Chapter Text
The air was filled with the burning scent of smoke and gunpowder, with a terrible aftertaste of irradiated rotting flesh and a decade of sweat crusting on a dozen bodies. A gas-masked face stared at the knife in his spike-knuckled hand, which was getting sharper scraping against a stray brick. Footsteps. The mask turned from his task, looking out the gap in the makeshift wall that served as a door to his private quarters. There wasn’t anything to see. Commotion. Yelling. Laughing. Snarled threats. The raider got to his feet, rolled his shoulders, sheathed his knife and took up his razor-bladed baseball bat, exiting into the encampment. He didn’t get far on the rickety walkway, fifteen feet above the pavemented ground, before a handful of his raiders intercepted him, dragging a civilian along.
“We found this one snooping around, boss! Brought him to ya just like ya asked!”
The captured man was as average as they come, wearing dirty secondhand cargo pants, a dirty repaired denim jacket over a dirty yellowed shirt; a farmer's clothes. But the clothes don’t make the man. One look at the civilian’s face, and it presented a stark contrast this is work-worn clothes. This face hadn’t been intimate with the soil in a long time: clean shaven, hardly sweaty face, keen eyes fearful but calculating.
“Do you have a gieger counter?” The gas mask asked, voice muffled and rough.
“What?” The man frowned. “Of course I do, who the hell doesn’t?”
The mask tilted their head curiously. “Enjoying the weather?”
Suddenly, the civilian seemed shocked. “How the hell-….!?”
Clang! The bladed bat smashed into the walkway between the knees the man was kneeling on, the sharp sound reverberating between the two buildings the raiders had built their camp between. In the tense silence that followed the sound, the raider leader crouched deliberately in front of the civilian, dark gas mask eye-sockets staring him down, the only sound in the silence the mask’s steady breathing.
“I said, enjoying the weather?”
The civilian gulped. “I’d prefer how it was Tuesday…”
There was another spell of silence, the gas mask tilting again, spiked gloved knuckles coming to rest beneath the raider’s chin, elbows on his armored knees. “Hello Agent.”
“How the hell do you know about the Railroad? Who the hell are you?” The man spat defiantly.
“Listen to me, and listen closely, if you want to live,” the gas mask snarled. “Forget your mission. You turn the hell around, and you go back to HQ. Tell your boss you found him dead. I don’t want to see you around here ever again. Am I perfectly clear?”
“Wait a minute,” the agent frowned. “How do you know I’m looking for someone?”
A tense silence followed, the gas mask staring passively before the raider was suddenly back on his feet, tearing off the mask. Angry pale eyes glared down at the agent in black sockets as the spiked gloved hands fixed his dirty and grease-filled blonde hair.
“You tell him I’m dead, you hear me?” Jack growled. “D E A D dead.”
Jack whistled and snapped is fingers, and one of his raiders handed over a bottle of spray paint, colored red by blood. He nodded at the raiders who had brought the agent into the encampment, and they grabbed a hold of the man roughly, turning him so his back was to Jack. The ball in the can clanked around noisily as Jack shook the can before painting quick and clean strokes onto the back of the agent’s jacket while the raiders held the agent still.
“Once you’re outside the gate, you’ve got exactly 30 seconds to run like hell before my boys come after you. You head for HQ. You tell him I’m dead.”
Before the agent could get a word in edgewise, Jack nodded to his raiders and they drug the man back out of the encampment the same way they had brought him in. Jack stalked back to his private room, but took the stairs to the roof instead of going inside, providing him an excellent view of the scene below. The sound of the raiders’ jeers and profanity and counting down filling his ears, and Jack watched broodingly as they agent scrambled to put as much ground between himself and the raider camp as he could. The countdown reached zero. The raiders took off after the agent. Jack could care less; he knew his raiders were too thick to find a proper Railroad Agent who had a head start. All he cared about was what had been painted onto the agent’s back. A rail sign. Danger.
The agent disappeared from view, and Jack descended the stairs, ducking back into his quarters. He scanned the small space for a second before he snagged his backpack from under the bed, already packed and ready to run with. He slung it over his shoulder, pausing in front of his shard of mirror to fix his hair, styling it back up before leaving the quarters, marching down the walkways and stairs to the ground, where his raiders—the few who hadn’t run off after the agent—eyed him and his packed bag suspiciously. It took less than five second before they were blocking Jack’s way.
“Whatchya think yer doin’, boss?” A particularly burly and intimidating raider asked.
