Long road ahead (Fallout 4 MacCready and OC)

[RandomNumber]

Long time lurker here. I've been playing a shit ton of fallout lately, and I started writing a little self-indulgent fluff.  Figured I should share it, considering all the awesome stories I've read on here over the years. As a warning, this is going to be a slow-burn.

...

Intro

The Vertibird hovered, kicking up dirt and garbage, briefly unmanned until a nervous knight hopped over from the accompanying ship and leaped into the pilot's chair.

"Never would be too soon.", MacCready gasped. He was still leaning out the side of the Vertibird dry heaving when John jumped onto the roof of the bus stop which made a worrying cracking noise.

The vet grinned at him unsympathetically and dropped off the side of the roof, raising his voice, "What, you must have been on one with the gunners.."

The mercenary spat in John's general direction. "Ugh, yeah, once or twice but we didn't take a panoramic tour of the bay, just a quick a to b with supplies.", he blew his nose into the spare rag he kept in his pack. "Ugh,.. it came out my nose.."

"Better come on, Mary Mack, this is the last of the rum."

MacCready grumbled under his breath and dropped the ladder. The roof hadn't sagged with the older man's impact, but he wasn't nearly as trusting.

He climbed down easily, hung off the ladder, hopped onto the rusty Cherry Bomb, and slid off the hood to the ground.

Danse, looking very heroic with his hair blowing in the wind, leaned out a bit and was yelling to them, "I'll let Neriah know, but do try to be back so we can head to College Square at least by Wednesday --" Robert could clearly hear him over the propellers, but John gestured, cupping his ear. "Can't hear you!", he mouthed and gestured vaguely which seemed to work well enough, because the Vertibirds didn't follow when he started walking away, tossing the plastic bottle which had two shots at most left in it behind him at Robert.

Must not be any ghouls in the immediate area, they'd be here by now.

The merc spat again and slugged it down. He caught up easily and walked by John's side to share a cigarette as they ducked through a few alleys and a burnt out store that was so destroyed he couldn't even tell what they used to sell.

"You're lucky, if this area wasn't so damn busy I would have kept that fucker."

"Yeah right, like they'd let us walk off with that."

"Danse probably would. He trusts me."

"Speaking of which... seriously? Those guys?"

John shrugged, "We're both looking for the same people. Figured it couldn't hurt to be an 'initiate' for a little while." He gave the door to what was presumably the store room an experimental shoulder, hair pin had broken when they were in Diamond City. "Wow, solid. Long term, no, those guys are like military discipline to the 10^th power." Kick.

McCready winced a little bit at the sound of the impact, any local eyes were on them after that entrance.

He headed for the stairs to get a better look around. "Seems like all they care about is getting more tech."

"Yeah. Danse is a good guy though, keep him happy -" Kick! "Do a little grunt work... you're good at grunt work, right, Mary Mack?"

"Well I didn't spend four years in the army digging trenches for power cords, but yeah I'll do anything for enough caps."

"I don't know, 200 caps is a little pricey for a good time."

"You should be so lucky."

"I might not get lucky. I spent the rest of mine at the Dugout Inn."

"Ugh, that moonshine. I told you nothing changed. I've had better cologne."

John snickered. "Light weight."

MacCready was getting antsy, he stuck his head around the corner and peered out of the hole in the broken wall. Nothing. "It's quiet... Too quiet." He laughed loudly. "Oh man, I've always wanted to say that."

Bang! The storeroom door opened.

Rob headed up the stairs. It was mid day so hard to tell how occupied this neighborhood was. Everything was quiet so far, only the faint chop of propellers as Danse headed back to the airport. He looked out over the north side of the neighborhood, pretty drab and lifeless, but there had to be either ghouls or raiders all through the towering apartments a few miles away.

After watching nothing for a few minutes he stepped out onto the upper hallway and headed to the office up there. Nothing interesting out that window either. Pretty church. He rifled through the desk, which was full of paper clips and dried up pens, nothing very interesting.

"See if there's some cash up there somewhere."

He sighed, "You're obsessed."

"I've got a buyer!"

"Bullshit!"

Oh, binder clips... He pocketed a few. A woman's purse was under the desk, along with some shoes. The fake leather sloughed off a layer when he picked it up. He walked to the window and slowly looked through her wallet, photos, cards (she was due one free coffee at Slocum's) before pocketing the cash, $35 and a change purse. He occasionally glanced out in-between. Oh, there was one slow feral way out there, but it was effectively stuck in between the remains of a car crash, and a crumbling brick wall. Not a priority.

The stairs creaked and groaned as Marlowe ran up them, seemingly just as impatient for some action as he was. Not very stealthy, John.

Whack A comic book was tossed onto the desk behind him. It was what might have been a mint condition "Unstoppable"s before it had been ripped out of the bag. He picked it up. The cover was a vibrant depiction of cyborg dolphins, "Commie-Kaze vs. Manta Man.", it fell off when he picked it up.

"The rest of them are mostly RobCo fun and Tesla Science, but there's a box of ~Astoundingly Awesome Tales~."

"Sweet!" He started to hop down the stairs, "Any movement on the north end?" Saw him blink, It was very weird talking to John sometimes. "No, I mean, the north side, north!.. you know what I mean." No, of course, he hadn't checked.

"I'll go look. We should be able to make the interchange, no problem, in three days, even with a stop at C.I.T., and we can grab any glowing wildlife along the way. Plus, you like moving at night anyway, so bonus."

"Ugh." They'd already been up 24 hours or so, but his second wind was still going strong and they at least wouldn't be hungover at this rate, or at least if a convenience store or restaurant was on the way. "Nada." Rob heard him unzip and start peeing off the side of the building. "Give it another five and let's go." It didn't sound like a question, but John only left space for others' opinions when he felt like it.

Soon they were walking down the street, comic books taking up more of the space in his backpack then they probably should be. The street was crowded with cars, MacCready ducked behind a Corvega when a few shots rang out, but they were a hundred yards off minimum, and answered by a deep yell that could only be a super mutant. "See, they don't need us at all." He was a little disappointed after the surge of adrenaline, but it's not like the wasteland had a shortage of mean things to shoot, he'd get his own chance sooner rather than later.

They turned the corner, and he could hear just a faint sigh over the wind that had picked up a little finally. Good, all he had been able to smell for the past hour was that tire fire down the road, Super mutants loved setting those.

She wasn't really moving, must be pretty long gone, but he flicked off the safety and took a quick shot, covert operations be damned. Hit her in the shoulder not the head. Fuck. He took another two shots, both in the head and completely obliterating it. John looked a little startled, he must not have known she was there. MacCready scowled at him and waited to see if any more ghouls would emerge from the nearby buildings before shouldering his gun. "Jeez man, get your game face on. And maybe your power fist too." He gestured to where it was sticking out of the top of his backpack. "Or are you just using it for weight training?"

"Yeah, guess that's not a bad idea", Marlowe said, looking at him contemplatively, but he wasn't going to say anything. He wouldn't, unprompted.

"Man, I don't know if I'd be too proud of hiring a discount mercenary. You are like a lost lamb in the woods sometimes, might end up wishing you tossed me the last 50 caps."

John hefted his backpack off his shoulders and pulled the power fist on. "I shouldn't have given all my caps to Vadim. Wouldn't want to be away from my tender shepherd's care."

They kept moving, passing a small restaurant patio in a pretty sheltered location. Someone had built a fire-pit there, it was overgrown now. His heart was still thumping, there was probably a bunch more of those fuckers around here somewhere unless someone else got to them first. He forced himself to breathe slowly. He gestured with a thumb at the fire-pit. "Hey, maybe we should open that can of beans before we really get going."

John glanced at the patio and kept going. "Nah, stop now and we'll just get lazy. Let's get out of all these buildings before it gets dark."

"Sure, then all we have to worry about is the deathclaws down on the highway."

He grinned, "That was months ago. I'm not worried. Are you?"

...

Gurgle. MacCready's stomach gave another loud protest.

"All right, all right, all right. We'll stop up there. Daisy wanted us to check out the library anyway." He stopped in front of the door. "Just tell me how you do that on command." MacCready hit him with his backpack.

