* Cooper and Y/N *
Cooper Howard has wondered the Mojave wasteland for over 200 years becoming as wild and hardened as the land itself... He never expected regain his humanity when he meets Y/N or to feel the softness and warmth of skin under his f...
Cooper has to walk further and further every time. He had an arrangement a few decades ago with a trader at an outpost who would bring him chems in return for vinyl discs of music... it was odd, now people what people treasure. He had quite the stash when he found out that his trader had died on the route one day.
His search now takes him further and further out into the wilds of the Mojave. It requires skills and ingredients to make the concoction that keeps him from returning to a feral state. He swore he would never, ever turn into one a feral ghoul.
He would rather die.
The outposts and settlements were wary of ghouls. His kind were unpredictable and usually ended up taking cheaper or easier-to-manufacture homemade chemicals, which left them teetering between humanity and their feral nature. He would rather walk for years to get the chems he needed than roll the dice with the shit that he got offered by the tweakers and chancers on the road.
He walked for what felt like days until he happened upon a settlement. Trading bottle caps for deviled eggs and mash, the townspeople were wary and kept their distance as usual, but they couldn't turn down trade.
Even though he wasn't feral his form, his visage was a reminder for all humans who saw him of what could be, if there were exposed to radiation without precaution or medication. He was the option they didn't want.
He overheard two cooks at a fire discussing a doctor that was coming to town in the next week.
Fuck, he couldn't wait that long.
Tossing down a small bag of caps by their feet, they both froze with knives halfway through radroach flesh and slowly turned to look at him. One of the cooks reached into his jacket.
"Well, calm the fuck down and allow me to introduce myself. Get to know a ghoul before you shoot him, or have we lost all fucking decency in these parts?" Cooper snarled as he kicked the bag of caps towards them.
"What do you want, fleshheap?" the first cook spat.
"Your doctor... do y'all happen to know the direction he's coming from?" Cooper kept an eye on the second cook who had a hand frozen over a weapon.
"Need your fix, you irradiated fucking bag of bones?" the weapon-holding cook growled.
"I'll only turn feral on you fuckers if you don't start answering my questions."
The two cooks looked at each other for a few seconds...
"Hang on," Cooper started, running his hand over his face and clacking his teeth. "I can feel it coming, boys... quickly now, 'fore I can't control it anymore..." Cooper started jerking uncontrollably...
"WEST!" they both shouted in unison as they backed away from the fire.
Cooper stood up straight, tipped his hat, and kicked the sack of caps towards the retreating men.
"Thank you kindly," he said in a sarcastic tone, bending into a false bow before them both.
Walking past the blacksmiths, he picked up some armored clothing. As he slung his saddlebag over his shoulder, a hand reached out and touched his arm. A woman with dirty brown hair and brown eyes looked at him... she was wearing next to nothing. A spark of something that could be beautiful but dull.
"I can make you feel like a man again, ghoul," the words slithered out of her mouth through broken and missing teeth... she was clearly a junkie. Her hand reached up to his face. She was here for the same person as him but for different reasons.
Cooper gripped her wrist and pushed her back.
"Baby, I'm pure as the driven snow and as innocent as a kitten."
She looked confused. She wouldn't know what fucking snow or kittens are. He sure as hell wasn't putting his dick into a chem-infested pussy.
He looked up at the setting sun and headed towards the arc of the flaming ball and into the dusk.
Two days later...
Cooper managed to track the doctor down after a day's walk at a nearby camp. He bought up every last vial. It cost him every cap he had, plus the pipe gun. The stash would keep him going for months. The best trade he had done was for the horse the doctor was riding.
A day and night of riding back to the manor, Cooper tethered the horse to the fence and strode towards the house.
He got to within 15 feet of the door.
Open.
"Fuck," he growled.
There was nothing stopping him from just moving on. Taking the horse and riding back where he came from. But routine forced him closer to the door. His shitty sanctuary.
Cooper pulled in complete silence, his two 10mm pistols out, and closed the distance to the door. He knew as soon as he stepped on the wooden boards, the creaking and bowing of the brittle wood would give him away. He moved stealthily around the side of the house. Looking through the windows in the gloom, he narrowed his eyes to find movement...
Raiders, a rogue radiated bear, or an unlucky group of wanderers. It didn't matter; he would kill anything that moved.
Pacing around the house, Cooper sees movement. A dog. A fucking dog. In his house. The dog spots him at the same time and growls. The growl turns into a snarl, and the snarl erupts into a bark. The German Shepherd motherfucker will alert whoever is inside to his presence.
Cooper swiftly moves out of sight from the window.
"A good old-fashioned shootout," he whispers, with a smirk on his face. "Yehaw"
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The dog is still barking as Cooper makes his way to the back porch. This time, he won't worry about the noise.
Cooper lifts a spur-laden boot and kicks the door clear off its brittle hinges, glass and wood splintering into the kitchen like a bomb had exploded. Glass falls like rain on the wooden floor.
"Knock knock!" Cooper yells through the falling debris as he explodes through the door, both pistols drawn and pointing directly at the inhabitant.
A woman, a lone woman, slack-jawed with a rusty spoon in one hand and a can of beans in the other, stares blankly up at him from the kitchen table.
She has large bright eyes, shiny hair, and pale luminous skin peeking out from a blue... Is that a fucking vault jumpsuit?
"Who's there?" she responds brightly.
Cooper stands in the door, frozen by the scene in front of him, bathed in the stars of the midnight ranges behind him.
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