Jack patted the man’s scarred face. “Talking a walk, Tank. Who should I leave in charge? You, or Fender?”
Fender, a woman with astounding knife skills and not a smidgeon of conscious, was immediately defensive. “Well me of course, boss!”
“Oh hell no!” Tank growled. “It should be me.”
They looked to Jack, who raised an eyebrow and looked between the two of them. “Well? We don’t have all day.”
A brawl ensued just like that, Fender and Tank going at it tooth and claw as the other raiders circled and cheered. With his distraction in play, Jack walked easily out of the camp and hit the road.
After so many times, this part had become automatic. Jack stripped out of his raider armor, fishing a bottle of water from his pack and cleaning himself up on the go. He scrubbed grease and grim and eyeblack from his face, then proceeded to scrub his hands clean with the spiked gloves gone. He drank what was left of the bottle and tossed it into a heap of trash piling up against a building as he ducked into an alley, taking the express road to his next destination. He reached back into his backpack and pulled out his Atom Cats greaser-style leather jacket, shrugged into it and fishing the aviator sunglasses from the pocket of the jacket and pushing them onto his face. His hands began styling his hair a bit differently, still generally upwards but parted far to one side and swooped over, going from sloppy pompadour to respectable in a matter of seconds. Satisfied with the minimal transition, he shrugged his backpack onto one shoulder, shifting his combat rifle on his back to a more comfortable angle.
Jack had lost count of how long he had been doing this: running, hiding, making a life for himself until ditching it all the moment he was rediscovered by the Railroad. But that wasn’t his entire life, he supposed. He ran assassination jobs, mostly for his mother and the Institute, but occasionally for other employers. Since the integration of the Institute’s Gen 3 synths into a program to adapt them to Commonwealth life and make them productive members of society, there had been over a hundred groups of synths who graduated from the adaption program and entered the Commonwealth as individuals. And as is the nature with individuals, not all of those synths elected to be productive members of society as a whole. Many of them went on to pursue undesirable occupations: slavers, raiders, drug dealers, mobsters, just to name a few. Most of the time, there was no helping this. But when a Gen 3 synth became a particularly powerful player in their distasteful game, Madison couldn’t help but feel responsible for all the death and destruction that came at their hands. And that’s where Jack came in. Since he was already running around the ‘Wealth avoiding the Railroad, Madison provided her youngest with some direction by hiring him to kill those powerful, dangerous synths. The raiders he had been leader of? Jack had waltzed in there a few months back and shot their leader dead at point blank range. And as raider code dictates, that made him the strongest and most ruthless, and thus the new leader. In his position, Jack had brought great success to his raiders, planning orchestrated assaults on smaller Gunner encampments and stealing supplies and weapons and armor. Raiders against Gunners was a game Jack was always willing to play. But not anymore. Not since he had been found.
So now, like always, he relocated. He hadn’t heard from his mother since his assignment to kill the raider leader, so his new location of hiding was totally up to him. And being so close by, Jack decided he deserved a little indulgence, and snaked his way through the streets of the Commons to Goodneighbor. He was sure to be found there by the Railroad; it was one of the more obvious places for him to run to. But in the meantime, he could at least live a little before having to disappear again. He reached the gates of the town, expecting to feel something good at the sight, but instead he felt anger. Anger because the gates to Goodneighbor were hanging open, a Gunners skull painted sloppily on them.
The combat rifle was in his hands as he stalked boldly into the settlement, taking care to shut the gates behind him. The shops were eerily empty, but a raucous was coming from further into the town. Jack made his way down the street and turned the corner, finding the entirety of the town crowded beneath the Old State House balcony.
“Jack! Jack please help!” Doctor Amari was the first to notice the teen, rushing over to him. “The Gunners, they’ve captured Hancock inside. We don’t know what they plan on doing with him.”
“Let me guess, he’s high off his ass again, isn’t he?” Jack snarled, catching himself and bottling his anger in front of the aging doctor. “Don’t worry Doctor Amari. I’ll handle this.”
And he did. Jack bust into the Old State House, nailing the first Gunner by the stairs with the butt of his rifle and shooting the other in the face, splattering blood everywhere, including onto his clothes and face. Jack stomped deliberately up the spiral stairs, catching two more Gunners who rushed to put up their guns and shoot, but failed to do so before the Jack did. He reached the floor level with the balcony outside, finding the doors to Hancock’s lounge shut. Jack walked over, each step placed carefully and silently, his ear pressing to the door. Quiet talking. Two voices, no more. Confident, Jack kicked the doors in and shot the first man he saw. The Gunner went down, but the other was quick to shoot Jack. The blonde fell to his knees but shot off his rifle as he did, catching the Gunner and distracting him just long enough to aim a proper shot between his eyes. And just like that, the invasion on Goodneighbor was dealt with.
