, MacCready’s self-preservation alarms were going off like gangbusters in his head.
Stay cool. Just, don’t say anything dumb. Be cool.
“Stray cat indeed...” Fahrenheit gave him an obviously unimpressed toe-to-crown look, as she stepped from behind the couch and moved to the door.
“And you are even more beautiful than they say!” MacCready tried his best blue-eyed smolder out on her as she passed.
“And you have frosting in your goatee.”
“You wanna to lick it off?”
She gave him the finger as she passed through the doorway.
“That’s not a ‘no’.” As MacCready turned back to Hancock he found the ghoul to be almost on top of him, his face less than an inch from his own. Back-peddling awkwardly he couldn’t help the small yelp that escaped him.
Oh! Not cool! You idiot! NOT COOL!
Hancock stood motionless for several seconds before taking an impressively long drag from his cigarette and then blowing a few equally impressively large smoke rings, growling softly all the while. Then to his surprise he saw MacCready’s face light-up at the display. The young man watched the smoke rings as they made their way to the celling with a large smile on his face. Something more or less clicked in Hancock’s brain and he took another, more calculating look, at the merc: he was young, he was way too skinny, even for his slight frame and he had a slight tremor in his hands. He needed help, just like Daisy said he did. Stray cat indeed…
“Follow me.” Hancock turned and walked through the back of his office to the roof access. Once outside he moved to the edge and pulling a gold colored telescope from one of his many pockets, he set it to his eye.
MacCready couldn’t contain his giggle, “Hehe! Are you kidding? You know you look like a pirate, right?”
The set of balls on this kid!
Spreading his arms out wide, Hancock paced elegantly toward him. Executing a full turn that would make any model on the catwalk green with envy, he stopped inches from the merc, “Sexy pirate was always going to be my fallback if ‘sexy mayor’ didn’t pan out.” MacCready gulped as Hancock once again invaded his personal space. Locking eyes the mayor’s voice dropped to a purring growl, “I brought you up here to see how good you are,” Hancock pointed across the rooftops of Goodneighbor to the ruins beyond, “now, take a gander through that scope of yours and tell me what you see.”
Hancock made note that as soon as MacCready raised his rifle and his focus shifted to “work”, the tremor in his hands vanished.
Interesting.
“Super mutants. A few of em. They’re… just kinda… milling around.”
“Yeah, they do that. So here’s the game: I call the shots, you make the shots and I am impressed. You want me impressed, you feel me?” He had his telescope to his eye and was already picking his targets, “I used to come up here all the time, back when my eyes were better. Heh; damn brutes never could figure out where all the death was coming from.”
“And yet they still hang out on the same roof…”
“Greenskins ain’t exactly known for their quick wit.”
“Oh, I’ve known of one or two who could keep a conversation going… but yeah, like maybe two.”
Then with no preamble Hancock called his first shot, “Twelve o’clock helmet.”
Not missing a beat, MacCready took aim and shot with impressive speed, hitting the target with apparent ease.
“Mr. Laughing and Pointing; get his finger.” MacCready made the shot, cleanly severing just the mutant’s digit. “Now end his confusion.”
Shot after shot, MacCready’s aim was true. It didn’t matter how quickly Hancock called them out or how unique his descriptions of the super mutants were.
“Ammo out! Reloading!”
“No, that won’t be necessary.” Hancock stood, tapping his telescope against his shoulder, staring hard at the younger man. His eyes contained a look of such open covetousness that it bordered on lust. “Color me impressed. Pick up your brass and meet me back inside.”
The first thing MacCready noticed when he walked back into the office was the two items Hancock had left on the coffee table for him: a tumbler of whiskey and an addictol inhaler. Hancock had his back to him and was preparing himself a drink.
Is this another test? The hell? Were my hands shaking that bad?! Fuck it!
MacCready picked up the whiskey and proceeded to gulp the entire glass in one breath. Setting the tumbler back down gently, he appeared nonchalant as he then picked up the inhaler and breathed in the addictol.
Hancock’s laugh rang out through the State House, making several members of the Watch jump, “HA! You are fulla piss ain’t cha? You know that whiskey is actually pretty good. I’ll pour you another if you’d actually like to taste it this time.” Laughing again at MacCready’s confused look, Hancock explained, “Who am I to judge the vices of another man? I offered two different solutions to your problem with not a string attached to either. That wasn’t a test Little Brother, but I’ll give you an ‘A’ all the same. Shit! You get a goddamn gold star for that one!”
“Okay… then yes I would like another… please.”
