Archive of Our Own

“Well, all that matters to me is that you shoot that fuckin’ rope.”

“Well, I did, didn't I?” 

Cooper walked away. But he had seen the look on her face. Eyebrows knit in wobbly self-assurance, weakened further by those big, brown, wet eyes. She was feelin’ mighty sorry for herself.

Or, feelin’ sorry for not feelin’ sorry. 

Either way, Lucy was in the thick of it. Cooper did not want to be around to listen to her audibly process it all. 

He was nearly out of earshot—not out of earshot, never out of earshot; things could change on a dime, and he needed to be close—when she spoke up. It floated past his ear on hot wind, gritty with sand. 

“The golden rule.” 

It stung like a slap, pushing the grit into the soft parts that were left. 

If he was about to be on the receiving end of a lecture after that little stunt back there…

He and Dogmeat would be a hell of a lot faster on their own; that was for certain. 

Still, Cooper stopped. He couldn’t say why, but his legs weren’t about to let him walk away. Part of him would always answer to Vault-Tec’s whistle. But he kept his back to her. He was a damn food, but he still had his pride. 

“I said—” 

“I heard you,” he replied. “I'm ugly, not deaf.” 

Her footsteps quickly approached. Determined and short. Cooper’s teeth ground together, the sound reverberating between his ears. 

“I let them hurt you.” 

She’d managed to soften that edge that had crept in earlier. Smart. 

Cooper felt her eyes on his neck, regardless if the mark she was looking for had already faded. 

“I'm aware.” 

“You might also be aware that I enjoyed it, just a little.” 

He turned on his heels. Lucy stood right in front of him. There was remorse in her eyes, sure, but not enough to make him think she wouldn't pull the same shit again. 

“‘Course you did, little killer.” 

Lucy shifted, mustering up the decency to look ashamed at his lack of surprise. 

“But I worry that might affect our partnership.” She adjusted the straps of her pack and centred herself, her feet firmly shoulder-width apart. “So, I think we have to figure out a way to get back on even ground.” 

Cooper let out a long, exhausted breath. 

“Just shoot the goddamn rope a little faster next time, that's all I'm askin’.” 

She shook her head vehemently. “Oh, we're not using that plan again. No, thank you.” 

“Then I guess I’m just gunna ‘ave to get over it, ain’t I, darlin’?” 

He started to turn around, certain she’d be satisfied with her little half-apology (‘Admitting you made an error is the first step in correcting it.’ Fuck, he could anticipate her little vault-isms now.), when she stopped him dead in his tracks. 

“Choke me.” 

Cooper turned slowly back to face her, certain he’d misheard. “Pardon?” 

“You’re not deaf,” Lucy said. 

She didn’t call him ugly. 

“And what good would that do?” 

“We’d be even. We could move forward on equal footing.” 

“I already used you as bait once, remember? Consider us all squared up, doll.”  

“We weren’t…on friendly terms then,” shrugged Lucy. “This feels different.” 

It felt like something, all right. 

“We’re even,” he muttered.

Lucy looked up at him. “Does it feel like we are?” 

Cooper paused. Thought about it. 

Remembered the last name she shared. And how it felt like pain and regret and hope every single time he looked at her. 

“Not even close.” 

Lucy smiled. Maybe from finding something they could agree on. 

Probably because he had played right into her hand again. 

“Right here suit yer fancy then?” Cooper asked, lurching forward just to watch Lucy stumble backwards. He chuckled as she righted herself. 

“I—I think there should be some rules put in place.”

“How civilized.” 

“Excuse me for not wanting someone to come across my strangled corpse.” 

Like he’d leave her, wastin’ perfectly sweet meat like that. 

“Best spit ‘em out, then.”

Lucy scowled at him. 

“I don't want to be surprised when it happens. Maybe there could be a countdown” 

Cooper hacked a wad of phlegm into the sand. Lucy looked down at the dark patch and continued like that had been an appropriate answer.

“Don't let me pass out. I shot you down before you lost consciousness.” She tilted her head. “We could use a code word?”

“Huh,” Cooper chewed on the idea, a rueful smile appearing. “We could. Let’s get on with it and see how that works out for you.”

Lucy stiffened.  

To her credit, she didn't try to defend herself. Like she said, she’d enjoyed it.

Had he enjoyed it? Having his life so wholly in another person’s hands? 

Decidedly not.

He'd dropped to the bottom of the empty pool. Oxygen flooded his lungs and brain. His vision returned, though patchy and hazy. Then his body gave him back his anger.

Screaming, twisting, blinding anger. It coursed through his veins, cradled in the centre of every red blood cell. Cooper could feel it working faster than the oxygen. 

He'd kill every matching-jacket sonofabitch with his bare hands. Then he'd be up in that piss-poor excuse for a sniper tower. 

Would it help if I said ‘please’? 

No, it fuckin’ wouldn’t. He’d dare her to try. 

Coughing and ready to spit fire, Cooper rolled under the door of a long-warm fridge. In the brief second of respite, a single thought pushed through the red fog with the precision of a bullet.

That's three times now. 

Three times Lucy MacLean had the power to kill him. 

They'd never really be even. (There was the pain.) 

Because he was still a fucking amateur who put himself in these situations. (There was the regret.) 

But… Three times he had survived. (And there was the hope.)

And like it did every time, the hope suffocated the tallest flames. The smaller ones stayed put. Licking at his boots and singeing the ends of his duster. They followed every footstep he took. 

Enjoyed? No. 

Needed the reminder that, at the end of the day, he’d be swinging there alone? Yes. 

“No code word then,” Lucy said.  

Cooper nodded. “Anything else?” 