Jack wiped blood from his eyes as he stalked over to where Hancock sat slumped against the wall, tied up. Whipping out a knife from his belt, Jack cut the ghoul loose and inspected his eyes and pulse. Jack’s nose wrinkled as he confirmed his suspicions: high as a kite, but fine otherwise. Jack drew his pistol and shot the wall right beside Hancock, the gun only inches away from the ghoul’s face. He may have given him a heart attack, and possibly deafened him, but at least Jack knew Hancock was sure to shape up. Leaving the panicking ghoul alone, Jack found Fahrenheit tied up and rather bloody, working carefully to cut her loose and lay her down, inspecting her wounds gingerly, taking her pulse, checking her pupils…
Satisfied that the bodyguard was stable, Jack looked to his own wound, sighing distastefully as he realized the extent of damage he had taken.
“The stomach? Really? Great going, Jack…” He muttered darkly, pressing down lightly on the wound and nearly passing out from the gripping pain.
He continued to mutter darkly to himself as he walked out onto the balcony, looking down at the panicked faces below as he literally held himself together.
“The Gunners are dead,” He announced, unconcealed distaste dripping off his tone. “And your mayor is fine.”
“I say we make Jack our mayor!” someone called out.
“No, that’s-” Jack began, but someone else cut in.
“Yeah! Hancock’s getting sloppy!”
A rumble of agreement and jabs at Hancock’s performance as a mayor began to circulate, and Jack’s already short patience burnt out.
“You want me as mayor?” He challenged, eyebrows raised. “Fine then! I, Mayor of Goodneighbor, declare it here and henceforth to be Institute property, and will-”
His inaugural address was cut short at the explosion of outrage that came from the crowd, and as a bullet whizzed past his ear, Jack smirked. “I’ll just go grab Hancock then.”
Ducking back into the Old State House, Jack knelt carefully beside Fahrenheit and dug through his backpack for medical supplies, cleaning up the drying blood with purified water and treating the cuts and open wounds with vodka. The sting of the alcohol roused the bodyguard, who tense immediately and looked around to find the familiar figure of Jack shutting the doors to the lounge and barricading the door with a chair.
“What’s going on?” She demanded groggily.
“Well,” Jack sighed in exasperation, eyebrows high and cheeks puffed taut, a rather comical expression. “You two were attacked by some Gunners. I killed them. I told the people of Goodneighbor. They made me mayor. I convinced them of how poor their decision was. Now they are going to try and kill me.”
“What exactly did you say?” Fahrenheit asked almost reluctantly as she managed to prop herself up. Jack came over and helped her to her feet, walking her over to the couch to sit.
“I may have mentioned the Institute, perhaps implied I’d hand Goodneighbor over to them…”
Fahrenheit eyed the teenager like a scolding mother. “Yeah, that’ll get you killed around here.”
“I figured as much,” Jack flashed her a bright smile before returning to Hancock, who was starting to come down off his high.
“Jack…?” He squinted as Jack stalked over to him. “Is that you..?”
Jack proceeded to slap the ghoul across the face, and succeeded in getting the mayor to pounce him with lightning speed, radiation-burned hands crushing down on the teen’s throat. But Jack knew what he was doing, and had his own hands there, pushing back against Hancock’s surprising strength. It only took a few seconds before Hancock came back into himself, getting off of Jack and helping his old friend up.
“What the hell is that about?” He whined.
“What the hell is it ever about?” Jack retaliated bitterly, motioning to the dead Gunners and the injured but recovering Fahrenheit, the teen's voice strained from the pain of his bullet wound.
“The fuck happened?” He asked in shocked horror.
“What happened is you took a dozen chems too many,” Jack glared.
Hancock’s eyes wandered over to the barricaded door. “What’s that all about?”
“Goodneighbor’s after my head,” Jack said, shrugging it off.
“What the fuck did you do?” Hancock asked, more worried than angry.
“Reassured them all that you were the guy who’s fit for holding the power. They made me mayor. I made them regret it.”
“Jack….” Came Hancock’s drawn out, sad and disappointed voice, his eyes suddenly noticing the bright crimson beginning to soak through Jack’s shirt. “Jack you’re-!!”