John cracked the side door for the children's corner. A turret whirred to life and he slammed the door. Several bullets whizzed through and sunk into the concrete pillars and walls of the parking garage on the other side of the street. A chorus of deep voices and the inhuman, cobbled together voice of the Protectron guard all started yelling at once. It was weird, the gunners had no shortage of Assaultrons, and they had much more human-like voices. John said the public found the realistic voices off-putting, something about 'uncanny valley'.

"Second thought.. maybe we'll hit that on the way back. I thought she said a 'few' super mutants...", he grumbled. They ran for it.

...

They ended up heading into the law firm of .. the sign was pretty worn out and one of the letters had fallen off, but MacCready was pretty sure it said 'Wigger and Sons'. The building was only half standing, it was enough shelter to get them out of view, but was busted up enough that it probably didn't have any occupants besides mole rats or maybe a ghoul or two. MacCready wrenched the door open, hinges were a little sticky and propped it open with a few chunks of asphalt. John kicked a can down the hallway, "Arrested for littering, loitering, or lewdness? Forgot to return a library book? Just call the offices of Dumas and McPhail today."

No action. Damn. He was starting to lose his edge a little, the brick wall with all its lines danced a little bit in his tired vision, maybe they should have taken the time to clear the library.

They headed in, MacCready's stomach growled again.

"Well if you hadn't lost the breakfast I bought you all over those initiates on the way up here... Heheh, you couldn't have had better aim if you tried..." He kicked a chair out of the way and down the hallway. It stirred up a little cloud of dust and he sniffled a little.

"Yeah... I'm not going back there..."

"Don't go back you won't get..."

They both had pulled their packs off and were headed into the front office, MacCready searching hopelessly for his can opener. Must have left it somewhere back in Diamond. John was pulling off his power fist, he slowed and then stopped. MacCready was so caught up in thinking about that stupid can of beans, (he was literally drooling a little) that he didn't notice and effectively got hip checked.

"Aw, cmon." His stomach was tired of his shit and had started eating itself instead. "I'm going to start charging you extra for being a pain in the.." John was not getting out of his way fast enough, so he squeezed around him. Could get the can open with that shitty tactical knife he took off that raider, eating them cold would just save time -

He heard the vet gasp and instinctually started to reach for his rifle. He couldn't see anything in the room in front of them... What did John see? Marlowe was standing in a shaft of sunlight coming down from the fairly large hole in the roof. He was squinting upwards at the sky. Dammit, MacCready really didn't have the patience to deal with a bunch of giant mosquitoes right now, but then again maybe they made pretty good eating...

Then, "HESHHAH! ..hhh." A clunk as the power fist dropped on MacCready's foot. (Good thing he was wearing steel toes.) A cloud of fine mist hung in front of them in the sunlight, and MacCready walked right into it.

"Ah, what? Come on, man!"

John just grinned at him and shrugged. "...paid." He vigorously rubbed his nose on his coat sleeve and bent to pick up his weapon. "Buck up, son. C'mon, I hear these 'Boston' beans are off da hook!"

They alternated taking forkfuls of cold beans from the can and refreshed their memories on the route they had drawn last night. MacCready realized that somehow he had taken a river for a road and readjusted, ignoring John's exhortations that they would just take a canoe or make a raft, they'd make a day out of it, it would be fun.

It kind of reeked in here, a little like death, there was probably at least one body in what remained of the upstairs, but mostly it smelled just like someone had actually been living in here recently, he could smell B.O. and shit and rotten food. There was a garbage pile off to their right, with a cat's corpse on top. Weird. There were so many more secure looking buildings around. Maybe it was a ghoul after all. Didn't look like they had really been in for the last few days, their bedroll was damp from the last rain and covered in leaves.

Three days and he'd be free of the gunners forever. But Duncan would still be sick, and he didn't really have the safety or numbers to survive a trip to the Med-Tek building... assuming there was a cure there, especially after all this time it was probably a long shot anyway.

He gazed out the window apathetically towards the apartment buildings, as they had gotten closer to them, they could occasionally hear the assholes yelling to each other. Probably have to clear them out to get through here safely. ..... Damnit, John was right. He had sat down and now he was getting all logy. Rob glanced at his partner in crime, who was folding the map up incorrectly, "15-minute nap?", Robert asked. John looked like he was going to protest, then shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

After the couch withstood the test of being flopped on full force by the two of them they both curled up on it under their coats. John set an alarm on the Pip-Boy. Normally Robert would have protested both of them being off guard at once, but he was sleepy and this was faster, and honestly Marlowe had that effect on people's inhibitions. The vet's recklessness rubbed off on you if you spent enough time with him. Anyway, Rob was a light sleeper, and he was pretty sure they actually hadn't been followed from the Vertibirds. Raiders must have hunted in the wrong location while they let things cool off in the comic book store.

Beside him, John chugged a very old beer, probably the last of their alcohol, then leaned back and closed his eyes. MacCready didn't bother even trying to doze off, falling asleep fast had never been one of his talents. He just covered his face with his hat, relaxed and listened to the wind hiss through the dried leaves outside, and tried to turn his head off for a few minutes.

In a blink, the little alarm on the pip boy was blipping. It was quiet but piercing. Rob opened his eyes and fumbled for the oversized watch, but the controls were smashed up against the back of the couch. Marlowe was still sleeping flat on his back, with Rob laying on top of his legs with his own legs dangling off the side of the arm. Not super comfortable, but pretty warm.

He sat up. The alarm seemed shriller by the second. John lay there like the dead, faintly scowling in his sleep, black eye just barely starting to fade, cut across his lower lip still open and bleeding again, not helped by the cold weather.

His hair was draped across the arm of the couch and definitely didn't look as crappy as MacCready's did right now. Should have shelled out the 15 caps for a cut in Diamond. Ah well, that's what hats are for. Both of them were seasoned partiers, but this was still kind of a rough start to a three day hike. John still wasn't moving. He had definitely lost a little weight since Rob had met him. Dude was clearly not really used to the wasteland yet, even though he was quickly adapting.

Bleep bleeep bleeeeep bllEEEEP. He snapped out of his reverie and smacked Marlowe, who started awake and slapped at the Pip-Boy until it stopped making noises and started playing a holotape.

"--scretion above all else. But I have I to honestly say... fuck that!--", John poked it and it stopped.

"All right, we out this bitch?"

MacCready nodded and Marlowe sat up, leaning into him. They contemplated the window and the distant chatter of the bandits.

MacCready zipped up his bag. John rubbed his neck and stretched it side to side, vertebrae popping and crackling almost viscerally, "Now who's ready for some fun?", he asked.

 

 

[Red Ring of Death]

WELL lemme be one'a the first to say "Welcome to the Forum! Enjoy your stay!" Lemme be another one of the first to say a simultaneous "Yes this was what I was looking for on here! and a "well I apologise because I'm currently in the process of writing a MacDrabble as we speak". SO if you see that one Red Ring has also uploaded a MacCready dealy-bopper, I promise I won't steal any of your ideas or take any credit or nuthin'.

THAT being said though, congrats on the first story posted! I'll be prowlin' around for updates~ [[ and might I mention that I'm already a fan of some of the in-game dialogue you sprinkled into the work; nice touch, I like it -thumbs up- ]]

[RandomNumber]

Thanks!  Yay, more MacCready is never a bad thing!  I'll keep an eye out for it!  Unless you want to be nice and PM me haha.

[RandomNumber]

2 Mall jaunt

They entered through the emergency exit of one of the theaters. The low-level backup generator kept a few dim lights on along the edges of the risers and the movie playing on a loop apparently on the screen. A young dude in a long coat dodged some super slow bullets on screen. 'A young dude', what? Jeez, he was getting old. He stood transfixed for a moment, then started moving again, John wasn’t all that impressed and was already heading for the lobby.

MacCready jumped over the counter in the snack stand and grabbed a handful of candy, then looked around at all the faded posters "Girl on a plane." "The good dog." "Ex-Revengencers.", the large plastic hot dog with a grinning face and a saddle on a spring near the arcade, and the weird geometric carpet.

"This place is hideous."