She considered this. 

“Try not to have too much fun.” 

He cocked a brow bone. “Just a little?”

“Just a little.”

“Should we go back and get the barbed wire?” asked Cooper, stepping forward again, “’cause that felt like a real important part of the process.” 

He was close enough to watch her pupils grow wide, darting from side to side as she thought of a diplomatic reason to shoot down the idea. 

Cooper smirked. “Forget about it, vaultie.” 

She visibly relaxed. 

He leaned in closer until his breath batted at the wispy ends of her bangs. 

“I can still make it hurt.” 

Colour leached from Lucy’s face. 

He reached out to stroke the column of her throat with the rough pads of his gloved fingers. Beneath the thin skin, Cooper could feel Lucy swallow, though he was sure her mouth had never felt drier. 

“N-no surprises,” she managed. 

“I ain’t countin’ yet.” 

A flush was creeping down from her cheeks, following the line of his touch. Faint reds and pinks, painting a dangerously pretty picture. 

It'd be made even more beautiful by the stark relief of his hand.

With one last look, Cooper tore himself away from Lucy and turned to walk away.

“Wait, what?” he heard.

Hurried little steps approached him. 

“Not here,” he answered, marching steadily on.

“Are you kidding me?” 

“You didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout any timeline.” 

“Oh, for Pete’s sake—it was implied!” 

Cooper stretched out an arm, gesturing to the wide expanse of desert around them. Nothing as far as the eye could see. That included cover. 

“I ain’t turning my back to the wasteland for that long.” He shot a quick glance over his shoulder. “Because, darlin’, I’ll be takin’ my time.”  

“So, when then?” 

There was a tremor in her words, audible below the annoyance. The flush would be more than faint warm tones now. Deep red would be snaking down her neck, peppering her collarbones. Fear? Indignation? It coloured her the same.  

“Dunno, depends on what we find.” 

Lucy stayed quiet. Shame, he ached to hear the warble in her voice as she tried to go back on the path she laid out.  

The vaultie didn’t know it, but they wouldn’t be walking for long. If the Khans were good for one thing, it was being predictable. They’d gotten hold of Novac, meaning they’d have an outpost nearby. Somewhere they could pass their bottom-barrel chems off to middlemen before they were bought up by neighbouring raiders. Or him, if he couldn’t find something better. 

It wasn’t too often he was after jet likely cut with glass dust, but hey, a fella got desperate. 

While his eyes scanned the edges of the mountain peaks, Lucy followed close behind. It was like having her leashed again. Without touching her, Cooper’s hands were around her neck. 

Fuck jet, that was a rush. 

How long could he make her walk for? Would she notice if they turned from the glow of the Strip entirely?  

Did it feel like the noose was tightening? If it did, Cooper hoped she knew she was the one who had tied the knot. 

Choke me. 

Goddamn fool. 

Light glinted off something in the distance.

That was the other thing about the Great Khans: they marked their territory. Midway along a cliffside to their left, Cooper spotted the outstretched arms of one of their effigies. Nothing more than a repurposed pole with a poorly cleaned skull on it, but six of one, half a dozen of the other. 

It was the bright, shining beacon of the chem-addicted everywhere. Saliva flooded Cooper’s mouth. He tamped down the craving with a puff from his inhaler. 

Without letting Lucy in on their endpoint, Cooper veered sharply onto a small, hidden trail. The three of them picked their way up the steep incline, trying to avoid loose rocks and the prickly leaves of agave fruit.

Dogmeat picked up the scent of unwashed leather and ran ahead, though Cooper already knew the post was between drop-offs.

Alright, he was a little more than an infrequent customer. The only reliable thing in this whole damn desert was the knowledge of when the pockets of Fiends, Vipers, or, God forbid, Scorpions would be flush with product. 

When the dog likewise declared it empty, she gave a proud little bark. Behind Cooper, Lucy sighed, her legs no doubt kicking up a fuss after the uneven terrain. 

The outpost was little more than a flat rock shelf with a few crates not worth dragging back and forth, arranged loosely around a forgotten campfire.  

Cooper searched the crates—just to be sure—chasing the smell of turbo clinging to the dented metal. 

From the corner of his eye, Cooper watched Lucy convince herself he had forgotten her and her bright idea. Relief sloped her shoulders, and her breathing steadied, the downturned corners of her mouth softening. 

Too bad she was dead wrong. 

He counted the beats between her slowing blinks. When the time her eyes spent closed outweighed the time they spent open, Cooper smashed an empty bottle of day tripper against the dirt. Lucy nearly screamed, her eyes snapping open. 

He crunched a defective inhaler under the heel of his boot. 

Lucy curled in on herself. 

Mindless vandalism wasn’t really Cooper’s style (not since the early days of the divorce, but Barb left damned near everything when she moved out—her mistake), but like hell he was going to stop. 

Not when it had Lucy dancing around the edge of camp like that. The poor girl knew no peace. And just when she thought she had—smash! It was something to watch, all right. 

When he moved closer to grab for more ammunition, she would subtly shift beyond arm's reach. He’d open his mouth—to cough, maybe yawn—and she'd hold her breath to better hear the inevitable countdown. 

Cooper could have danced like that for hours. 

He licked at whatever he had just run his finger through (vodka?) and surveyed his handiwork. 

Glass, bent metal, and twisted plastic littered the ground. Lucy looked around. Both asking themselves if there were any other distractions. 

Or if the time had come. 

There sure wasn’t anything else to break. 

But his dance card wasn’t filled yet. He kicked a dented syringe and sent it tumbling. That, apparently, was Lucy’s limit.