“Bleeding out, yes,” Jack answered, standing his ground as he began to grow pale, arm still gripped over his stomach. “Just so happens that if I try to move I will pass out. So there’s that.”
Hancock was immediately upon the teenager, pulling up his shirt to gaze in horror at the damage done by the Gunner’s bullet. The actual hole left by the bullet wasn’t so terrible,—but it could have been cleaner— it was the location that the bullet entered that worried the ghoul the most. The stomach, full of vital organs, all getting swamped in blood right about now. A shot to the stomach was almost always a death sentence if not taken care of properly and quickly. And the ghoul had no clue just how long Jack had been injured.
Hancock was speechless. He instantly wish he had been conscious enough to have taken that bullet instead of Jack. His hands trembled terribly as the wound quickly soaked them in blood. He looked up and no longer saw the seventeen-year-old standing there, but the tiny little three-year-old who wore his hat and spent every waking moment with him.
“Uncle Hancock?” The tiny toddler said, blood gushing from his stomach. “A-Am I going to be okay..?”
“You’re going to be okay…” Hancock answered in a mortified whisper.
“Yeah, if you can find me like five fucking stimpaks,” Jack answered, strained voice trailing of in agony.
Hancock looked as saw the seventeen-year-old again, scrambling to help him onto the table.
“You gotta lie still, alright? On your back! Keep the blood inside you, okay? You’re gonna need it…”
“Hancock,” Jack gritted, pressing down on the wound despite the blinding pain. “Stimpaks.”
“Stimpaks, right!” The ghoul stuttered, eyes searching the room frantically for the life-giving drug, running around as he mistook every psycho for one.
“I got you covered, kid,” Fahrenheit sighed tensely, pulling up a couch cushion to reveal a first-aid kit, setting it on the table beside Jack and working quickly despite her own injuries.
The first stimpak brought a rush of relief groaning from Jack, who shut his eyes, feeling his breathing and heartrate stabilize. Before the second could be administered, the doors clattered loudly against the chair keeping them shut, and angry shouts were audible through the thick wood.
“Yo, Hancock,” Jack managed to call out, getting the fretting ghoul’s attention. “My pack. There’s a cap stash. The one labeled ‘raiders’. Find it. Buy everyone drinks or something. Just get-”his voice cut off as the stimpak jammed right into the bullet wound; “get them off my case..!”
Hancock found the stash, whistling at how many caps were hidden inside. Jack watched as the ghoul pulled away the chair and opened the wooden doors, everything starting to go black.
“Hey, everybody just calm down!”
Unconscious. Jack blacked out as the third stimpak jammed into him. At first, the blackness was calming, peaceful… but then flashes began to happen. Flashes of hot light, horrible screams. Voices talking too fast to be coherent. Another bright, searing flash, more screams, gunfire, rapid beeping of a stumbled-upon mine. Someone scream to take cover. The mine blew, and Jack jolted out of his sleep, sitting bolt upright and immediately regretting it.
“Easy,” Farenheit warned offhandedly from where she was patching herself up, back on the couch.
Jack’s eyes swung around the room, heart pounding in his ears, body drenched in sweat. Realizing it was all just a dream, he let out an exasperated sigh and laid back flat on the table, working to get his panicked breathing under control.
“Where is he?” He finally asked.
“The Third Rail,” the mayor’s bodyguard answered. “Buying the town drinks, like you said…”
“Good…” Jack sighed, propping himself up carefully and checking his bullet wound; it was practically healed, or at least a far ways along to being good as new.
“John wanted me to escort you to The Third Rail when you woke up.”
“I figured as much,” Jack offered Fahrenheit a half smile. “Mind if I buy you a drink, Fahr?”
She eyed him patronizingly. “Buy me as many drinks as you like. Nothing will come of it, rook.”
“Don’t think I won’t try my luck, fair queen,” Jack grinned, playing along with her chess metaphors.
“Don’t think I won’t put you on your ass, kid,” she countered dryly, finishing with her bandages and standing.
Jack swung his legs over the edge of the table, sitting there. “Hey, I’m cool being bottom.”
Whack! Her hand hit the back of his head like a bullet.
Jack flinched, eyeing the bodyguard apologetically. “Too far?”
“Too far, babyface,” she managed a rare smile, offering the teen a hand. “Come on. Shouldn’t keep our mayor waiting.”
Jack took the hand and was promptly hauled to his feet. After a brief moment of standing and a few test-steps, he considered himself to be in good enough shape to continue. He snagged his backpack and slug it over his shoulder, refusing to go anywhere without it. He and Fahrenheit made their way out of the Old State House, rounding the corner to The Third Rail. As always, Ham was standing by as the bouncer, and he promptly stopped Jack with a hand in his chest.