"..You should have seen it in it's prime", John said wistfully. "All right, think the directory is just out there." They tramped over the musty carpet towards the mall. He sniffled.

"Dust getting to you?"

John shrugged dismissively, "Maybe a little."

They tramped over the broken remains of the door. From some of the faded stains in the lobby that continued on the floor outside and splattered the walls.  it looked like a pretty large scale fight had happened in here. The walls were peppered with bullet holes and a fairly large bloodstain trailed off into what looked like drag marks heading for the down escalator.

In this part of the atrium, there were huge skylights, so it was pretty bright actually. It was going to put them at a disadvantage going into stores, but it was what it was. The glass crackled under his feet and the metal door creaked.

He stood near the wall next to a large fake tree and looked around. Didn't see any movement yet. The large fountain in the center of the atrium was actually still going. Looked like it regularly filled with rainwater, though it must be getting a bit dry. It gurgled unpleasantly, and that meant it was impossible to hear anything much nearby. This was probably a bonus in their case.

John took a cursory look around as he tramped past a small seating area up to the directory. It looked pretty trashed from here. Sensing no immediate danger MacCready followed him, not bothering to tread very quietly.

A gasp set MacCready back on edge again. He was starting to wonder if John was fucking with him a little. Constant concern, really. The vet let out a shaky breath, drew in another then sniffed again.

"You've got to stop doing that. You keep scaring the shit out of me."

John gave him an annoying grin, but it quickly faltered. His breath quickened, "Heh ah --", eyes involuntarily squinting and tearing up.

Beat.

He let out the breath in a little huff and chuckled hoarsely. "Come on, what's the chance I noticed something before you did. Relax."

They surveyed the faded and broken sign.

"You must have got something up there." MacCready playfully tweaked the bouncer's nose. "It's not like it would be very hard-- Auh, wet!", he dashed his hand on his pants, and went to check the opposite side of the directory, to see if it had faired any better.

Amused, "Don't know what you expected." Another liquid sniff.

"Aha, 'Beyond the Stars' cafe. Burnt beans are better than no coffee."

"Sweet. I'll grab some clothes from the gift shop."

...

Carrying a cheesy tote bag with 2 bags of coffee, a pour over cone, and some over-large filters, MacCready was pretty pleased with himself. Hopefully, they had something in the gift shop that was either not entirely stupid, or in his size. Either would do.

John was wearing a shirt with kittens dressed up like astronauts floating with potheads in space, and was standing in the back near the t-shirt wall, staring up at the display, which was a little sprayed with old blood and viscera, but mostly intact. As MacCready crept up on him (not hard), he could hear him breathing heavily.

"Hehh.. ahh.. heh --", another gasp...

"Bless you!"

John swiveled around, a flash of annoyance in his eyes briefly before it was replaced with a more neutral, if sneezy expression. MacCready suppressed a grin and showed off his catch.

"What are you going to do with whole beans?"

Robert showed off his other acquisition, a meat tenderiser.

"Aight."

A shirt was tossed on his face, and it actually was a small for once. "I'm with 'stupud' --->" He tossed off his coat and hat and changed, glancing around the shop as he did. Junk, junk, more junk.. John pocketed a snow globe with a what looked like a sock in it. "Okay, let's go find a camping spot. There's a lot of ferals down in the food court." Not long after that, MacCready thought he heard a few muted thumps below. John nodded, "Guess they wake up around now?" he asked.

Shit, he hadn't even noticed them with all the noise, and in his excitement about the coffee. "Nah", the merc said, "They're just usually somewhat inactive if they're sheltered and fed, unless they hear prey." He started to take his rifle off his back.

John put a hand on his shoulder. "A. Lot. of ferals. Keep an eye out for grenades and we'll hit them on the return."

They headed for the exit facing the road out of town. John stopped and freed his arm from the power fist, and hunkered down in front of the machine. He stuck his arm up in it's belly, freeing three nukas, one nuka free, and a quantum which illuminated their faces with a ghost-like glow. Damn, it was already getting a little darker out, better get moving. MacCready grabbed one of the nukas out of the air as it hurtled towards his face and refocused on the job ahead.

 

---

Note- I'm not entirely sure that MacCready was actually this sneaky as a companion, especially compared to others, but he is an experienced fighter and sniper so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

 

[RandomNumber]

Part 3 Apartments

They crawled through the crumbling back wall of the janitor's closet. MacCready went first. He was on a hair trigger, ready, eager even. He crouched and awkwardly squeezed under the collapsed ceiling beam, neck starting to cramp in protest just as the room opened back up a little. He could hear crumbling drywall and garbage quietly shifting behind him as John followed suit. His breath caught once again with a shuddery inhale, and he sniffed. It sounded overly loud in the quiet echoey space.

They could hear someone walking around in front of them and they both froze. After a second it became clear whoever was moving away as they creaked up some stairs somewhere ahead, and the two started forward.

They could hear muted conversation coming from up the back stair, then the guy was hurrying back down. Maybe they had cameras? They both backed up quickly. Even with the suppressor, someone would probably hear his rifle going off. He looked to John who nodded. The vet sucker-punched the huge skinhead in the stomach as he came around the corner, which stopped him from making very much noise, then cold-cocked him. Fresh blood sprayed the mint green cinder block walls. MacCready heard several things crack in the guy's face as he fell to the ground and winced a little.

Back around the corner, the muted conversation continued undisturbed. MacCready mouthed, 'stay here', and Marlowe grudgingly agreed, giving the guy a kick in the ribs.

Robert moved around the crusty chair with a coil of rope at its feet that sat near the foot of the stairs and slowly up the stairs in a half crouch, keeping his feet against the wall and back.

"He was even making gear shifting noises and everything!"

"So what, did they just let him "drive" right by?"

He peered around the corner. On the far wall it looked like a bulletin board was covered in various mementos.. personal effects.. It was a fancy open concept apartment covered with brick and concrete. Shots were going to echo. Those two looked high as fuck. Unfortunately from the inhalers that were scattered on the floor, it was Jet.

"Ha, ha. Yeah, but he didn't just drive by. He reached in his bag, but didn't seem to take anything out, until he reached toward his mouth like he was biting something, and then it looked like he threw it into the trinity lobby."

"What the fuck? What was it? What did he throw?"

Now none of them would ever know. He shot the skinny guy in the back of the head. The small woman jumped and slid over the huge dining table. As he started to crouch to find her she was already peeking up at him, and taking a shot, which zipped right past his ear before he could react.

He ran right, as she flicked a switch, changing the assault rifle to burst fire and shot at him again. Miss. Miss. -One stung his left shoulder. It burned, but as he reached up to steady his rifle the arm still followed his commands. Couldn't be too bad.

He shot either her gun or her hand and she dropped it. As she bent over, he popped her in the head.

John ran up the stairs behind him and looked a little sad when he said, "Sorry, man. All done in here." And checked his arm, which was bleeding some, but it looked just like a graze as far as he could tell. Didn't hurt that much. No time to check. They heard some yelling through the wall and started running forward again.

Coming into a common area as the distant voices became more urgent, they split, running for opposite ends of the large room.

John leaped down the set of stairs across the room in two bounds and out of view.

The merc spread out his stance and watched the door into the apartment patiently waiting for a head or a grenade to appear.

MacCready could hear him banging down the rest of the flight, then the blatting sound of a turret or motion light being set off but he kept his concentration on the hallway.

...

MacCready's rifle went off with a suppressed pop, nearly catching the Bandit with the heavily painted face just under his left eye before he even saw him. When the merc didn't hear any movement for a few seconds he slowly crept forward, grabbing the body by it's scarred outstretched arms and strained, dragging it inside the room.

A few minutes later he could hear someone bumping around in an adjoining room, glass breaking as they knocked something over. He padded into the hall and peered through the large hole in the wall into the next apartment and waited for movement. A head came into view, bent over -- Pop! Another went down.

He eased inside, bowed floorboards groaning faintly as he did.

No movement or sound in the apartment.

He checked the bedroom, bathroom, and pantry before checking the body. It was wearing a denim dress and no armor. Shit... He pulled her dress up, looking for a weapon, anything. There was a disciples tattoo on her side.. The merc breathed a sigh of relief.

