And She Continued Pt 1

Cat Scratch Fever

"Jesus." The word was empty. Breathless.

I stood over the radscorpion, knife wedged hilt-deep in a plate of exoskeleton. With a grunt I popped it off, slicing the meat underneath it.

"Afraid of getting your hands dirty, Mayor?" I teased.

Hancock grinned wickedly, "I've dressed up my fair share of game." Awe replaced his tone as he plunged his knife into his own kill, "Never seen someone get a scorpion in just a couple blows like that before."

I wiped the sweat off my brow before it froze. Winter had finally arrived in full force, I'd convinced Handcock to hole up in Sanctuary with me for about a week before he went stir crazy. Said he'd left Goodneighbor to be out on the road, not to trade one town (a town he liked better) for another. Now we were God-knows-where taking shelter in an abandoned shitty lean-to. I felt like that kind of living suited us both better. I went to work on removing the poison pouch located just within the tail.

"What you saving that for?" Hancock grunted.

"Stay in your own lane." I complained, joking. "No, it's great for building with. And making chems."

"You make chems?" I could hear the doubt in his voice.

"Yes I do. Jack of all trades you know. I do a bit of it all. Welding, carpentry, lock-picking, so on." I wrapped the sack in cloth, gently placing it in my bag.

Hancock plopped his pile of raw meat down with mine, "Ready?"

I looked up, wiping my hands off in the snow. I nodded.

We sat by a fire in our small hut. The heat made the holey cabin cozy enough to lose our winter gear. The smell of roasting radscorpion, carrots, tatos and corn was mouthwatering. Hancock popped a mentat into his mouth, his eyes closed as the chems hit his system. I listened to the howl of the wind and snow outside.

"So tell me sister," He rested his head back on his hands, "how did you get so good at everything?"

"Being out here in the wastelands. I," I cleared my throat, ducking my head, "I was a lawyer before this."

He raised an eyebrow, "A lawyer?"

"Kind of like-"

"I know what a lawyer is. I read, unlike most of these commonwealth folk." He sat back up, "I'm just surprised that you were one." He shook his head, "Another lifetime I guess."

I nodded, not responding.

"I used to be very handsome." He paused for a moment, I watched as his dagger danced over his knuckles. "You can see that in Fahrenheit. She got my good looks. She's smarter than me too." He shook his head, "The things you take advantage of when you have them."

I frowned, poking the fire. "But I heard about your... "tours"...?"

He looked startled, then laughed. Full belly, shoulder shaking laugh. "Oh, oh man! Sorry. Sorry, I'm good. It was a long time ago. I was really, really drunk. Kind of high. Some dame with a Ghoul kink hit me up. I told her I'd give her a "tour of the town". It stuck. Somehow that one woman turned into ten, turned into twenty, turned into every female that came in and out of Goodneighbor.

"Don't get me wrong, I am not against having sex just for fun. But... well, the options are far more limited now that I am the way I am. Not a lot of people want to get down and dirty with someone who looks like me. It's part of the deal... I guess I knew what I was doing when I took that drug though. I knew I'd be a ghoul, I knew I wouldn't be a pretty-boy smooth skin anymore. I knew women wouldn't want me like they used to." He rubbed his jaw where stubble would have been, "I deserve this though. I let all those people in Goodneighbor die. I didn't want to see the man I was in the mirror."