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“Hand me that thing, will you?”
Lucy glances down at the toolkit beside her, the one she used to maintain her Pipboy, at least superficially. Not much to do other than checking that the panels are screwed shut and fiddling with the knobs every now and then.
The Ghoul is holding his hand out expectantly, his absurd, sawed-off, missile slinging pseudo-revolver perched in his lap.
Lucy chews on the inside of her cheek. “Say ‘please.’”
His mouth hangs ajar. It’s almost like he’s so baffled that he forgot to get mad. “What?”
She swallows, steeling herself. “Say ‘please,’” she repeats, with, hopefully, a little more conviction. “Be nice.”
“Have you fucking lost it, sweetheart?” He spits the endearment like an insult, which it is, a little. (A lot.) Another in a long list of reminders that she’s a little too soft to make it out here by herself.
But she's insistent on manners even in the worst of times. She smiles when she makes eye contact with a passerby and says “please” with every request she makes. And she always tells the Ghoul “thank you,” even though he only ever rolls his eyes and scoffs in reply.
“It doesn't cost anything to be polite,” she argues, and receives a very familiar eye roll in response. “Maybe it doesn't make anyone's day that much better,” she continues, “but at least I know I'm not making anything worse.”
“Darling, I'm suffering greatly,” he returns flatly. “Just give me the fucking tools.”
“Not until you ask nicely.”
He swears. “I'm gonna do a lot more than ask if you don't—”
Dogmeat yips, rolling over from where she was resting to flop her head onto the Ghoul’s lap, who narrowly swipes his gun out of the way, and effectively traps him in place. Despite the fact he’d stabbed the poor thing on their first meeting, Lucy hasn’t once seen him deny or scold the dog for anything for as long as they’d been on the road. It’s probably fair to say, she thinks, a little glumly, that the Ghoul is significantly nicer to the dog than her.
He looks like he's seriously considering using the gun he's holding, his free hand tapping impatiently on Dogmeat’s head—who, at the very least, seems to be enjoying the contact, tongue lolling and dripping drool onto the Ghoul’s pants.
Rose MacLean hadn’t raised a quitter, but Lucy learned pretty quickly that out here, she had to pick her battles.
With a half-restrained sigh, she gets up and hands him her toolkit.
“‘Bout damn time,” he mutters.
“You’re welcome,” Lucy says pointedly. “And good night.”
Lying on the cold, packed dirt and staring at the sky, Lucy comes up with a plan.
The premise is simple enough; whenever the Ghoul does something nice, she'll discreetly reward him. Eventually, he'll begin to associate good deeds with the pleasant sensation of a reward, and will proactively perform benevolent acts himself. Positive reinforcement—it’s basic psychology.
Obviously, there are some ethical concerns about trying to train a fellow man, irradiated as he may be, like a dog. In fact, it's downright diabolical. But, she affirms, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Then come the first two major roadblocks; in order to reward the Ghoul for a good deed, he has to actually do a good deed first. Secondly, she's having trouble figuring out what, exactly, would be enough of a reward to motivate him into doing anything at all. Caps won't work— nevermind that she doesn't have any to begin with, but paying him money would only enforce his mercenary mindset— and leveraging his medicine is just too cruel for words.
An idea comes to her the next mundane morning, packing up their meager camp to get back on the long I-15 to Vegas. The Ghoul is checking his coat pockets, and Dogmeat trots up to him, tail wagging gently, and snuffles up to his hand.
The Ghoul almost laughs, a little two-note wheeze that could maybe pass as a chuckle, and scratches Dogmeat between the ears, then under the chin. After that, he lets the dog trot around his legs, even when she starts to get underfoot and nearly trips him when he gets up to stomp out the smoldering remnants of their meager campfire.
“Atta girl,” he says, grinning crookedly as Dogmeat drags his leather saddlebag over to him. He offers another firm rub down the dog’s back as he slings the bag over his shoulder, glancing at Lucy. “You done packing, Vaultie, or are you waiting for that bag to fill itself?”
“Almost done!” she returns brightly, the cogs in her head turning, turning, turning. The image of the Ghoul’s hand, gentle, affectionate, even, on Dogmeat’s head sends all synapses firing.
There's one thing she can say with relative certainty that he hasn't been getting much of out here in the Wastes.
Touch. Benign, human touch. She’d learned quite a bit about psychology while she’d been preparing for her role as a teacher back in Vault 33— mostly child psychology, but she'd prided herself in a well rounded education— and there is almost nothing as irreplaceable to mental well-being than human contact. People are social animals, and isolation can be crippling.