Nothing there worth taking, as was often the case with bandits. He headed back to the common area.

...

John reappeared and slid halfway behind the stairway door, hissed, excited, "Armory!", he gestured below and to the left.

"How many?"

"At least fi .. hah .. f- f-.. hhh .." Eyes slivered, he held his hand up, all fingers extended, then blinked hard and briefly regained composure, "five down, and m- m- mo- .. hehh .. u- hh!.." He blew the breath out, frustrated, and made an impatient gesture at the ceiling, nose running visibly.

Footsteps, loud and squeaky on the tile stairs. MacCready's 30.-06 and the bandit's shitty pipe rifle went off at the same time. No contest. The bandit tumbled down the stairs. He edged forward, trying to get a better view, and heard a yelp as his fall took one of his friends down as well. The mercenary ran after them and shot her twice in the chest where she lay on the landing.

He could hear footsteps out back in the hall too, and more coming both directions on the stairs. Dammit. Heard the stairwell door creak as he ran for it. He saw John running for the hall door. Good.

It thundered inside the room.

White lights and searing pain as the flashbang exploded right near him. Concussion of the blast hit him on his uninjured side in the shoulder. His ears protested with a deep ache. He was disoriented and dizzy, and his academic knowledge of what was happening wasn't at all helpful.

Rob tried to dart in the direction of cover and went sprawling on some debris and landed hard on his face.

He could hear some not so distant gunfire, yells, a few violent thuds, two explosions close together then silence for a moment. Then there were approaching familiar footsteps, one of the legs dragging a little. Then he was hefted, fireman’s carry style over someone's shoulder, rigid metal along one of their arms pressing painfully into his ribs. He relaxed. His own right arm felt cold.. Wet? Shit, had he been shot?

They headed down the stairs and after a few moments he was somewhat gently slung to the floor, jacket opened, and shirt pulled up. "Hey, don't take advantage..", he croaked.

Brief stab of pain from the stimpack and shortly after he was able to sit up and shrug off his jacket to check the damage. Good thing his coat was already a lost cause. His arm was mostly knitting together on the outside but still hurt like a bitch. He flexed his hand experimentally.

"Four of them took themselves out, bounced a grenade back down the stairwell." MacCready wasn't sure if that was a laugh or not, then he sniffled loudly, 'snnnxtt'. The vet was spattered with blood, flushed and grinning like a maniac as he surveyed the somewhat pitiful Armory. He was already loading grenades of some sort into his bag (hopefully not just flash bangs), along with a claymore.

MacCready shook his head in disbelief. "You are such a lucky son of a bitch."

John absentmindedly swiped his nose on his sleeve and sniffed again, voice sounding comically stuffy. "There's like 30 grenades in here", he gestured to a crate. "Think they're frags, oh, and there's some bombs in here too."

The cereal box was tossed into the merc's lap and he went to work trying to jam it into his already somewhat overstuffed pack without crushing it all.

The vet forced himself to look into one of the work lights that was hooked up to the generator, squinting and taking as deep of a breath in through his nose as he could. "..Come on. If I could just snee -hh- ze..."

"Wonder how far the rest of them chased the Vertibird?", Rob mused.

He let the breath out slowly and gave up, "Let's not figure that out. Ready to move?"

"Yeah." Rob stood up with a groan, "Here, let me see that claymore."

"Sure."

[RandomNumber]

4 Oyster House

A voice called to them, pleading to please help. her friend was hurt, bleeding, dying.

She was out of sight.

They both looked at each other skeptically but followed her cries. A woman in a dirty flowery dress called to them from down the street, and darted around a corner. "It's this way-"

She led them in a labyrinthine path to a hardware store.

They waited outside patiently for a moment, then MacCready ducked inside, creeping around the shelves and moving quickly towards the voices in the basement. "What the hell is taking them so long?" An annoyed voice inquired. The female voice responded, "Don't know.. be right back!"

He had made it over to the basement stairs by then and shrieked, "Tunnel Snakes rule!" as he bounced a frag down the steps. "What the -- GRENADE!" MacCready chuckled as he ran out the door.

...

The mercenary swiveled and looked behind them again.

Someone was out there, somewhere.

"What? Why are you so jumpy?"

The street was deserted. "I gotta be honest with you, I'd feel more comfortable with a rocky ceiling above my head." he joked, turning forward again.

John swiveled around and stared at him, "What?"

"Uh well, Little Lamplight was a -cave-... Was I not clear about that?"

"No!"

MacCready heard a deep cry above them and shivered involuntarily, looking around wildly at the nearby buildings.

A loud shot rang out and he flinched but wasn't hit. John stumbled forward onto his knees, shirt quickly soaking with blood, then sagged bonelessly the rest of the way over.

MacCready dived to the ground behind a car. Dangerous prospect for cover, but he didn't have much of a choice. A missile sailed by and collided with the building behind them.

He grabbed a few grenades and threw them with less precision than he'd like, hand shaking a little. This was bad. Had the caravan told him about this outpost and he had forgotten to note it down? The merc really didn't think so, but he wasn't thinking entirely clearly right this second.

The broken window lit up with flames. One had made it in. He took a few pot shots at those of the green men that he could see through the non-boarded up windows, killing one of them, and at least wounding another. It was hard to tell what was going on in there with all the smoke and dancing flames. They must have had some fuel in there.

He crawled over to John, who was breathing raggedly. The entrance wound in the center of his back was small and dark. He hurriedly flipped him over. The vet grasped his arm hard with a cold hand, fear and rage plain on his face.

"Hold on. It's okay." He fumbled his pack off of his free arm, and gently pulled his other one away until Marlowe slowly let go of it and laid back, shivering.

He grabbed his first aid kit, grabbed the worn collar of John's shirt and tore it the rest of the way open, then jammed the last three stimpacks near his collarbone, above where the chest-plate started, without waiting for results. Then he hurriedly poured the purified water can over his hands and did his best to shove everything back roughly where it came from as the vet's belly started closing back up. "That was the last of the ones I made", he said to the vet, who wasn't listening.

They both laid there for a little over ten minutes, until they started to hear voices getting louder and lower in the building and both crawled for a nearby doorway.

After dodging through several buildings and roads. John said contemplatively, "Think I chipped my tooth."

"Let me see." He bared his teeth at MacCready. "Yep."

...

They took a five minute break in a store full of mostly rotted clothing.

"You can take that plate off, the ceramic's garbage now."

John looked down, "Oh.", and took off his coat.

The ceramic thumped to the floor. MacCready consulted the map, "Okay, we just take union street down to --"

"Wait, we're on union?" John looked out the door. "Shit, that's the oyster house. I didn’t even recognize it!"

Rob scowled at his map, he was pretty sure he had made their route more difficult than necessary, damn Vadim and his shitty moonshine. He muttered, "Yeah?" distractedly. He could feel a headache starting to brew, and his mouth was bone dry. They really should have brought more water.

"You would have loved it. They had great Scotch! For that last year they weren't doing that well and they made the hipster bartender dress up like Ben Franklin. He was so fuckin pissed." He saw MacCready's nonplussed face, "You know, because he ate there back in.. never mind."

MacCready went back to tapping the map with his pen, "So, Union Street down to Hanover... Wait, shit... No.."

John finished reorganizing his pack and sniffled for the billionth time. Suddenly, "h.. Hh... hheh-heh" ... "eh.. Ah..." he fanned the air in front of his face, urging the sneeze to either come or go away.

"Then Congress if it's clear on this end, and we'll see from there..." He headed out the door, then turned around, John hadn't moved, thoroughly distracted, chest heaving. "You coming or?"

"Ausch--hehh? --hh...", an unsatisfied sigh and an aggravated sniff. Looked like the sneeze quit halfway through. "Shit" he muttered and followed the merc out the door.

[RandomNumber]

MacCready shot out an upper window of the office building with the weird architecture, then scrambled for the side entrance as Marlowe hucked another grenade in there. They'd be out pretty soon at this rate. Boof!, went the concussion as John leaped onto the gravel roof and MacCready slid across the wet polished stone floor, firing up at the three surprised faces. Piece of cake. They met in the middle.