“What are you doing now?” she demanded. 

“Cleanin’ up,” came Cooper’s response as a large piece of glass went sailing over the edge. 

“I’ve watched you litter more times than I’ve watched you eat.” 

“Maybe I’m tryin’ somethin’ new. Some of that self-improvement yer always goin’ on about.” 

“Cut the bullcrap,” fumed Lucy, “you’re just wasting time!”

Cooper shrugged. That wasn’t the answer she was looking for. 

“I am so sick of waiting!” 

“Ain’t this still your plan?” he asked. 

“Hardly!” Lucy scoffed. “This is all…fudged!” 

“You didn’t seem thrilled with my plan either, Miss MacLean. Startin’ to think you’ll never be satisfied.” 

He turned his back to her again. Though he was facing the sun, the real heat was behind him. Lucy smouldered, rooted to the spot. The toe of his boot connected with a lid when he heard that crackling, furious voice.

“Well, your plan was…stupid.” 

Cooper smirked. They always tried to take things back into their own hands, in the end. 

“That so?”

“Yeah.” 

Cooper turned. She was still rooted to the spot, but her confidence waned now that they were face-to-face. 

“Wh-why can’t you think of something different—why does it always come down to using someone as bait?”

Little Lucy hadn’t thought her plan through.  

“Do you really want me angry with my hands ‘round your neck?” he asked. 

Lucy laughed, a hollow and desperate sound. “I’d rather get it over with! Anything’s better than dragging it out for the rest of the day!” 

Cooper glanced towards the horizon, at a sky that paled in comparison to the warmth staining Lucy’s skin. “You really think a little moonlight is gunna rush what’s mine, darlin’?”

Her eyes narrowed. “It’s yours because I offered it.” 

He'd never felt like a poorer man. 

“It look like I need pity?” he snapped, his teeth gnashing. “Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not ringin’ your pretty neck to absolve you of guilt I ain’t askin’ you to feel.”

“That’s not—” Lucy stammered, “I don’t—”

Cooper stepped back into the space that felt more like his at this point. Where he could feel her hot breath and see the flecks of gold in those big, foolish eyes. “I'm ringin’ your pretty neck ‘cause you need to learn when to leave well enough alone. Got it?”

“I-I–” 

“Got it?” 

“I’ve got it,” she said quietly.  

“Good.”

He didn’t move. She didn’t retreat.  

“Start counting,” Lucy whispered. If Cooper hadn’t been so close, he might not have heard it. “Please?” 

When she said it like that, soft and needy—nearly begging—he understood why she thought the word held so much power. 

“Not yet,” he said before his body had the chance to give her everything she could think to ask for. 

“Why?” 

“We’re goin’ for fair, right?”

“Yes?” she replied hesitantly.  

“Then you need to be the angry one while my hands are ‘round your neck.” 

Her brow furrowed, “What do you mean?” 

“Maybe you couldn’t see so good from up in your perch, so let me help you get into character,” he explained. To her, or himself, he didn’t know.

“Yer standing on that divin’ board,” Cooper rested his hand across her collarbone, easily spanning the distance, “folks below dyin’ to punch your ticket—and they’re real close to gettin’ their wish.”

“But you’ve got someone in the wings, so you ain’t makin’ peace with yer maker just yet. Only, they ain’t listening for their cue. Outright ignorin’ it, in fact. Then, well shit, there ain’t nothin’ under yer boots ‘cept air.”

The heart beneath his gnarled hand skipped a beat. 

“You try to muster disappointment, hell, maybe resentment, but you can’t, ‘cause those need oxygen. They’re big thoughts, see, and your vision’s goin’ a little black at the corners. Anger, though? That comes real easy every time.” 

Lucy shut her eyes. A second too late, though, because Cooper saw how glassy they’d become. 

She wasn’t angry. That’d come later. Towards herself or him, it didn’t matter much.

“One.”

Lucy visibly relaxed. 

“Two.”

A tear, delicate and delicious, slipped down her cheek.

“Three,” Cooper whispered.

Lucy’s eyes stayed closed. Cooper felt her lean into his touch. 

His hand slid up, his fingers squeezing as soon as they were able to wrap around the slender column of her neck. 

He forced her backwards until the jagged perimeter of the outcrop stopped them. Hot air dribbled over Lucy’s lips as Cooper crushed her between the rock and his hand. 

For a moment, Lucy remained stoic. Took her licks with grace. Cooper could appreciate that; there was something to be said about not giving your attacker the satisfaction. Bleed in private.  

As the attacker, though? It pissed him the hell off. 

His other hand shot up, slamming into her neck and sending Lucy’s head bouncing off the cliffside. The force of the impact drove her eyes open, and there was what he was after. 

Anger ate away at her sadness, feeding its flame. Lucy seethed under his hands. Like she couldn't believe he went through with it. Hadn't even tried to talk her out of it. Cooper suspected she got a lot of head pats and placating words underground.

Shh, don't fret, you wanted to make it right. 

The important thing is you tried. 

And if this was what she wanted, why did it hurt so damn much? 

His thumbs pressed against the front of her throat, the gnawed ends of his nails caving in the soft windpipe.

A hateful little sound managed to make its way past his grip, and Lucy stared at him like he should have been able to interpret its meaning. 

All he knew was that it wasn’t a code word. 

More likely, it was judgment over the fact he was already enjoying it more than a little. 

Was he? 

Yes. 

He lifted her off the ground, just enough that her toes scraped the dirt. Panic flashed across Lucy’s face, and he felt her feet start to kick, desperate for purchase. 

There wouldn't be any. Not until he decided otherwise. Because he wanted her to know exactly what it felt like when the diving board dropped from under him. 