She's not entirely sure what he's been doing these past two hundred years, if what he and her father had been saying had been true, but somehow she doubts making friends had been a part of his favorite pastimes.
She spends the rest of the day… hovering, basically, just just within arms reach of him and trying to figure out how to initiate touch without getting her head blown off.
The Ghoul notices, obviously. He'd be the first to lecture that you don't survive however long in the Wasteland without a degree of situational awareness. He gives her that look that he always does when he thinks she’s being silly (or, more realistically, when he thinks she’s being an idiot) — vaguely amused and slightly incredulous, with a dash of irritation for balance.
But Lucy’s picked this particular battle to commit to, which means he can squint meanly at her all he wants.
Because it's nice, being able to focus on something like this, thinking about anything other than what she'll do when they make it to New Vegas—being able to put her mind to something that doesn't involve finishing that awful confrontation in the observatory. It's like a little piece of good she can carve out for herself.
If she succeeds, that is.
She walks right into the Ghoul’s broad back with a little oof, mind wandering just enough that she hadn’t noticed he’d stopped. He gives her another one of those patented long-suffering stares, head cocking to the side.
“Oops—” she starts, only to get cut off by a swift gesture from him. He points to the closest ridge, where a couple of squat, quadrupedal silhouettes are shuffling slowly around— mole rats.
“Better get a move on, sweetie,” he says. “Dinner ain’t catching itself.”
Lucy grimaces, thumbing the 10mm holstered at her thigh.
She understands why she has to, of course— scavenging isn’t sustainable. After all, there’s a finite amount of Cram and Dandy Apples left in the world, after two hundred years. But she’d prefer if he didn’t always look so smug when he sends her off to go hunting.
Mole rat, at least, is marginally better than radroach meat, and infinitely better than ass jerky. She walks slowly along the ridge, boots scuffing slightly on the dry, dry ground, eyes trained on the rats. She takes careful aim once she's close enough to see their wrinkly little faces, holding her breath. They're oblivious as they trundle along, occasionally pausing to forage in the dirt for roots or bugs or what they eat.
The crack of the gun sends them all scrambling back into their tunnels, save for one limp body on the ground.
Lucy exhales, holstering her gun. A clean shot, she observes, straight through the skull. It probably died before it even felt the pain. Hopefully.
She grabs the corpse by the scruff and hauls it back to the Ghoul, who field-dresses it with unfaltering efficiency.
“You ain't a bad shot,” he says, looking mildly impressed as he observes the neat hole in the mole rat’s skull. “Aim alright under pressure, too. Should get you something other than that dinky lil’ ten-mil and that tranq, you might do some real damage.”
“No, thank you,” she replies, watching from the corner of her eyes as he yanks the guts from the carcass, Dogmeat salivating eagerly.
He snorts. “Your funeral, sweetheart.”
They set up camp just after sunset, the horizon still light and golden, by the shell of a long-abandoned RV, weighing a couple lost hours of travel against a secured resting place. There’s evidence that the area’s been used a few times as a makeshift shelter relatively recently— an ashy circle of a campfire, empty tins of Cram, even a couple chairs pulled out from the RV’s cabin and scattered around— but not so recently that either of them are worried about stepping on anyone’s toes.
Lucy pokes her head into the RV and immediately starts sneezing, six achoos in quick succession, and firmly determines that they’re better off camping outside with all the lingering dust in the cabin. Everything worth taking has been scavenged long ago, anyway, including the furniture.
The Ghoul’s already dragged a chair up and taken a seat, posture relaxed but back still carefully angled to be covered by the RV as he rifles through his bag for his gun maintenance supplies, mole rat meat dangling from the makeshift hangers on its side.
“Weather like this,” he'd explained once, in one of his more patient moods, “makes good jerky in a day. Dryer than a well-digger’s ass in January out here.”
Individually, she knew what the words of the last sentence meant—but all together? Not a clue.
Very dry, presumably.
But he’s holding out one of the strips of mole rat to her now, hairless brow cocked and expectant, and not even making fun of her distaste for ass jerky while he does it.
Baby steps, she thinks.
“Thank you,” Lucy says as she sidles over, resting her hand at the crook of his elbow for a moment. She can feel the muscles in his arm twitch at the contact, even through the leather of his coat.