John looked nonplussed. "I don't think there was anybody else up there."

"I only got the three."

"Well, that was easy.", the vet said suspiciously.

They headed back out, MacCready pausing in the doorway to look at the same carved symbol with the wavy lines and circles that had been in several places in the apartments. "Same guys. Weird, never seen that before." There had been a lot more sleeping bags and dirty matresses than three on the bottom floor though...

They kept ducking through alleys and abandoned buildings as usual, but the mecenary still couldn't shake the feeling of eyes on his back.

And he wasn't wrong. Shots ring out to their right, Rob swiveled and shot the guy in the shoulder. The bandit half dropped his rifle, then tried to recover it, fumbling. MacCready, pretty sure there were more of them, dropped down to take cover behind a hump of refuse, broken concrete and dirt that was mounded in the middle of the broken street, John followed suit.

He rolled sideways out of cover on his belly and took another shot, just center mass to be quick. The guy dropped and he finished him off, then heard something clatter behind him. He scrambled awkwardly on his hands and knees over the the bern. John did not immediately follow him to the other side.

"Hurry up!" he hissed.

Then he heard gasp again, starting to vocalize another incipient half sneeze, "hhh-- ahh--"

"Seriously, get your ass--butt over here!"

The vet shifted slightly after the reprimand but hesitated on the other side of the mound. Robert could hear him still breathing heavily. He gasped dramatically and finally sneezed a cataclysmic, spraying "AUUASHHIIHH--hah--" and MacCready heard him shiver a little frisson of pleasure. A second later a shot ricocheted off a concrete chunk near the vet and he hurriedly rolled over, and let out a sigh of relief.

"Feel better now?"

They both listened for approaching feet. John's face was flushed, eyes bright. He whispered, "More than."

"I can see that. Your nipples are all hard.", he laughed. "You're a fucking idiot though."

John shrugged. "Ass-butt?", he questioned.

[Marshmallow Peep]

Ohmigosh I'm so happy to see a Fallout story here! Thank you for the MacCready goodness the forum always needs :3 And also reminding me I ought to finish my own fo4 story I started a year or so ago ^^;

MacCready is love, MacCready is life <3

[RandomNumber]

It really does!  Please do!  :>

[RandomNumber]

Warning!  No sneezing this part.

 

6 Bandits part 3

A police station up ahead. Of course there were lights on inside, and kenneled dogs howled off in the distance. MacCready heard a walkie talkie go off indistinctly far off to his right. He crept towards the cover of the nearby building. When it went off again he slowly followed the sound of it until it got clearer

"Slow down. What happened?... Right. Holding position. I will confirm to B. Yes, will do." The radio went silent.

She turned into him. She was very young, and pretty with heavy eyeliner and henna. He shot her in the face and she dropped.

John had a limp kid in leathers and a cabbie hat cradled in a sleeper hold. He dropped him to the pavement. MacCready shot him in the head as well. John, "I heard another, but I lost track of him."

MacCready shrugged, what could you do. "Probably didn't hear anything." They kept moving.

...

There was a Slocums right next door to the police station, back door should give them a straight shot into the station. Next door to that was a giant foundation hole. They headed in the door. The Slocums was trashed. The floor creaked and groaned beneath them, and then with a massive snap, a large chunk of the floor tilted and they rapidly slid and tumbled with it onto the wet basement floor.

Chunks of the ceiling rained down on them. Before they could even get up, two bandits peered over the edge. Another that looked like a kid looked questioningly at the older woman. "Leave 'em", she said.

MacCready fumbled his gun out from under himself, eyes on her even though he already could hear the creaking and snapping noise of the mirelurks headed their way. They both ducked out of sight.

Rob jumped to his feet, and whacked the lurk coming up behind him with the butt of his rifle, smashing an antenna. He dodged to the side and swept the room with his eyes. John was just barely getting to his feet, looking a little stunned. "Check your nine!" MacCready yelled before he had to dash to the side of the mirelurk again, wishing dearly that he still had his Ithaca. After a lot of dancing around and close calls with being neatly snipped in half he managed to shove his rifle up in its belly and let fly. It did not have as much effect as he would have hoped so he then circled it, dodging around a pillar as it made a half-hearted attempt to murder him.

He glanced back at Marlowe. John had hopped backwards from the crustacean, he was almost against the wall when it snapped a claw at him. He dove desperately to the side. Rob wasn't sure if he had a cool dive roll planned there. If he did, he failed, and landed awkwardly on his side. It loomed over him and jabbed him in the chest. Rob winced but the scavenged bandit get-up looked like it took most of the blow. The vet braced with his left leg and delivered a solid kick with his right to his mirelurk's underbelly. It tipped backwards.

That shot had slowed his mirelurk down, but it was still going strong. He felt the tiny crawling sensation of mirelurk young trying to climb up and into his pants-leg. One snipped him, drawing a not inconsiderable amount of blood. He yelped, and shook them off, while trying to stay one step ahead of the daddy.

John pushed himself to his feet, "Turtle on his back. In the rain." The merc could hear a snap, then crackly pulpy noises as he wailed it on the underbelly with his powerfist.

Rob stomped on the majority of the hatchlings and managed to get some distance between him and the huge crab.

He glanced briefly over at Marlowe. John's mirelurk had mostly stopped moving. He stood up unsteadily. Their eyes met. John, panting, took a hesitant step towards them on the slippery floor, as MacCready brought up his rifle back up, "You're good. I've got it."

Pop. The mirelurk's right claw came flying off. It closed the distance, little legs waving frantically and he hurriedly took aim at the second claw. He shot it almost all the way off and it dangled briefly before ripping the last bit of shell and meat off with its own weight and clattering to the ground. It stopped walking forward, one working antennae jerking, regarding him sadly with the one eye it had left. He took a point blank shot at its head and it finally fell over.

They both took a second to recover, John leaning against a vending machine, and MacCready wishing for boots without holes, or at least some spare socks. The foundation of the Slocums had crumbled into the pit next door. There was an inch of water on the floor near the opening.

The mercenary peered out into the huge hole. The dented bandit chest-piece clattered to the floor behind him, and a sub-par metal bracer was hucked away as well. Part of the huge pit next door had sunk lower and was effectively a little pond, and he could see another mirelurk resting on a car that had settled in the mud, with egg clutches all around it, probably fifty to a hunred eggs. Right. Done with this.

"Mirelurks good eating?"

"They're ok, usually we'd eat one if you had to kill it."

He coughed, "Sweet. I could go for some lobstah."

"Yeah me too if we had time.."

Rob tried the stairs, which of course fell apart when he got about a third of the way up, good ankle plunging through the boards. The merc extracted himself. His left ankle was now also bloody and twinged when he stood up, but it held his weight. They crept around the edge of the muddy pit, and John boosted him up and over onto the sidewalk. Rob gave him a hand up in turn and the vet struggled up the muddy wall.

They had managed to get out of there without getting completely soaked, but John was shivering in earnest now before the wind even picked up again, MacCready could hear his teeth chattering in front of him.

--

Finally everything was cleared in the station except the basement, which MacCready wasn't thrilled about heading into. He'd prefer to just block it off.

"Might be slaves."

"And what, you going to bring them with us?"

John shrugged at him, eyes clearly saying, 'wouldn't hurt to check', then shot a snot rocket onto the floor.

The mercenary sighed theatrically, "Fine", and finished loading up his spare clips from the bandits bullet stash while Marlowe reclined in the desk chair, feet up on the desk, eyes closed.

Rob's intuition about the basement was right, although not for the reason he had thought. No one alive was holed up in the drunk tank now, but they had kept people down there in the past. There was an image he would see in his dreams tonight.

[RandomNumber]

Finally some payoff  in this one

 

7 Long road ahead

The road out of town actually looked like it was in pretty decent condition, which was too bad, because there was no way in hell they were going to walk directly down it with pissed off bandits behind them.

Down the road was a huge forest that had actually turned colors with the fall a little bit this year, albeit to a sort of a sickly green and yellow. It was kind of pretty anyway. Thankfully there was a little bike path beside the road for a bit. Still had some faint boot and other prints on it from the last rain, quite a collection of them, roughly from the same time period, they were all headed the other direction, hmmmm..