Waiting to die, waiting to be saved. Wanting both. Neither choice in his hands. 

He was enjoying it. 

Her small hands rose to grab his wrists. Cooper expected her to beat at his arms or tear into his coat, but they merely held him. Held him with knuckles made white from the force, but held him all the same. 

The kicking started to lose its momentum. 

He was enjoying it. 

Lucy’s skin, smooth and pliant, was hurdling past the warm pinks and reds into cool, muted blues. 

Damn if those didn't suit her, too. 

He was—fuck, this wasn’t anything close to what he went through. Cooper had hung there, destroyed and forgotten. That had happened long before they ever came across the Khans. 

Three times he’d put his life in her hands. 

Three times she refused to do the honourable thing: kill the man who died so long ago. 

He hated her for it. 

If this was what they both wanted, why did it hurt so damn much? 

Cooper’s hands opened, and Lucy spilled through his fingers, gravity pulling her to the ground. Dust and deep, sputtering coughs rose from the crumbled body at his feet. 

Lucy looked up. Ashy blue faded away to a violent flush. The anger stayed put.

Cooper crouched down.

“This feel even, you reckon?” 

Lucy nodded. Because her throat couldn’t handle the words. 

“Then why,” he asked, staring at the ground instead of her eyes, “don’t I feel any better?”

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. 

“What does your golden goddamn rule have to say about that?” he demanded. 

The silence infuriated him more than the situation. She talked and talked and talked, and then, when she could finally offer something of value, she shut up. 

“Make it better, MacLean,” he all but screamed. “Make it fuckin’ right.” 

Lucy got up on her knees. She leaned close, close enough that he could see the faint outline in the shape of his hand blooming across her neck. He waited for her to scream back.

Barb had never yelled. She said terrible things calmly at a volume that could never be mistaken for uncontrolled. 

Lucy was cut from the same cloth. A bright blue that united the manager and the manageable. And while she had yelled at Cooper in the loosest sense, it was undercut by frustration and softened by admonishment. Honed in the classroom, effective only against children.  

When Cooper yelled, he yelled. Every cruel word a byproduct of the bubbling, cancerous rage that ate away at him. They cut ribbons into his throat and scraped away at his tongue as they were forcibly pulled up, up, up, and out of his mouth. 

Half the time he didn’t believe the things he said, only hoped after it had all been purged he’d feel a little lighter.

Deep down and expertly hidden, the same cancerous pit leadened Lucy’s gut. Corporate America had taught her how to suppress it, not get rid of it.

It'd show itself. He'd yank it free. 

Come on, Vaultie, he thought, let's be even. 

But Lucy didn't yell. Didn’t even try. 

She lifted her trembling, warm hand and slipped it under the collar of his shirt. With a hesitant touch, Lucy laid her palm against his neck. Her fingers grazed the edge of his jaw, following the same path as the noose. 

Cooper stilled. Ghouls ran hot, but a chill ran down his spine. It spread everywhere except where she held him.

His jaw clicked; he wondered if she felt it, his teeth grinding to dust beneath the skin. 

“Keep yer fuckin’ pity,” he spat. 

Her thumb slowly arched up over the hollow of his cheek. Tracing a path he couldn’t see, Lucy mapped out grooves that would have been called laugh lines, once. 

“It’s not pity.” 

She said it like it was the truth. 

Careful movements continued to smooth away damage done long before she was a glimmer in her momma’s eye. 

“I…I think I was wrong,” she whispered. 

Cooper couldn’t help the ugly snarl that pushed free. 

“A little late for that.” 

Lucy looked hurt but didn’t take her hand back. 

“Maybe the problem wasn’t that I let them hurt you,” her voice was hoarse, each word made in defiance. “Maybe I—no, I should have made sure you were okay afterwards.” 

Cooper rolled his eyes. “You watched me walk outta there. I was fine.”

“Physically, sure. How about mentally? That was probably tram–”

Cooper didn’t talk about trauma. He didn’t talk to the doc they assigned him after Alaska. He didn’t talk to the fancy Vault-Tec shrink Barb insisted he meet when he refused to say anything to the first one. And he wasn’t about to talk to Lucy Goddamn MacLean. 

“I don’t need to be coddled, vaultie.”

A small smile flitted across Lucy’s face, a memory taking her somewhere safe. “Sometimes it’s not really a need. Sometimes it’s just nice.” 

“There’s no time for nice in the wastes.” 

“Just vengeance?”

Cooper refused to answer, his teeth ground down to little more than yellowed nubs. 

“Let me try to make it right,” Lucy asked. Her thumb brushed against the corner of his lips. “Please?”

He grabbed her wrist, already hating not having her fingers crawling across his skin. Cooper dropped her hand, and it fell limply between them.

Lucy didn’t reach for him. 

He was certain he’d never feel warm again.

She looked at him, considered something, and leaned in. Cooper felt chapped, full lips press against the dying warmth on his neck. 

He should have pushed her to the ground. Left her in the middle of everything else he’d broken. 

He didn’t, though. Of course he didn’t. Cooper had waited for her to grant him the right to breathe, he’d wait now. Scared to feel her lips move, but more afraid they wouldn’t. 

A second kiss, beneath his torn ear. Her breath was loud and hot, and the sensation was immediately seared into his memory. 

Like everything Lucy did on the surface, the kiss was hesitant and out of place. Cooper wondered how she kissed underground, if she was confident and impatient.

“I’m s—” Lucy began, but stopped herself. She moved her lips to the curve of his jaw and kept the word to herself.

She wasn’t sorry. 

And this was better than any apology she could offer.

