Work Text:
Audrey had stopped them over at Nordhagen Beach for the night, and Hancock had to admit that he kind of liked the way that the waves rolled up on the shore. The water never came near enough to the settlement to do harm, but just enough to make everything sort of damp and salty- paired with how weirdly hot it had gotten over the past few weeks, he could almost imagine he was on vacation.
The heat inspired Audrey to cut apart some jeans to make shorts, and tear the arms off some random dead scavver’s flannel. He was seeing a lot more of her than usual and they were starting to get to a… cosier place. For her, that place was sprawled out against him with her back against his stomach and the back of her head at his chest. He was playing Red Menace over her shoulder on her Pip-boy while she just watched, tensing up whenever he neared her highscore.
He’d spilled his guts to her just outside of Concord days ago, but was still riding the high of seeing the relief on her face when he’d admitted she was the best thing to ever happen to him. There’d been a moment of unease when she’d asked him if he thought about her in a romantic kinda way, and he’d tried to shrug it off with a joke about being too obvious. No it wasn’t obvious, Hancock, I didn’t think- it doesn’t matter what I thought. I want… this, though. Us. If you want.
He was giving her time to change her mind. Besides being this close- hardly closer than normal if he was being honest, as getting high with someone could be a very close range experience- they hadn’t done anything. He might have said she’d forgotten entirely if she didn’t get that big grin on her face when he slipped in some flirting.
He didn’t know what he was waiting for- maybe he needed her to initiate. He kept telling himself he was going to, but when it came down to it he still didn’t quite understand what drew her to him at all. Besides typical human repulsion when faced with a Ghoul, and besides the fact that ferals gave her nightmares, she knew everything there was to know about him. He’d spilled his ugly guts in front of her like she’d got her knife in him, and she’d just… accepted it. She’d comforted him, validated his choices… he didn’t know what to do with her but he knew he was too chickenshit to do anything before he was sure she’d be into it. He’d take this weird limbo over being sent back to the Old State House any day.
“Hey Hancock.” She looked up at him with that look on her face- the smug shit look that she got when she saw an ambush point that he didn’t and made a break for it before telling him what the fuck she was doing. That look usually meant he had about a second and a half to dodge whatever explosion was about to go down.
He couldn’t deny she was exciting, though.
“Yeah?”
“You got something on your face.” Nerves made him compulsively reach for the mentats in his pocket- he’d never cared about the whole Ghoul thing but damn was she ever settling for a face like his. Mentats tended to help him avoid blurting that out, just in case she actually listened.
“Probably just my handsome mug falling off.” She didn’t seem bothered by the suggestion. His hand moved from his jacket to his face but she batted it away, turning to kneel in front of him and inspect his jaw. “Don’t scream if it’s a bug, all right? Against all odds, my ears still work.”
“Not a bug,” she said thoughtfully, tilting his head a little. She was starting to make him real goddamn nervous- jet now instead of mentats, because maybe he could pretend he wasn’t worried she was gunna accidentally peel a hunk of his skin off or something gross like that. “Just need the right light.”
He didn’t realize what she was doing until she flashed him that smile again, and just like in the thick of a Raider gang he had about a second and a half’s notice before she leaned in and kissed him. She clearly hadn’t anticipated how weird it would be to kiss a guy without conventional lips, but got her bearings pretty fast for someone who hadn’t touched another person for two hundred years.
His brain ticked awful slow (he was grateful, now, that he hadn’t taken the jet to slow himself down even more), but eventually clicked into place and reached down to cup her thighs. She pulled away to laugh and adjust herself, but was back at it before he could hear himself think.
Her mouth tasted like mentats and mutfruit.
She sat back finally and the waves against the beach seemed real loud again as his pulse settled back down. She watched him with that crooked smile until he leaned his head back, letting out a muffled snort of laughter so he didn’t disturb the settlers. “I got something on my face…” he said, shaking his head. He’d fallen for it like a dumbass kid in a bar for the first time.
“It was just me,” she said triumphantly.
“Yeah, I got that. C’mere, sunshine.” He added kissing to his mental list of things that Audrey was all right with- though he figured nothing short of getting his head blown off would ever make him forget.