There was even a little stream with a cute bridge at the end and a short hiking path leading up the hill from the back of the bridge. They stopped and washed up. Who knew when the next chance would be. But the wind picked up mid sponge bath and they both decided it wasn't worth it and hurriedly got dressed again. There was a finned mini-van with its body and windshield mostly intact here, and a restroom, but they were way too close to the mall and city for comfort and kept moving.

Picking his way through roots and rocks to get back to the road, it became apparent where all the tracks had been going. There, clear as mud was a deep three-toed print, with its wicked claws. Was it larger than usual, or was it just him? He called the vet over, "John."

"Yum, omelets."

"You hungry or something?"

"Haha, maybe a little bit."

A little further down it became clear there was more than one set of those tracks, they were headed the opposite direction but MacCready and Marlowe pulled out of the woods and headed onto the highway, the ground beside it was too uneven and covered with roots to be worth trying to traverse, as dark as it was outside.

There was a convenience store a little under four miles away, you could see the smoke coming from out back from here.

…

There were three of them, a man, a woman, and a boy, maybe eight. They were all having an argument about something, the man gesturing angrily at the sky with his serrated knife.  MacCready couldn't afford to hesitate, he shot the only one with a weapon in hand. The other two flinched, the boy looking for cover, the woman with an arm flung in front of her face. She had a gun too on her side.. MacCready leveled the gun at her and they stared at each other for a tense minute. "Go!" He said, and they both scattered out of the parking lot, rejoining each other on the road and heading the direction they just came from.

Rob looked around, trying to tell if anyone else was here, but it didn't look like it, he didn't see any other lights, it looked like they had been cooking -- No. This was bad. He walked around the side of the building, staring at the fire and almost walked into the dog. It immediately went crazy and ran at him, he kicked out instinctively but it hit the end of the chain before reaching him. Looked like it had drank some bad water, it was missing over half of its fur. Its mate lay motionlessly on the broken asphalt.

They both surveyed the smoldering remains in the fire, all pretty much bone now.

John said, "I should have brought Dog-meat. He'd love this. Oh, speaking of which..."

...

John wondered out loud if there was anything left in the Red Rocket.

"Probably some stuff they stole anyway. And we can get out of the wind for a minute"

They headed inside. There was a little still set up in here. They helped themselves, mixing it with nuka, which just made the nuka worse, but it brightened their spirits.

MacCready took his last red cup-full and checked the other rooms.

There was a fairly huge first aid box in the staff bathroom. It had an impressive array of supplies. Most of them not particularly helpful, mostly band-aids and various pills, an eye-patch.. "Hah, here you go." Robert grabbed the two stimpacks and tossed a container of nasal spray to John who rolled his eyes then shrugged and peeled the plastic seal open with a dirty fingernail and gave it a go.

There was a little aerosolized puff as he sniffed congestedly then quickly did the other side and blinked, looking like he regretted it. "Nope, nope... -heh- ASCHhnnnn! Whew. -hehh- AUGH-hnex!" He shook his head side to side and blinked, tossing the container in the nearby trash. "Ah! That shit's evil."

MacCready giggled a little and patted his back patronizingly. "How's that man-flu treating you?"

He scoffed, eyes watering, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Whatever. Let's go find somewhere to build a fire and cook these stdeaks up." He lifted the shopping bag.

MacCready eyed it unenthusiastically. "You know, speaking of which, that's the second 'Dogmeat' I've met..."

He shrugged. "I didn't name him. Must be pretty popular. Trust me, it will smell pretty damb good in a few minutes."

"Sure, not that you'll be able to tell."

"You've ate wo--", and his breath faltered again, "heh -heh. -Hah --", he sniffled and rubbed his nose on his damp sleeve cuff, but to no avail, because he soon took another few shaky breaths, "Hhh, heh -- oh god..", and bent half over with a theatrical, "Heeyashhuiii!", dropping the bloody bag.

"Jesus."

"Yeah, that was intense.", he croaked, "That's some evil shit.", and resumed sniffling.

The place was kind of a disaster, shelves turned into barricades, broken glass everywhere. MacCready didn't expect to find anything else useful, but they finished turning the place upside down anyway. Might as well while they were there.

In the tiny automotive section of the store he found an empty antifreeze bottle and wagged it in Marlowe's direction. "These are actually pretty handy- you can-"

John interrupted him, "Can't do that at the farm. ... --heh--"

Oh that's right. Cait had a problem with drugs. Oh well. He tossed it aside and kicked over another shelf. Really stale marshmallows. He heard another wavery breath behind him.

John popped the drawer open on the desk, "bingo."

"Anything interesting?", Rob called over his shoulder.

"Nah. ..hh.. ..hh--heh- hngxt"

"Alright. I'm going to check the cars and take a dump." Give him a minute to sneeze it out.

"Ten-four--", John waved him away, still squinting, lips parted.

Rob took the long way around to the Omni that was parked near the dumpster, he didn't want to pass by the smoldering pit again particularly. Behind him he faintly heard, "HNGxt!" Yeah.. he had definitely caught something, and Rob was probably next.

He took out his crowbar to try to get the trunk open.

It took some finesse. Finally it popped open. The smell was not pleasant. There was a body, mummified in the trunk. Female, on the smaller side.. "God." He closed it again and gave up on the car, and walked for the woods.

About fifteen minutes later he had run out of things to do, no radstag, moleworms, or even signs of them out in the woods.. the van was a complete bust, had musical equipment in it. He headed back inside, John was probably still in here.. as he headed to the office, behind him a screamed "HWAASHH!" So loud it actually made him jump a little. Marlowe straightened, hands cupped over his face. He unabashedly wiped off the snot on his pants, and grabbed his bag. He looked tired.

"Still going? You all right?", he teased. The vet flushed a little.

"Damn spray", he complained.

As they headed out the door for the highway Rob dug around in his bag for his worn out shirt and ripped a chunk of it off. "Here", he handed it to Marlowe.

John didn't even bother arguing, just blew his nose into it, flipping the rag around until all corners were apparently soggy and tossed it into the ditch, tip of his nose bright pink. "Thanks."

Pretty soon there was a sign for a campsite a mile down. It was getting pretty dark out here. They made the turn.

 

 

[RandomNumber]

8 Campsite.  

Lots of sneezing in this one too

DISCLOSURE- I totally nicked the line about "laboriously making his way to a sneeze" from iety's lovely drabble "fever"

 

They were both halfway across the bridge, awkwardly traversing over the wrecked cars and around the gaps. MacCready wasn't scared of heights, but it was a little nerve-wracking. Next time they had to come through here he was taking a different route. From the other side they should be able to climb the toppled crane a short distance and scale down a wall to the road below where the RV park was.

They had been going back and forth about the robot the entire time. He had heard someone call it "Liberty Prime", but wasn't sure if that was the real name or not. John's arguments were punctuated by sniffs that were becoming more and more frequent, and pronounced. MacCready had to admit it might sound a little far-fetched, but it came from a trusted source, he had even seen a (albeit-faded) photo of the thing.

The merc obviously had more of his shirt buried somewhere in his backpack but wasn't in a hurry to go looking for it since his boss was being kind of a dick anyway. He let a slight smile crack his lips and nodded very agreeably in what he thought was probably an infuriating manner.

They both stared up at the semi on its side, trying to figure out how to proceed, neither thrilled about their options. *snn* "I think you're confusing the" sniff "-US military with-" sniffle "Japanese cartoons" sniff! "Hah- don't you grin at me, don't think I am going to be distracted by- - by-- b-- HASCH-ehh", he didn't even have time to say anything else, "-ESCHHhhh heh heh HEEeeee--ASHhnnnn."

"Ok she may have exagerated the bit about it turning into a tank but the rest --"

John made a brief triumphant gesture but his expression was still distracted, aggravated by an unrelenting itch, breath still wavering, nose dripping. He clung to a piece of rebar that jutted up from below, off balance on the uneven surface from the hyperventilating. He looked to Maccready, nose visibly running. "Could I get.."