“We're even,” he repeated. 

Like before, she ignored him. 

Her kisses grew bolder. They lingered for longer before moving on. Each jump left him tingling, his skin awoken under her touch. 

Then she was at the corner of his mouth again, the furthest her thumb had gotten before he stopped her. Lucy paused, Cooper heard her breath being held in her chest. 

Fight or flight failed him utterly and wholly. Nothing could have moved him from that spot. 

His stillness emboldened Lucy. Without lifting her lips from his skin, she moved to kiss him fully on the mouth. The slow, ghosting drag of plush skin against pinched left his own breath catching.

No one, no one, touched him without going in for the kill. 

Then there was Lucy, leaning closer still. She braced her hands on his bent knees. He felt her weight fall onto him and the way her fingers curled to dig into the meat of his legs. 

When the Great Khans had bound and looped the modified noose around his neck, he'd stayed still. Compliant in the loosest sense of the word. Willing only because he had the promise of someone who knew how to sell hollow words as though they were real.

Fuckin’ shame on him.

Cooper expected the drop this time. He waited to feel Lucy’s hands leave him, to dart for his gun, his knife (her gun, her knife). Anticipated the knee to his gut, her fingers going for his eyes. The inevitable chase and takedown. 

So, he braced himself. Under her hold his muscles tensed, ready to spring into movement. 

Lucy swiped her tongue across his bottom lip. 

Cooper's fingers flexed, itching to curve around the barrel of a gun. 

That same searching tongue pushed into his mouth. It slid against his own, hot and wet. She tasted bright. Clean. 

Like something he'd failed to tarnish. 

She made a small, contented noise. It slipped down to his belly, soothing his throat made raw from hate. Down to that twin pit. Something shifted. Loosened. 

Cooper could have screamed into the empty horizon for hours, could have slit a hundred throats, drank a hundred bottles, and not feel half as light as he did when Lucy moaned into his mouth. 

And if he was going to drop, she was coming with him. His hands moved to clutch her, fingers curling around her upper arms and yanking her closer. Lucy teetered, falling against his chest with little grace. 

He felt her smile against his lips. Her fingers, splayed flat against his chest, travelled upwards until they met around the back of his neck. 

It wasn’t barbed wire, but it ruined him all the same. 

“It’s nice, right?” she whispered against his mouth. 

He could taste her words. 

Cooper didn’t answer. Nice didn’t begin to describe it, her weight in his lap, arms around his neck, lips against his. Nice was a full chamber and a fuller bottle. This? This was… 

Something he hadn’t let himself think about in a real long time.

Lucy’s knees ground into the dirt on either side of his thighs, and Cooper knew she felt him straining between them. He bit down on her bottom lip to keep his mouth shut. With her smile trapped between his teeth, Lucy’s hips rolled in a painfully slow circle, dragging the heat of her core along his clothed erection. 

It was the most deliberate thing she’d done in the wasteland yet. Not a reaction, but a sure-footed step in a direction of her choosing. 

Cooper’s jaw clamped shut, unable to stop the snarl from roiling through him. 

Lucy whimpered, high and pained, but didn’t pull away. A small trail of blood slipped between their mouths, running down Cooper’s chin. He wanted to chase it with his tongue. He wanted to keep her close.

He felt Lucy start to pull away, and he let her go. Before his tongue could dart down towards his chin, he felt her fingertip touch the spot where the bead held fast to his skin. Lucy held her finger up, dangling it in front of his mouth. Deep red caught the sun. 

Cooper opened wide, and Lucy lowered the treat towards his waiting tongue. 

She’d never apologized for biting his finger clean off. Probably enjoyed that, too. 

Just a little. 

He had evened the score himself that time, but the way she pressed her finger down onto the centre of his tongue said it hadn’t stuck. 

Realistically, Cooper knew the business of drug-dealing wasn’t on Lucy’s resume, but she seemed to have a clear idea that the first hit was free—as long as it was enough to keep ‘em coming back.

The way his senses sang after just a taste of her? 

Hooked felt as inadequate as nice. 

His cheeks hollowed trying to draw more of her in, his tongue working to clean every speck of blood from the whorls of her fingerprint, the curve of her nail, the bend of her knuckle. Lucy watched him closely, her bruised bottom lip disappearing between nervous teeth. 

Could she taste what he found so sweet, Cooper wondered. 

When his tongue could find nothing more to satiate his growing appetite, Cooper considered biting down and taking matters into his own hands. Lucy must have recognized the look (the same one she wore that fateful day), because she had the good sense to yank her hand free, immediately dropping it to rest on the bulge straining between her thighs. 

The corner of Cooper’s mouth tilted upwards.

“You roll out the red carpet for everyone you wrong?”

“You're the first person I've really hurt,” she said as she pulled his zipper down. 

“That'd be sweet if it weren't so pathetic.”

Lucy smiled shyly at him. A smile that said she had stopped listening after the compliment. Maybe she didn't get as many niceties down below as he thought. 

“Should I?” she asked in that breezy way, like her fingers weren’t sliding down to feel the entire length of him.

“Should you what?” He already couldn’t follow the line of conversation, not when her hand was rooting around his pants and gently taking one of his balls into her cupped hand.

Lucy smiled in earnest. “Roll out the red carpet for everyone,” she repeated. “It might speed up negotiations for food and water, huh?” 

His stomach, already sitting low, twisted abruptly. The idea that she'd treat any shit-for-brains like this—have her hands on them like this—did not sit well. 

“You best not,” Cooper warned. 

Lucy’s movements stuttered, her hand freezing in a comfortable squeeze at the base of him. “How come?”