She plucks the jerky from his hand before he can change his mind, chewing on the end like Dogmeat does with a bone. It’s surprisingly palatable, if a bit gamey, and it seems like he’d put some salt and pepper on it at some point. She’d bartered for some spices with some salt-peddlers that had come up from the coast a few days ago, with a technique that the Ghoul had christened “utilizing her assets—” namely, he’d clarified, her dinner plates, which had still offended her until she’d realized he’d been referring to her eyes.
(The price she’d gotten for the salt had been average, the Ghoul had informed her, which she still considered a reasonable success, considering she’d just been introduced to this currency barely more than a week ago.)
She smiles winningly at him as she scarfs down the rest of the jerky. She feels bad about having to kill to eat, sure, but there’s something oddly satisfying about eating something that she’d hunted for, seasoned with something she’d haggled for. Like she’s finally eking out a space for herself in this barren world.
Though it was a team effort, really. She still hasn’t gotten the hang of field dressing like she has with fire-starting, even though the survivalist guides she’d read had covered it. But the Ghoul’s impatience generally won out over the amusement of watching her suffer through it, and he took care of the gutting, even if he made her take the shot.
(It probably hadn’t helped that her first hands on experience had been on an actual person, even if she could recognize now that him shooting Roger had been an act of kindness— the Wasteland’s own brand of mercy.
“I’ll never be like you,” she’d told him, what feels like a lifetime ago, and what a joke that had become.)
“Thanks,” she says again, shifting to bump her knee against his, a casual diminutive of a hip check. “Have you tried it yet? It’s not bad.”
But he’s staring down at the point of contact as if she’d smeared something unmentionable on his pants, and then he’s looking up at her like she’s grown a second head— or something odder, since apparently there’s a not-insignificant number of creatures about with two.
“Sweetheart,” he says slowly, incredulously, his Southern twang thick like a malted shake. “Are you coming on to me?”
Lucy freezes. “Um,” she squeaks. Because of course he would think that, with her odd behavior throughout the day.
Is there even a good answer to that question?
But he’s apparently emboldened by her hesitation. “I'm not opposed to company, darling,” he drawls. “Pretty little thing like you? Would be a shame to pass it up.”
Lucy flushes beet-red. She'd never thought that the Ghoul had been, well, attracted to her. And the reality is that yes, she'd imagined, briefly, what sleeping with him might be like, even if it was often railroaded by pondering whether or not his equipment was intact, considering it seemed that a lot of his soft tissue was, in a word, gone, and—
And there’s an overly-smug tilt to his mouth and a sly gleam in his eyes.
He knows, Lucy realizes. Probably not all the details, but he knows she's up to something. And now he's trying to scare her out of whatever she's planning before she’s even started.
And Lucy— well. She decides to engage in what can only be described as the wasteland’s most absurd game of chicken.
“I mean,” she says, “if you’re willing.”
The Ghoul’s smile freezes. And hers widens just a little. Gotcha.
Because, honestly, the more she thinks about it, the fewer qualms she has about having sex with the Ghoul. She's a healthy, adventurous young woman who has not had many outlets for her sexual proclivities in recent weeks, especially given the incident in Vault 4 had unfortunately deprived her of the opportunity to make Maximus’ dick explode (in a positive way, of course). And she imagines it’s hard enough out here to find company that won't stab her in the back and steal her stuff once they've finished the deed. At the very least, she trusts the Ghoul not to do that… mostly.
And handsome isn't the right word for him. But he's striking, in a weird way, with those dark eyelashes that have managed to survive what the rest of his hair apparently couldn't, and the thin, pink slash of his mouth that twists into a sardonic curl over yellowed but even teeth whenever he sees her doing most anything. And there's something magnetic about the hoarse slur of his voice, the easy swagger of his posture.
And in the span of about eight seconds of the Ghoul’s stunned silence, she's fully realized, yessir, she does want to have sex with him.
“Let’s have sex,” she clarifies, in case he’d misunderstood what she’d said earlier.
But, unexpectedly, the Ghoul’s expression turns pinched. “Is this a fucking joke to you?” he bites out, tone abruptly caustic.
Lucy blinks. “...No?” she says. “I'm genuinely asking.”
But it doesn't look like he's really listening, scowling deeply. “I don't know what you’ve been playing at, acting all squirrely ‘n shit, but I ain't some fucking charity case for you to pity-fuck.”
