Spare Me | Fallout 4 John Hancock x FSS

My Valentine

This is really it for me? After everything; after all that I've been through, this is how I die? I had the library almost entirely wiped. It turned out there weren't just Supers in here. There was a swarm of pre-war shelving bots and machine gun turrets ready to defend the library from anything that didn't look like a patron or a librarian. Which, unfortunately, I looked like neither. The bots were fairly easy to take down. A single shotgun blast and most of them were out for the count. Looking back, I definitely shouldn't have underestimated the Supermutants, and this inlays my current predicament.

I ran far enough from the mutants to give myself a Stimpack, but that wasn't going to do me much good. I was outnumbered 5 to 1 with a scattershot to the chest. Every minute I got was borrowed time and I knew it. All I could do now is shoot a Med-X, huff a Jet and hope whatever limb they ripped from me killed me instantaneously. I did exactly that, looking up at the ceiling and hoping this wasn't all just a loop, slowly repeating itself as my own personal hellscape.

I was unsure if it was the Jet or the Med-X causing the hallucinations, but I'm glad the last thing I heard was Nicky's voice calling for me. If I had nothing else in this world, I knew I had Nick. There isn't much room for 'friends' in the Capital Wasteland, but Nick was. Valentine never had to do anything for me, and yet, he helped me take down the biggest bad in the Commonwealth.

I could feel my wounds take over, and the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes for good was Nicky's rough, beaten face. It was covered in blood and gore, but who could really choose their dying hallucination? At least I got to see him before it all faded to black.

Much to my dismay, I awoke the next morning. I found myself in Ellie Perkin's bed, really hoping this was Heaven. If you were in Heaven, you'd be in Hanc- I cut my own thought off, shaking it out of my head. I let out a groan of pain and sat up, only to be met with glowing yellow eyes a second later.

"Doll, you're awake!" Nick sounded so excited, excited enough for the both of us. Which was probably good considering my absolute disappointment at my current level of living.

"Do I have to be?" Nick frowned. As much as he could, anyway.

"What's goin' on with you, lately?" He sat back in the chair he was evidently 'sleeping' in. "You charged into a building full of Supermutants. And for what?"

I chuckled, "For death, Nicky. What else?"

"You joke, but I have to wonder how true those words are. Talk to me, Doll."

I laid back down with a sigh. Where would I even start? In that moment, I'd lost everything. I had nothing left to keep me going other than the adrenaline of maybe making it out of a mutant-infested library. Then it dawned on me, "Nick," he hummed a response and I grabbed a Stimpack off the nightstand and plunged it into my shoulder. "How the fuck did you know I was in that library?" I turned my head to look at him, brows furrowed.

"I, uh..." He trailed off, seeming to carefully form the next sentence. He sighed dejectedly, hanging his head for a moment before looking back into my eyes. "I got word from Goodneighbor that you were on your way here." I rolled my eyes as he continued, "After waiting an extra hour, I decided you probably shouldn't be left to your own devices out in the city ruins." He raised an eyebrow at me and chuckled, "Which, evidently, I was correct."

"So Hancock decided to check up on me, huh?" I shook my head with a scowl.

"Jo, what happened?" the robot seemed genuinely concerned. That just aggravated me more.

"Apparently, I ran over his fucking dog, Nicky."

"Whoa, hey, now," he raised his hands in defense, "I just wanna make sure you're okay."

"I'm not, Nick. I raised a monster and then I killed him."

"You didn't kill him, Dollface. You just-"

I cut him off, near yelling at this point, "I just blew up his psychotic, pristine little bunker." I scoffed, a jaded laugh tickling my throat, "Which I would've done whether or not he was already dead. And you know that as well as I do, Nick! We talked about it before I ever brought it to the Brotherhood!" Nick just sat there, staring at me. That irked me more. "Well?" I shouted.

He thought for a moment, processing everything I'd said. Tears burned hte back of my throat, threatening to make an appearance. "Well," Nick started, "Shaun had to be stopped. And you know you didn't raise a monster."

"I gave him the genes."

"And the Institute poisoned his mind since he was an infant. Taught him murder is justified for some fucked up grand scheme." Nick leaned forward and grabbed my hand. That was the tipping point, tears sprung to my eyes and I looked away. "You said we talked about this, we did. We also talked about how this isn't, and never was, your fault. There was nothing you could've done better and you know that."

"If I had just gotten out of cryo earlier," my tears choked the rest of my argument.

Nick laughed. He was always good at laughing when I couldn't. "And how were you expecting to do that, Doll? Will and earlier containment breach?" I let out a chuckle and nodded.

"You know, with my m-mind powers, Nicky. My t-t-telekinesis." It would've been embarrassing to sob so heavily around anyone else, but not Nick. I loved Nick like family; better, easier than loving family, actually. Nick was patient with me; kind, loving and patient. I always got the hint that Nick had some kind of a thing for me, but I never pushed it and neither did he. Despite what he seemed to desire, he seemed more interested in our relationship the way it was. And I appreciated that more than anything. He was all I had left, and I couldn't allow that to be ruined by romance or sex. As hot as robot sex may or may not be, I thought. "I don't know how you deal with me, sometimes. I love you, Nicky," I said with a light-hearted chuckle.

"You know I love you, too, Doll."