As MacCready sipped his second glass Hancock presented him with a contract. “This is my standard mercenary contract, with a few addendums. What this simply states is that my jobs get priority and while you may accept any bodyguard, caravan guard, pest removal and escort services that you are offered, assassinations must be ran past Fahrenheit or me first. No sense picking fruit before it’s ripe, you feel me?”
“I actually don’t plan on taking… head hunting jobs anymore.” MacCready’s eyes held a hard look and his jaw was set. “Shooting armed super mutants is one thing…”
“That so? Hmmm, too bad cause I have a very lucrative job of just that nature, couple of bad apples past due for pickn’.”
MacCready’s resolve softened at the mention of a higher pay-out, “Who are they? What did they do?”
“Leftovers from Vic; guy used to run Goodneighbor. He was a thunderous asshole and these three were some of his worst thugs. All the nasty shit you could think of, that was their MO. I have files on all three but I can’t act directly against ‘em. They know all my people and that Railroad ass-hat sez he’s not for ‘cleaning up my garbage’. HA! How’s that for gratitude?”
MacCready wasn’t sure who the “ass-hat” in question was but the rest was pretty clear, “Because they won’t know me I can personally verify their location and then take them out.” At war with himself, MacCready really wanted, no, needed the money but felt he had to stay true to his convictions. Standing up, he prepared to leave before he weakened further, “I’m sorry but I’ve made some promises and I can’t accept…”
“The contract wasn’t contingent on you accepting the assassination job,” Hancock waved him back onto the couch, “if you can’t accept this one job it doesn’t blow the whole thing. Let’s go over the rest of the contract and job list, and see what you can do for me.”
MacCready was genuinely confused, “You would change it for me?”
“I think you’re worth it, yes. Now, let’s have Charlie send us up some grub and break this down!”
Over the next several weeks MacCready began to see a dent in his money problems. Although Goodneighbor could be rough, he found that the more jobs he did for Hancock, the less he was hassled by anyone. MacCready was often employed and he found that he truly liked the mayor and enjoyed being a “favorite”. And yet he still felt the pressure of his son’s illness; he need more money and faster. Tightening his belt would only get him so far…
“Well, look who it is! What’s in the sack?”
“It’s Christmas come early,” Setting the duffle bag on Hancock’s desk, MacCready backed away, “and since you’ve been a good little mayor, I got you your favorite.”
There were three heads in the duffle bag.
Clasping his hands and placing them along the side of his face, Hancock adopted a falsetto, “Oh Robert! You really shouldn’t have!”
Hancock’s broad smile and use of his first name caused a slight flutter in his stomach and he felt an uncharacteristic blush overtake him. Clearly flustered, he coughed into his hand before he suddenly remembered why he had done the job, “It was nothing really. You had mentioned a… I think you said, ‘a very lucrative’ pay-out.”
“So I did. I also think we should revise your contract: increase your general payout, increase your drink budget at the Rail… Oh yeah, speaking of which; there is a room available just off of the VIP lounge. It’s on the small side but I figure you could set-up shop there and save yourself some caps on rent.”
MacCready could hardly believe it, “Why? Why do this for me? For the assho… idiot who you caught red-handed, stealing, the first time you met him…”
“Ah, so the truth finally comes out!” Hancock’s eyes danced merrily.
“No, I’m serious! What… else…”
“Nothing you’re not comfortable with.” Hancock was suddenly serious, “Don’t ever feel like you ‘have to’ do anything for me Little Brother…” He placed his hands on MacCready’s shoulders, “save for one thing: promise me you’ll never steal from me or my people ever again!”
“I promise.”
Thank you so much for reading! Like what you read? Looking for more? Please see my Wraith in the Ruins master-link in my bio. =^..^=
I started thinking the other day about holidays in the Wasteland and Commonwealth. In 4 they really only decorated Halloween and Christmas. I guess because there is not a lot to be thankful for.
Then I could see Johan and Valentina inviting Vaultec Rep, Daisy, and yes Nick over for a little supper to talk about old times and share stories with each other. While Nick is not “really’ Pre-War, his memories are and those are a part of him.
Sorry for my rushed work and shitty lines, I was in a sketchy mood when the power went out and my little 2 in 1 tablet is not meant for drawing.
Johan belongs to @helloaschefire , @thefrostyshepard I would have Rosalind in, but her story is still being written! She has a place saved any time. <3
following everyone’s suggestions, I drew Kent, Daisy and Zao!!
I wonder if Zao would really go back to China, because, even if he really misses his home, do they even have ghouls there? Would they know what a ghoul is? Would his family and friends recognize him and not be terrified and kill him on sight? I’m honestly worried
please let ghouls be happy
edit: I have been told China would have ghouls too but this still isn’t any better because then that’d mean his fam and friends would be dead, like... 95% of them