Pity. Of course he would hate, even outright loathe the idea of that—that he was something to feel sorry for, after surviving two-hundred years and becoming one of the most dangerous creatures in the wastes, just because he might be lonely.
Except, she thinks, that might be exactly what he is.
The Ghoul slouches further in his chair, knees falling open. “If you want it so bad, darling, you can prove it.”
She stares at him for a second before it clicks. “Oh,” she says, glancing at his lap. “Um. Here? Now?”
“Here. Now,” the Ghoul confirms. “Unless you plan on waiting till we hit a five star hotel.”
She takes a quick look around— there's nothing but empty desert for miles and not a soul in sight. Even Dogmeat has made herself scarce, napping on the other side of the RV.
She should be mad at him. For escalating things, just like he always does. For not taking her seriously when she’s being earnest.
She… probably shouldn’t want this as much as she does.
Lucy takes a deep breath. “Okey dokey.”
She walks up right in front of him, so close that the tips of their boots almost touch, before carefully lowering herself onto the ground. She’s grateful for the support of her leather knee pads as she tries to find a comfortable position on the dirt.
He’s bouncing his leg, just a little, but the restless, nervous tick is so incongruous with the rest of him that Lucy pauses for a second, staring up at him. From this angle, he can’t exactly hide beneath the brim of his hat, but he seems like he’s really doing his best to try, gaze focused steadfastly at some point over her shoulder rather than meeting her eyes.
“Are you alright?” she tries. “It’s okay to be nervous.”
He scowls down at her, but he at least actually looks her in the eye to do it, which might be a slight improvement. “You’re supposed to be giving a blowjob, not a psych eval,” he says. “Chop chop, sweetheart.”
Which, she thinks, isn’t the most auspicious choice of words considering she’s about to be holding his penis. But he doesn’t show any sign of wavering; the opposite, in fact— his shoulders are set like he’s preparing himself to go to war, jaw tensed with just a flash of teeth peeking from behind a curled lip.
Lucy slowly reaches for his belts, sliding the buckles free and letting them fall to dangle from the chair.
His leg has stopped bouncing; he’s gone completely still.
Jeez Louise, she thinks. He must not have thought she’d go this far. Maybe he’s still expecting her to chicken out. It’s probably a strange experience, having sex with someone who you think is going to quit halfway through.
Her fingers linger on the fly of his trousers. There's a very definite, noticeable tent, which is an excellent sign that his bits hadn’t fallen off from the radiation, and that this whole ordeal isn't some elaborate, mean-spirited prank orchestrated by him just to humiliate her.
“Get a move on,” he says hoarsely, but there’s an odd note in his voice that she’s never heard from him before.
She runs her tongue along her teeth as she undoes the button and tugs down the zipper, carefully hooking her fingers over the waistband.
It's a little bigger than she suspects the average penis would be, even though she doesn't exactly have an outstanding sample size to draw from, and the skin is webbed and ridged in a very similar manner to his face. A discreet, cursory sniff proves that it doesn't smell too different from the rest of him either— that dusty, leathery tang of skin, the slightly sour smell of sweat. It is, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly functional penis.
She puts a hand on his knee, coaxing them a little wider, and the other around the base of his cock, and she finally dips her head down, tentatively brushing her lips against the tip before she swipes her tongue over its head. The texture is odd against her tongue, rougher than she’d expect such tender skin to be.
The Ghoul’s breath escapes in a hiss through gritted teeth, thigh going tense beneath her hand.
Carefully, she opens her mouth and takes in his cock, a little at a time, watching the Ghoul’s gloved hands flex against the armrests in her peripherals. He doesn’t reach for her head or grab her hair, which is… surprisingly polite of him.
Positive reinforcement, she thinks, pulling off of him to lick a broad stroke from base to tip.
Atta girl, he'd said to Dogmeat, although Lucy's trying for something a bit more motivational (and hopefully sexier).
“...Good boy,” she says finally, glancing up at him.
The Ghoul sucks in a sharp breath, and he looks… stricken, for some reason. Like he can’t believe those words had just come out of her mouth, can’t wrap his head around her audacity.
Like he can’t fathom someone calling him good.
“You—” he starts, but cuts off with a low groan when she puts her mouth back on him, taking him deeper than before, and, oh. That’s a nice sound. And she feels a bit mean cutting him off like that, but maybe he deserves it, just a little.
She bobs her head, curling her tongue around the ridge of his crown. Her mouth waters around the intrusion and she lets her saliva pool until it drips from her mouth and down his cock.