“Hold up there,” Ham said seriously. “You ain’t old enough to be in here. What are you, ten? Eleven?”
Jack snorted, shoving the bouncer off. “Ha ha, very funny Ham. I’ve been drinking here since I was thirteen!”
“Yeah, I remember,” Ham grinned impishly. “You cried after your first shot. Didn’t even finish the whole thing.”
“Oh shut up!”
“No, please,” Fahrenheit said smugly. “Tell us more, Ham.”
“Well, there was that time with the bourbon-”
Jack sighed loudly like the angsty teen he was, stomping his way down into the bar as his old friends grinned viciously from the top of the stairs. He entered into the bar and everyone turned and cheered. Free alcohol never failed to turn anyone from foe to friend.
“There’s the hero of the hour!” Hancock laughed from his spot at the bar. “Come on Jack! Let’s get you a drink!”
Jack sat beside the mayor, fishing into his backpack as Whitechapel Charlie brought over a beer.
“Check it out, Hancock,” Jack grinned deviously, producing a grimy bottle of some type of liquor. “Pinched this from some major Gunners fort. Radscorpion vodka. This stuff gets you drunk fast, and tends to make you hallucinate. Sounds fun, don’t it?”
“Woah woah woah, Gunners? What the hell were you up to now Jack?” Hancock stared the teen down, finishing off his drink.
“Mom sent me after a raider leader, one of her synths-gone-bad. I took him out, and since I was looking for some new cover, I took over as head of this little gang of raiders…”
“Damn,” Hancock whistled. “Sure is a miracle you’re in one piece with that two-timing, good-for-nothing mother of yours sending you on suicide missions.”
Jack immediately grew anger. “Watch your tongue, Hancock!!”
The ghoul sighed, putting up his hands. “Alright, alright…. Sorry, Jack…”
Jack nodded, accepting the apology a little begrudgingly, pinching three glasses from behind the bar counter. “So what do you say to the Radscorpion vodka?”
“I say hell yeah!” Hancock grinned, smiling as Fahrenheit finally came over and joined them.
Jack began to pour them each a glass, passing them out. Fahrenheit caught a whiff of the drink and made a nasty face.
“The hell is this? Poison?”
“More or less,” Jack grinned, downing his glass in synch with Hancock.
The two of them immediately regretted the drink, Hancock pulling a face and Jack gripping to onto the ghoul’s arm, eyes wide, unsure if he was about to puke, or possibly die.
“Holy shit…” Hancock finally breathed. “That stuff’s fantastic!!”
“Know what would pair really well with that?” Jack’s face broke into a slow grin, turning to the mayor, the both of them blurting out in synch: “Jet!”
“You two are idiots,” Fahrenheit shook her head, sipping at the Radscorpion vodka in her glass; free drinks were free drinks, no matter how gross.
“Yeah but we’re your idiots, Fahr,” Hancock smiled sweetly.
“And one of us is cute,” Jack beamed, pinching at Hancock’s cheek as the mayor did the same to him. “Which is it, Fahr? Who’s the cutie?”
“I think you know the answer, kid,” she rolled her eyes.
“I do,” Jack smiled, making doe eyes at the bodyguard. “It’s you.”
Hancock broke into uncontrollable laughter as Fahrenheit stared in disbelief at the teenager. “Holy hell, you’re already feeling it, aren’t you?”
“Lightweight Jack, that’s what they’ve always called you,” Hancock threw an arm over the blonde’s shoulders, crushing their faces together in a hug.
“I am not…” Jack mumbled, clearly embarrassed based on the bright shade of red his whole face turned.
“Then keep drinking, babyface,” Fahrenheit shook her head as she downed her drink out of necessity, refilling their three glasses. “God knows I’m gonna need to be far more drunk if I’m to survive the two of you…”
“I’ll drink to that,” Hancock smiled, raising his glass.
“Same,” Jack sighed, raising his as Hancock set out two jet on the table as a chaser for the horrid drink.
“Cheers.” Hancock knocked the drink back with Jack, and the two of them immediately grabbed the jet and breathed in the drug, feeling the hallucinogenic effects of the toxic alcohol wash over them in slow motion. Jack broke into a fit of giggles, which amused the hell out of Hancock. Fahrenheit shook her head again, taking her time with her drink. It was sure to be a long night. But she'd be damned if it wasn't one for the books!