Maccready stared at him.

Snuff. "Could you..." Sniffl! "Uh-hehh-" His free hand hovered protectively near his face.

"Could I what?" He asked. John had of course left his own dirty shirt on the gift shop floor.

Annoyed, "hehh-Rob!", expression pleading. That along with the actual use of his first name got to him, but he wasn't nearly fast enough to even unshoulder his pack before Marlowe was bent over nearly in half by a violent, "HNNGstt! HEEE-ah--" teeth gritted, actively fighting it now. "HhhH!" The vet grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt and tried to blow the itch out. The frequent ticklish gasps were starting to get the congested sounding wheeze to them that you got with a bad cold. Good thing they were almost to the camp ground, guy was probably looking forward to getting off his feet for a bit.

Maccready, already tearing a piece off the shirt said, "That's really grody, man.."

John ignored him and sneezed into his shirt "hehh Heh aih-- tehizchhh!" He wiped his nose and straightened slowly.

"Want this?", Rob offered the rag.

"Nah I'm -- good now", he said looking anything but relieved, scratching his nose violently on the opposite cuff, if it wasn't bright red before it was now.

He kept sneezing in increments of 5 minutes or so for the rest of the walk down to the campground

A few minutes later..

"Haaahh"

"So you were saying?"

John blinked at him blearily, working his way to probably his fiftieth some odd sneeze today,

"You know when you said you weren't going to get-"

"--HaaAahh--"

"distracted but i don't think you finished telling me what.."

"Haaa-Nn!" Sniff! "..Pics or it heehh - - didn't happen.."

"No, that's the thing, they're bringing it to Boston! They hope to have it at the airport in a month."

"Y--yeah, and I suppose you have a bridge you want to sell me in- HEt-chh!"

"Just ask Danse."

Completely dismissive, "Oh definitely" sniff "first thing."

MacCready growled "You are..." He didn't even bother finishing the sentance, he was just encouraging Marlowe to be irritating.

…

They both sat on the patio of the burger joint, taking a quick breather. MacCready reorganized his bag again so he could actually get to the stimpacks, tools, and ammo. The sign was all but worn away, just white blobs on a pale blue background. Across and down the road a smidge were some road barricades and sandbags.

"I told you they would need a checkpoint for supli-- ah--" He twisted to the side hurriedly but not fast enough, spraying McCready's hand and the edge of the table as he let out an almost screamed, "AUUSCCHHH" He straightened slowly and swallowed gingerly, Ouch, looked like that one hurt. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, eyelashes wet and spiked together. His left knee pressed almost uncomfortably into MacCready's right, but neither bothered to move.

"Well now that everyone knows we're here.." The merc joked.

"I didn't think we were that cl-" He tried to stifle the next one, "Ahh-ASH-Hhnn", swallowed thickly, "close", voice ragged.

"No, we're fine."

"ISH-Hnnn"

...

"Jeez, you sneeze really loud.", he complained after he dispensed the lone ghoul that was still standing guard in its combat armor. Well it had been until John startled it and it started running in a random direction across the field and finally into a ditch. They checked out the tiny checkpoint.

SNIFF! "not usually --"

Rob just looked at him, inclined his eyebrow slightly, 'oh please'.

They heaved the chunk of mortared cinder blocks off the supply chest then both struggled to open it. The latch was open but the lid was heavily dented.

"This is your fault", the vet grumbled.

"What? I didn't get you sick!"

He shook his head, glaring in an accusatory fashion "It's--I'm not--" then without warning let out a spraying, "ha-ISHHnn!", hitting the side of MacCready's face, and was immediately gearing up for the next. " - Heh.. heh.. "

The merc blinked and wiped off his face on his shirt. "That was gross."

Marlowe gave a sniffle that sounded like a milkshake through a straw and shot him a brief apologetic grimace, then tugged out the crowbar from MacCready's bag to reef on the lid.

"It must have really set you off then", he said innocently.

John turned and tried to say something else but his breath caught. He scrubbed at his nose with the back of his hand, hard. "uh.."

"Because this"

"hh-hhh", on the verge, helpless to do anything but stand there in anticipation.

"Is ridiculous."

He sniveled again, mouth trying again to form a clever retort but it just helplessly dropped open again, expression crinkling, "uhh… ..ah.."

Rob just smirked at him as he laboriously made his way to another sneeze, "--UHH--"

He was going to pay for this later. "hhh-- h-"

"UAHHSHIIii!" Clang.

He actually managed to stifle the next one, "ha!--nnngxt--"

Apparently, the vet either felt or had decided that the fit had ended for now. He bent, picked up the crowbar and threw his weight into the chest, avoiding eye contact.

Yep, this would definitely be remembered.

…

Finally stopped for the night, they started making themselves comfortable.

"HA-NNnn-sshiii! .. Never sneezed so much in my damn life..", Marlowe grumbled off to his right.

...Great. MacCready swallowed again, his throat still dry and uncomfortable. When was the last time he had something besides nuka or booze to drink? "I would kill for a drink", he said, emptying his pack on the ground to see if there was any water left. "Come to think of it-- oh hey, there's two left!"

They had a concrete fire-pit and all the garbage and starter fluid they could ask for. Now he just had to find some more wood that wasn't soaked to keep it going.

John tossed the defunct fire-starter. It bounced off the side of the truck.

"I need your lighter." His face was pale except for his nose and almost looked mournful with its teary eyes. MacCready smiled a little and brought it to him. Marlowe's voice was softer than usual when he asked, "Anything in the bed?"

"Nothing flammable."

"Bring that ply from the window."

"Okay."

...

The meat did smell pretty good with the hot sauce on it. Now if they only had salt. Aha, potato chips!

The window of the pickup was smashed, so he checked it for supplies. Nothing interesting in here either really, just another atlas.

John unlocked the other door and slid in. The rain had finally picked up a little, and it gently splattered on the windshield. He already looked perkier with the prospect of rest and relaxation ahead. "You know.. my grandpa had one like this, I think like three years older or something… I wonder if.." He reached up and fished around behind the dash. A small plastic bottle of vodka fell down on the floor. "Hah, no way!" It was half empty, but better than the nothing they had.

MacCready was sucking down his share of the rest of the water, which was a little cold and the most delicious thing he had had in a long while. He was just wondering if he should do something to protect the fire and the meat when the rain stopped again. He grabbed an abandoned camp chair with a broken arm, and John lounged a chair from near the pool.

He half sat up, sneezing uncovered at the ground. "ESJCH-AH!hn"

He was still sneezing every few minutes and starting to look fairly annoyed at his predicament "HHNNNGSXT!" Head immediately rearing back for another slow cresting, "oh.... ..hah-RAAAHSH", accompanied by a little moue of disgust "Ugh..." He brushed tears out of his eyes with a knuckle and sniffled wetly.

Rob was already ripping him a more generous portion of his shirt, which he blew his nose into noisily and pocketed this time.

"You know Fallons' Basement has handkerchiefs.."

John poked at the fire, flipping a log over so its red embers could finish cooking their dinner.

"Bet she'd even monogram it for you"

He was being pointedly ignored. Off his game, this was way too easy.

"You could use it as a pocket square with those suits we found at the real Fallons..", he ventured again helpfully.

The vet made a noise of derision, looking at him, distaste clear on his face.

He laughed, "What?"

"Handkerchiefs.. They're so gross. Just carry this rag of your dried up snot around and keep reusing it..."

MacCready giggled at him. "Seriously? That's where you draw the line? Grosser than that sleeve of yours?"

The vet threw his empty water can at him.

They sat for a few minutes, enjoying the rest and quiet. John leaned back again, half asleep.

"Hey, looks like you finally stopped. I thought I was going to have jump out at you while you were peeing or something. "

John grumbled at this but looked amused, cracking an eye at him. "Hnn.. Don't jinx it. Make me laugh and I'll probably start again."

"You know, it's weird.. that's how an old gypsy woman told me I was going to die? Hiccup, sneeze and fart at the same time?"

"Maybe you have less time than you thought", the vet muttered with his eyes shut.

"What, finally admitting you're sick?"