“I'd have to kill ‘em,” he said plainly. 

She frowned, her mouth curling into a disapproving pout. Cooper bet she didn’t realize it, but the squeeze tightened again. It mimicked the iron grip he used on himself. He didn’t hate it. 

“You don't really get a say in how I engage with someone,” she argued. 

Cooper grabbed her wrist. Grabbed it hard. She let him go, his cock bobbing between them.

“While you're with me, I do,” he said. “Whore yourself out to every raider in the wastes if you want, but not till you're gone and done with me.”  

He held her gaze while he said it, and he watched Lucy take in his words. She swallowed, a mass moving down her bruised neck.

The silence only lasted a moment. The fear even less. 

“Okey-dokey, I can work with that.”

She said it easily, as though he had laid out a verbal contract and she'd finished reading the fine print without finding anything wrong. 

It was a contract that paled in comparison to others he’d made. To others he would make. (There was the pain.) 

She had no idea that she was only hurting herself in the long run. (There was the regret.) 

Still, she agreed so quickly. (And there was the hope.)

God, Vault-Tec really did a number on them. So eager to agree to anything said with enough authority. 

So eager to use it against others to get what they want. 

(Choke me.)

Lucy could likely sort her life into two distinct categories: orders followed and orders given. 

Cooper's own long life could be slotted into four less-neat categories. 

Before. 

After. 

Numb.

Lucy. 

After had been hell. He’d wasted days, months, years wringing himself dry, squeezing every bit of self-blame and pity out in equal parts. A plan grew during that time. He had called it hope in the early days. But now he saw it for what it was: a plan born from desperation and fueled by delusion. His family was alive. Somewhere, somehow, they were. He fixated on it. Forgot to eat, forgot to sleep. There were only vaults. 

Empty, empty vaults. 

The fade to numbness was gradual, though he couldn’t much remember the specifics. Guess that was the point. Every empty vault pushed him towards things he could count on. Trading bodies for caps, caps for chems. Booze when he couldn't get enough of either. The plan fell dormant. It was a pipe dream. Resting on a shit ton of coincidences and sheer dumb luck. 

Soon, Cooper knew how much poison it took to forget his own daughter. 

Filly changed things.

She changed things.

Yeah, he could tell himself the excitement vibrating between his ribs was because there was now an opportunity for answers.

But it wasn't his wife and child he was thinking of as he shoved Lucy’s hand back to his erection. 

Lord forgive him; he could barely remember what they looked like. 

Lucy, though, she was real, and she was there. Didn't even need to be told twice to wrap her fingers back around his cock. 

Real and there, but not for long. 

And either she knew it too, or was just real eager to treat him right. 

She thumbed the pre-cum from the tip, spreading it over his crown and working it down with her palm. 

“Is this alright?” she asked, flourishing her words with a little twist of her wrist. 

“I'm still letting you do it, ain't I?” 

A hiss betrayed his indifference. 

Lucy smiled smugly and repeated the movement. Cooper's head nearly bowed to rest on her shoulder, but he caught himself. Better that she couldn't see his eyes anyways. 

She didn’t need to see his eyes to nibble teasingly at the torn ear he had laid so close to her dangerous mouth. The cartilage caught between her teeth before she moved downward, pulling his lobe taut and releasing it with a snap. 

“Need me between yer teeth, dontcha?” he asked. 

She nodded, nuzzling into his neck so he could feel it. 

“Show me,” he growled, tangling his fingers into Lucy’s hair and coaxing her head down. 

Lucy scooted back on her knees, putting enough distance between them that she could comfortably bend between his legs. But she didn’t lean forward to swallow him down to the root like he knew she could.

No, Lucy surprised him. She placed both hands on his chest and shoved, sending Cooper backwards onto his ass, legs sprawling out to either side. Then Lucy was crawling into view, delight clear on her face. She settled between his outstretched legs. 

“It’s more comfortable this way,” she explained, gripping him by the base and angling his weeping cock towards her smiling lips. 

Cooper groaned. “I could’ve moved.”

“I don’t think you would have,” she said. 

He reached for the nape of her neck and pulled her down onto him, only needing her smart mouth for one thing. Lucy let him, slipping down each swollen inch until her lips brushed the pocked skin of his groin. Heat roiled through Cooper’s body, each part of him spurred on by her willingness to be pushed. 

His cock twitched against the back of her throat as her tongue curved against the underside of his shaft. Lucy slowly pulled off of him, replacing the warmth of her mouth with her hand, fingers wrapping securely around him. They followed her lips until the bend of her thumb pressed against the sensitive underside of his cockhead. 

Lucy massaged her thumb over the scar tissue on his crown before sinking back to swallow him whole. It was a rehearsed, methodical act meant to hit every spot highlighted in a health textbook, but Cooper was certain book learning didn’t have any claim over the eyes she was giving him.

Half-lidded and blown wide, those eyes were watching for every involuntary tremor and stifled moan. In the dying daylight they shone like liquid gold, and Cooper suddenly understood why people paid good money to keep precious treasure hidden underground. 

He also understood that Lucy had been wrong. About everything, far as he could see. 

This wasn’t just nice. 

And it turned out, he did need it. 

It was the hope, wasn’t it? Waiting there, biding its time. Ready to sucker punch him at the worst possible moment. 

It had probably been hiding behind the hate the whole damn time, until she had the gall to go and let it loose inside of him. Free to become a desperate, wordless ache that she’d keep touching him with her hands and mouth and tongue and the gentlest scrape of teeth.  

God, it had nearly killed him then, it'd surely get him this go-round.

Lucy pushed him further past the back of her mouth and made a small retching sound. It was frustratingly enduring.