Her experience in this department is a bit lacking, but if she's anything, it's determined, and if she could be a second thing, it's a quick study.
She’s careful when she tries to take it down to the base, going slow so she doesn’t start coughing when the head reaches her throat, although her eyes water a little at the strain. She has to pull back for air after a few seconds, but after a brief moment of respite sinks right back down.
His head falls back, baring the long line of his throat, his hat falling to the ground behind him, and he let out another rasping groan, the sweetest he’s ever sounded, and it’s worth every ounce of that discomfort. “‘S good,” he mumbles, syllables slurring into each other.
Her unoccupied hand smooths ups and over his leg and toys with the loose hem of his shirt. Her fingers dip beneath the fabric, gingerly mapping out the ridge of his hip-bone, the divot of his abdominals, skin pocked and rough like old scar tissue. The texture is odd, but he’s warm. Warm in that indisputably human, alive way, warm like comfort.
She’d missed human touch, too, she realizes.
The Ghoul’s breathing gets rough, tiny threads of his voice escaping his throat with each harsh exhale. It’s one of his little ticks that she’s picked up on, how he half-hums, half-groans at certain sensations— that first sip of water on a hot day, cracking his neck after a night sleeping on the ground. And this sound is the same but also somehow entirely different, shivery and low and vulnerable.
It makes her giddy.
She redoubles her efforts, and the sound he makes in response is going to be stuck in her head for a long, long time. His head lolls to the side and he stares down at her with lidded eyes, a thin line of saliva dripping down from his parted lips.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Fuck, sweetheart—”
His hips buck up with another winded curse, and she pulls back, startled, and suddenly there’s something hot and bitter splattering across her mouth. Almost reflexively, she swipes her tongue over her lips, cataloging the taste of it— salty, bitter, faintly metallic— and resists the urge to ask whether two-hundred years and a massive dose of radiation had an effect on his sperm count.
“Fuckin’ Christ,” the Ghoul rasps. Then, “Don’t swallow.” He fumbles for a rag on the makeshift side table— the one, she notes, that he was using to wipe down his gun earlier that evening. “Spit it out.”
She spits onto the ground, off to the side, and he wipes the remnants of his cum off her cheeks with the rag and leaves a smear of gun oil in its place.
“I’ve swallowed before,” she says. “The taste doesn’t bother me that much.”
“S’not that,” he mutters. “Shit’s irradiated. I ain’t wasting Rad-Away just ‘cus you don’t mind the taste.”
“...Oh,” she squeaks, and then gathers up the saliva in her mouth to spit again. Just in case. She’s had more than enough rad-poisoning for a lifetime— almost entirely, she thinks wryly, because of him. “Then a little more warning would’ve been appreciated,” she says. “But at least I know for next time.”
He pauses, arm twisted behind the chair where he’s been blindly fishing for his fallen hat—before he's zipped himself up, even. “Next time?” he echoes.
“I’d like to do this again,” Lucy says. But she pauses, pursing her lips. “But only,” she continues, “if you’re nice.”
There’s a beat of silence before he barks out a laugh, squashing his hat firmly back on his head. He reaches for her, hooking his hand under her armpit and yanking her up and onto his lap as she lets out a startled squeak, and holy moly, that might be why he hasn’t zipped up his pants yet. The rusted chair creaks ominously beneath their combined weights, and she goes stock still, straddling his thighs, with just her underwear and vault suit between her and his rapidly hardening dick.
“I can be nice,” the Ghoul says, taunting, even though he sounds a little breathless. “In fact, returning the favor would be the neighborly, polite thing to do, wouldn’t it?”
He tugs her down by her hips, canting his own up to meet her. Lucy shivers at the friction, warmth still tangible even through two layers of cloth. It would only be fair...
But.
“Next time,” she says firmly, trying not to let any reluctance seep into her voice. She’s not a fan of the stick, but she’s happy to dangle the carrot in front of him as motivation.
“Fuckin’ hell, Vaultie,” he mutters. He nudges her off of his lap, none-too-gentle but not quite a shove, and she wiggles off the chair to stand on the ground, dusting off her knees.
“You know,” she starts, a little reproachful, “it’s polite to call people by their name. I gave you mine.”
He grunts, rolling his eyes as he tucks himself back into his pants, still half-hard. He shoots her a withering glare from beneath his hat, but there’s something… impressed, maybe, in the curl of his mouth. “Whatever you say, Lucy.”
She grins.