He thought John said something like, "stars are right.." He might drop off before the meat was edible, breaths slowing and even, lips parted, head pillowed on his arm.

MacCready was just getting ready to impatiently flip the thick cuts of meat again. He was regretting not cutting it up before -- they'd be eating by now -- when he heard something heavy moving in the woods to their right.

He hopped to his feet in an instant, completely awake. He shook John by the shoulders and grabbed his wrist and pulled frantically. The vet got to his feet stiffly, looked at him.

MacCready gestured to the meat, then the office building. The door was around the other side, windows were all boarded up so there wasn't a ton of visibility on this side. On the other side most of the wall was crumbled away however.

They reluctantly crept out of sight, quickening the pace when they heard heavy crackling of dead vegetation and the woosh of a small tree falling over.

It was really dark in here, but John didn't turn on his Pip-Boy, which was probably best. They could hear it moving around on the other side of the building. There was metallic creaking and groaning as it investigated the truck. Still looking for them over eating..

Rob moved closer to the vet and whispered, "Definitely a deathclaw." He had been around when they had been killed before, but always at a distance and with a large group.

"Never seen one."

"You don't want to. At least not without a fat boy or something."

"You killed one then?"

"Kind of.." Not really at all.. "What the hell was that?"

"What?"

He elbowed the vet to shut up. There it was again, a deep chittering noise just outside the open end of the building. He looked to John for confirmation. He nodded slowly.

There was a heavy thump as something ran into what little remained of the wall on the open side. Pieces of tile and a few aluminum supports as well rained down on them. And what was probably termites. He suppressed a yelp of disgust. The deathclaw pulled back from the building and its structure gave a protesting shake. It sounded like was moving in their direction.

John unshouldered his bag and shook it at him, "grenades do?" He nodded, then whispered, "Yeah" when he realized John probably couldn't see him. The vet was only a dark silhouette off to his left. They didn't want to be trapped in here, they would be eaten alive. He had an unpleasant flash-back to the Red Rocket.

They both split and ran different directions for the treeline. The ground actually shook beneath him as he went. There was a loud crunch and thump as the deathclaw knocked something large over.

There was still a lizard near the fire-pit, although it was not eating yet, maybe they don't like spice. He was running right at it.

He tried to dodge around the side of it, but it easily intercepted him. It hit him in the solar plexus. One of the claws hooked him as it slapped him to the ground with its huge hand, a bright point of pain under a rib.

He hit the ground hard. His head hit something even harder and he saw stars. Against every screaming instinct he played dead. Although he was not capable of much in this moment anyway, vision hazy, unable to breathe, although that will pass soon. He just had to stay calm...

He can hear John far off screaming, "Hey!, hey!! Asshole!!"

He felt the ground shudder under him as it took off. He heard one explosion, then a string of five or six more, very close together, shrapnel rained nearby but none hit him. The deathclaw let out a low growl of pain or maybe just anger.

His walkie went off. John, urgently, "You up?"

He was still struggling to breathe, but brushed a hand across his chest, found himself not bleeding horribly and managed a strangled, "Yes, go!" The merc hurled himself to his feet, took an extreme left and started running for the woods again in a somewhat drunken fashion. "Fuck, fuck fuck." He chanted, promise to Duncan briefly forgotten as he went, head bleeding profusely and dripping into his eye.

The deathclaw was sort of crouched over but still upright ahead and off to the right near the edge of the grounds.

He ran pell mell, not caring the exact direction at this point, just trying to stay upright and not run into a tree. It was so dark in the woods.. Behind him he could hear something very close crashing through the trees. It sounded even larger than the lizard at the fire-pit, if that was possible. He thought maybe he could hear some movement in front of him as well, but couldn't worry enough about that to slow down, just kept moving through the path in the vegetation that had either been cut by animals or people. He had caught up to the vet, who limped and was not quite as fast as him.

They ran silently in the dark for an interminable amount of time, Rob kept feeling like he couldn't keep going, chest burning, body screaming at him to stop and just lay down on the ground for a while. The sounds behind him helped him keep the pace up. But still he got got slower and slower, gait uneven, legs shaky, head cloudy.. He couldn't keep this up.. he was going to pass out, vision tunneling...

They approached a large rock formation that interrupted the faint trail they had been trying to follow, It jutted up from the ground in rounded points, splitting apart from water freezing over the years, they looked in the dark like giants fingernails sticking up from the ground.

Once the formation was between them and it, he slowed to what was barely a jog, letting Marlowe pull ahead. He just needed to sit down for a minute. But apparently he wasn't the only one that was feeling a little out of shape right now because Marlowe didn't get very far ahead before he slowed and stopped, bent over, hands on knees catching his breath, just a shadow down the path.

Rob leaned back against the stone, it was uncomfortable through his thin jacket, jagged and cold. He licked his lips and swallowed, stomach rolling. Good thing there was nothing in it. He really wanted to lay down, but didn't think he'd be able to get back up. John turned on his Pip-Boy came and found MacCready and leaned half-sitting on one of the rocks near him.

They rested in silence punctuated by raspy coughs that the vet tried to muffle into his sleeve. MacCready couldn't hear her any more over the wind, but probably would be able to any second, she couldn't be that far behind. She must be able to hear him, probably even to smell them. He wondered if there were eggs near the campsite.

After they'd had a couple minutes to catch their breath John looked him over academically in his light's green glow, hand hovering over but not touching the bloody side of Rob's head and dismissively pronounced his head wound, "No big deal, they always bleed like that.", his voice was hoarse and faint from screaming.

MacCready tried to glare at the vet but wasn't sure which one of him to look at. His vice-like headache, and nausea disagreed with that diagnosis. He was going to be useless when she found them again. He gently touched the side of his head and gasped a little at the pain. Didn't feel right, skull might be broken. So dizzy. "Yeah, no shit."

"You got a stimpack at the gas station, didn't you?" John asked, and gently pulled Rob away from the boulder by his arm so he could go through his bag. The merc stumbled a little, but Marlowe grabbed and held onto his upper arm again, steadying him. The vet jabbed him in the shoulder through his shirt, then tugged him onward. "C'mon."

His vision slowly cleared as he stumbled forward, Marlowe's hand uncomfortably tight around his wrist. The rush of endorphins from the stimpack actually helped him start jogging again. That good feeling probably wasn't a good sign. How many of those had he used in the last few days? Was probably due a nasty rebound as this one wore off. They moved past the outcropping in the dim green glow of the Pip-Boy and not a second too soon, because they both soon heard a high, but somehow inhuman scream reverberate in the outcropping behind them. "Never heard one do that before", he muttered, even more nervous than before. They broke apart and sped up.

About ten minutes later, MacCready wasn't sure where the path was anymore and realized it was getting dimmer. Marlowe had fallen behind and his jog was becoming a walk. His left arm was clasped to his side and he was panting hard. He stopped, leaning on a tree and coughed raggedly, gasping for air in between, head down, hair hanging in his face.

MacCready looked around nervously, wishing his flashlight hadn't broken. Realizing that John wasn't going to start moving again on his own any time soon he slowly walked back to him. He tugged on Marlowe's arm, not entirely gently. "We've got to keep moving.", he said insistently.

The vet's wet cough turned into a gag and he shoved MacCready away. He hocked a loogie into a nearby bush. His eyes flickered briefly to MacCready's blood crusted temple and away. Still gasping for breath, voice low, "Probably okay to stop if there's somewhere good to.."

Faintly but clear enough there was the sound of a small tree crashing over somewhere behind them.

"John!"

"Dammit." He started going again, this time at a fast walk. MacCready flicked the safety off on his rifle and kept it in hand but resisted the urge to go faster, stayed in step. The vault-dweller was dead on his feet, stumbling on the underbrush, and the last of the merc's own adrenaline had been wrung out of him in the last run. He could feel the vice-like pain returning, he needed to pace himself.

[SterlingSilver]

I know I'm quite late, but I wanted to drop in and say just how much I enjoyed this! The dialogue and characterization is really on point; I really believe these people, and the way you're writing them. The way they both react to John's cold is also really charming~ I love that it's no big production. It adds to the realism for me >w<. Wonderful writing!