Ha, you dumb sonofabitch. 

She was a bargaining chip. Platinum and invaluable. The closest thing he had to progress in two hundred years. 

But, like the mere idea that she'd fuck someone else, the thought of sending her away made the bottom of his stomach drop out. 

What he wouldn’t give for one damn inhaler of turbo. Stretch out the moment, slow his racing thoughts. 

Lucy’s tongue pressed him to the roof of her mouth, and the tight fit caused Cooper to involuntarily buck against her. The movement worked a pretty little sob out of Lucy, popping her eyes open wide. 

Cooper did it again.

Lucy obliged with another song, flattening her tongue and allowing him to reach further, thrust harder. 

Time stood still all on its own. Only inching forward when Cooper’s hips jerked up. Lucy’s free hand gripped Cooper’s thigh, nails curled in. She didn't try to hold him down, just held on. 

That was all the permission Cooper needed to begin meeting every downward stroke of her hand and mouth with a sharp upward drive of his hips. Lucy let go of his cock—he was too slick with saliva anyhow—to cling to his other thigh. 

Without her hand in the way, Cooper felt himself strike the tight column of her throat each time he drove up. Those guttural retching sounds started to keep time with his hips. Lucy would be quiet tomorrow, too sore to do much talking. Maybe she’d think twice before opening her mouth again.

Maybe she wouldn’t. 

Fuck, the hope was making itself at home higher up behind his ribcage now. He could feel it crowding out the other organs. 

Lucy had accepted the rhythm, letting Cooper’s hand keep her head in place. To convince both of them that this wasn’t anything to get used to, Cooper pushed down on the nape of her neck instead of surging up to meet her.  

She tried to pull away, but his hand blocked her path. Surprise stiffened her body as she tried to regain the breath his cock denied her. Cooper craned his neck to watch her choke. 

“Go ahead and use that code word any time you need," he taunted.

Lucy looked up from under long eyelashes. 

The anger was long gone, just like the fear. Replaced with a look of undeniable satisfaction at having it all go exactly according to plan. 

He never stood a goddamn chance. 

Hot pressure shot to his core. His fingers fought for purchase around her neck, scrambling to get her off him before he came hard and fast down her abused throat. 

He promised he'd take his time, after all. 

Lucy sat back onto her knees, her chest rising and falling quickly. Cooper watched her wipe drool from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. Noticed how full and puffy her lips were. 

“Do you feel better yet?” asked Lucy. 

Kinda cruel that the person to reignite his long-dormant hope was such a pain in the ass. 

“Just take off your fuckin’ clothes.”

She grinned. He hadn’t seen her smile so much in their entire time together. Her hand reached up to the zipper hanging in front of the bloody white of her tank top, pulling it down. 

She lost her suit with little fanfare, folding it loosely before setting it next to her boots. 

Cooper nodded at the ground in front of him. 

“On yer hands and knees.” 

Lucy frowned, “You’re not getting undressed? That doesn’t feel very even.” 

“I’ll tell you somethin’ else that ain’t gunna feel even,” Cooper said, “me comin’ and not you.” 

She laughed, moving once again to kneel in the dirt, turning her back to him, and dropping to all fours. 

“I can take care of myself,” Lucy said, looking over her shoulder at him. 

“Be good and you won’t have to,” assured Cooper, placing his hand squarely between her shoulder blades and forcing her down. 

Lucy’s chest hit the dirt. She made a small oof sound, but settled herself all the same. There were surely small pebbles embedding themselves into the apple of her cheek, but she didn’t seem to mind much. 

Cooper’s finger was in his mouth, yanking his left glove off, and then his right. Admiring the view was fine if you were a poet or some shit, but he needed his hands on her, his teeth around her, and his cock in her. 

So, his hands cupped the swell of her ass and kneaded the skin in hungry claws. His teeth chafed the line of her spine, catching each crest to taste her. Finally, his cock nudged at the heat between her legs, slipping through the slick and pressing against her clit. 

Truth be told, he had been ready to spread her wide and help things along with some spit. When he found her wet and swollen, his mouth went dry. 

Did getting bossed around remind her of home? Enough to turn the gears in her cultish brain and force a reaction this strong? 

Whatever it was, he wasn't about to complain. 

He rocked through her lips again, applying subtle pressure to the small bundle of nerves. Lucy mewled and shifted, trying to rub against him with more force than what he offered.

Cooper stilled, suddenly finding the value in admiring the view. 

Lucy didn't, her knees working to grind herself against his blunt head. God, she was wet. Were her eyes closed? He couldn't tell, her forehead was resting on the back of her hands. Like she was in prayer. 

It shouldn't have mattered if her eyes were closed, if she was busy thinking of America, but Cooper would have liked to know what they'd look like if they were looking at him. Seeing him. Just one more time, before he fucked everything up. 

Goddamnit, he could feel his ability to intimidate leaching away into the dirt.

“If this is being coddled, you shoulda just said so,” he said, his voice strained. 

Lucy laughed, then gasped as she miscalculated an angle and he notched against her cunt, the tip sinking out of sight, and already it was so fucking good. 

And then it didn't matter if Lucy could have carried on like that until she came, he needed to be inside of her there and then. Cooper gripped Lucy’s hips, another gasp squeaked out, and drove himself in to the hilt. 

“F-fudge!” Lucy cried out.

It wasn't the word he would have used, but Cooper agreed. Her mouth was good, but her pussy was perfect. And while he wanted to start a pace that would leave them both breathless, Cooper knew he wouldn't last long. Not when Lucy gripped him like that. 

He drew slowly out, jaw set as her body bore down on him. He lingered with just the tip stretching her open, breathing slowly, when Lucy started to squirm. Her back muscles flexed, and her fingers dug into the dirt. 

Cooper moved forward slightly, doing nothing to ease the constant thrum sitting low in his core, and everything to tease the poor girl bowed down in front of him. 

Lucy moaned when nothing more came. 

“Make it right, Lucy,” Cooper urged, taking back what little he had given, “make it better.” 

Lucy turned her head only enough that he could see white teeth flashing. He had to picture her smile as she pushed back onto his cock. Cooper watched it sink between her legs and bit down on his lip. Blood, not as sweet as hers, filled his mouth.

He thought she would take things slow, make sure he hit all her spots. Take. Lucy had other plans. No sooner had her ass dipped against his hipbones than she was pulling away to repeat the motion. She could do both, Cooper realized. Press against the spots that had her toes curling and make it better. 

Cooper braced himself to take every powerful strike. His hands on her hips were no longer leaving crescent moon marks. Just holding. Sometimes skimming across the flushed skin at the small of her back, or down the slope of a cheek as it surged towards him. 

Lucy panted into the dirt, and Cooper recognized the sounds of a woman chasing an end. Then for the second time in as many hours, she surprised him. She reached up to her back, found his hand where it rested, and pulled it down between her legs. 

If she was wet before, Lucy was dripping now. Cooper brought the pads of his pointer and index finger to where he filled her—feeling and scarcely believing how well she took him—and slid forward to press firmly where her clit was nestled snug. The simple contact made Lucy shriek, and Cooper chuckled. 

“This your idea of takin’ care of it yourself?” he asked.

The only answer he got in reply was Lucy rutting against him with such force that he had to dig the toes of his boots into the dirt to keep from toppling. For that, he decided he could keep things even. 

His fingers worked quick, small circles over the tender bud, keeping the pressure as forceful as he now knew she needed. Lucy writhed, her hips circling wide to keep herself grounded against his hand and cock. 

Those wide, sweeping arches started to stutter. Her weight shifted, dropping onto his hand. And she had gone quiet. Any breaths Cooper heard sounded like a half-assed imitation of a whistle, like her jaw was clenched. 

“Oh, oh gosh,” Lucy said, and her jaw was definitely clenched. 

“Yeah?” Cooper said, his hand working its unrelenting circles. “You gunna be kind to me, darlin’?”

He watched her head nod emphatically. 

“And if I want to hear you? How kind are you willin’ to be?” 

Lucy let out a small whimper. Then a longer, louder moan. With her mouth open, he could hear her hitching breath and how each exhalation carried the word ‘yes’ on it. 

She was fluttering around him. Back arched, ass high in the air. Like the taste of her blood and the sound of her breath in his ear, he committed the sight to memory. It stung as it settled into his marrow. 

Lucy came loud and hard, like he needed her to. She clenched down on his cock, she dripped down onto his hand. Cooper had his fingers pressing against his tongue in an instant. He cleaned her from his fingers, making a mess out of his meal.

His tongue searched desperately, picking her out of the crevices between his teeth, scraping her from the ridges lining the top of his mouth. 

Lucy lifted her head, her neck craning to look at him. An orgasm suited her, hair all stuck to her forehead and her big eyes unfocused. They snapped back when she took in the sight of his fingers in his mouth, her release smeared across his chin. 

Clarity sharpened her features.

Cooper had forgotten to expect the drop.  

Lucy saw the blood dried to his chin. 

Saw the way he was clinging to the taste of her like a lifeline.

He was weak. He was monstrous. 

She saw all of that. 

And she smiled. A smile that pushed the hope out of hiding. It outpaced the anger, and he could feel it buzzing in the tips of his fingers, at the base of his spine. 

Lucy pushed herself up onto her knees, and the new angle punched a groan from Cooper. Lucy twisted to catch it, the kiss messy and off-balance. He was sure she could taste herself on his lips, but it didn't stop her tongue from trying to reach all it could. 

One of his hands reached around her ribs, skirting up to cup her breasts. The other reached further, back to her neck. 

Like Lucy belonged there, he felt her press herself into his hand. His fingers didn't tighten, they just held. 

Tangled in their noose, Cooper felt himself drop. He came hard and violent, like she needed him to. 

She didn't pull away until he did. He didn't pull away until he came to his senses. 

The sun had disappeared completely, and Cooper could barely make out the goosebumps covering Lucy’s skin. He tossed her the suit from its spot on the ground.  

Lucy slipped an arm into her suit and gasped. 

From their outlook, the Strip had become a bright beacon in the night. Cooper could have sworn it used to shine brighter. 

“Still looks like all the old photos,” Lucy said in awe. 

“Bombs got shot down. Most of ‘em, anyway.” 

She zipped herself up and turned to frown at him. “Well, if they could do that for Las Vegas, why couldn’t they just do that for America?”

Cooper sat back on one of the empty containers. His knees were sore, but hers must have been worse. “Because there was no “they.” There was a “him.” A man by the name of Robert House.”

“Maybe that’s where your family went,” Lucy said. “They’re safe there.”

Air stopped filling his lungs. Hearing “your family” from Lucy’s mouth, the pretty young thing whose come still coated his cock, made it real. Seeing how close the lights were made it real. 

The hope was already being torn in two and the pain felt real. 

“Nowhere near Robert House is safe,” he said, praying she’d leave it. 

They could take the lights for what they were: a warning. Head in the opposite direction. Walk until they had outrun their plans, their last names.

“Why would my dad go to Las Vegas?”

It's where the world ended once, Cooper thought. 

Hell of a spot to end it again.