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In the present, you found yourself trekking through the desert towards a little outpost where, supposedly, someone there had found a vault not far from the settlement, and you planned on getting information about the vault’s whereabouts. However, you were at least a day's walk away, and on the far horizon you could see the sickly grey of a storm quickly rolling in. Where you were now there weren't a lot of options for cover, and the last thing you needed was to get caught in the rain. Your eyes shifted to Cooper, wondering if he’d seen the clouds yet, but if he had he showed no signs of it.
You carried on like that for a while longer, your eyes anxiously scanning the sky as the clouds grew nearer. As the storm drew in you could feel the hair on your arms stand on end, and began to taste the acrid, metallic sting of radiation in the air. Still, Cooper showed no signs of stopping. As the plains began to darken from the clouds overhead you decided enough was enough, you needed to say something.
“We planning on finding somewhere to ride this storm out, or…?” You asked, unable to hide the slight agitation in your tone. The cowboy hardly reacted to you, just giving a slight head turn in your direction.
“You’re free to do what you want, darlin’.” So, no. Your lips set in a frown and you huffed, irritated at his nonchalance.
“What the hell, Cooper? I can’t make it a mile in that shit. You plan on just walking through and what? Getting even more radioactive? You want to fucking glow now or something?”
The ghoul chuckled, dismissing you like a fly buzzing around his head, not even humoring a response.
You rolled your eyes behind him, murmuring under your breath, "If you wanted to kill me it'd be nice to just get it over with." The ghoul stopped in his tracks.
Shit.
He'd heard that.
Slowly turning on his heel, the cowboy took the few steps back and stalked over to you. Instinctively you took a step back, but he was in front of you before you'd gained any distance.
"Now what was that?" He prompted, yellowed teeth bared in a smile that dared you to try him. Your chest tightened just a smidge as he waited. When you failed to respond his grin dropped and he fixed you with an icy scowl. "That's what I thought. Now either you shut the fuck up, sweetheart, or go find yourself a little hole to crawl into on your own. I'm not about to let a little rain slow me down, and I ain't in the mood for waitin' around. Understood?" Without waiting for a response, Cooper turned back toward the storm and began walking toward your destination.
Dread sat in your gut at the clouds now almost directly above you, but you weren't going to let Cooper leave you behind. Steeling an angry stare right at his head, you continued forth, praying to whatever was out there that the storm didn't break until it had passed you by.
Of course, it wouldn't be the Wasteland if it didn't screw you over at every opportunity possible.
It couldn't have been more than five minutes between when you felt the first drop and being completely engulfed in rain. You'd looked at the droplet, begging it to be a fluke, but when you averted your eyes up you saw a dozen more. Before you could muster up the gall to tell Cooper it was raining, the both of you had trudged into a wall of spitting, radioactive droplets.
Cooper simply adjusted his hat to combat the wind and continued on, not even glancing back to check if you were still there. He probably wouldn't care anyways you thought bitterly. You retrieved a bandana from your bag and wrapped it around your mouth and nose; you weren't trying to ingest any of this shit.
The water quickly seeped into every crevice in your armor, however, then worked its way through your jumpsuit until it had drenched you in its stinking, irradiated fluid. You were set to tough it out and throw it in Cooper's face later, however a half hour in you began to feel nauseous and your body was shaking. Maybe the shivering you could play off from being cold and wet, but the way your mouth salivated sickly and the blooming headache were tell tale signs of radiation poisoning.
You thought about calling out to Cooper but at the last second stopped. You weren't sure he'd stop to find shelter to wait the storm out, the threat to leave you behind hanging over your head still. So you stayed silent, gritting your teeth and breathing deeply to combat the sickness.
Fighting the weather with each step, you trailed behind the cowboy, cursing him with each gust of wind or raindrop in your cornea. Even after what must've been an hour of travelling in this shit, the ghoul looked unphased. His hat was soaked, with little beads of radioactive liquid dripping from the brim and the duster he wore did very little to keep the water from penetrating the clothes beneath, yet he seemed completely unbothered. The same could not be said about you.
Your body couldn't take any more of the poisonous liquid seeping into your skin, and as a consequence you found yourself doubled over, ripping the bandana over your mouth down as your stomach voided itself. A few more heaves and nothing but bile was coming up, and yet the nausea remained. The sound of your retching must have caught Cooper's attention, as the sudden clinking of his spurs approached, then his boots were at the corner of your vision.
Shakily, you stood and faced him, finding an impassive brow raised at you.
"You don't look too good there. Can't hold your radiation, Vaulty?"
As you opened your mouth to tell him where to shove it, your guts abruptly felt like they were doing backflips, and instead you turned and vomited a viscous yellow mess. In response, Cooper whistled lowly. "I'll take that as a no."
Without much thought your middle finger came up, directed at him, drawing a chuckle from the ghoul.
Through the sheets of rain, you looked for anything that could get you out of the poisonous storm. Screw Cooper, you weren't going to kill yourself appeasing him. You were here to help him after all. You squinted, trying to focus on the shapes in the distance, but the storm obscured any detail. That, or your vision was beginning to go.
Collecting yourself, you turned away from the cowboy and started towards the nearest blob that maybe was a house, maybe a large rock. You'd just have to find out when you got there, but you knew you needed to get away from him and his sour attitude. You got maybe a hundred feet towards your destination before your legs began to violently tremble and your pack felt like pure concrete. It slipped off your shoulders just as your knees gave, leaving you kneeling on the ground trembling. Fuck this, fuck him, fuck me for being so damn stupid, fuck Vault Tech... your internal mantra cursed anything and everything, while in the back of your mind you tried to figure out how you were going to save yourself. Maybe if you left the pack and crawled...
The tinkling of spurs interrupted your thoughts, and you couldn't stop the groan that escaped your lips.
"Seems like you're in quite the pickle there," Cooper drawled amusedly. You bit your tongue to prevent yourself from saying something real stupid- you needed to focus. Putting your pride aside, painfully so, you began to crawl on your hands and knees towards the grey blob. With each foot forward Cooper matched it, just watching you with wicked satisfaction. His eyes bore into the back of your neck, but you refused to look his way.
When you next glanced up to check your progress the structure had hardly grown, putting a crack in your hardened resolve. In exasperation you let out a guttural cry, letting your frustration and anger be carried away in the storm's gusts. When you were finished you heard soft tutting from beside you.
"Alright now, darlin', no need for all that. Don't want you attracting the wrong kind of attention."
Suddenly, a firm hand clasped itself under your arm, effortlessly hauling you to your feet. You pulled away instinctively, but the gloved hand tightened threateningly and you stilled. Cooper wrapped one arm around your waist, holding the majority of you up, and you used your opposite arm to hold onto him as well. On his other shoulder you could see not only his saddle bag, but the bag you'd abandoned. You hadn't noticed he'd picked it up.
In an awkward shamble the two of you made your way to the structure, which you were just beginning to make out. It definitely wasn't a building, but it wasn't a rock either. It was smooth around the edges and cylindrical, and the closer you got the more the details emerged, revealing a long broken down bus.
Cooper pried open the small folding door and worked you both up the stairs, your feet catching on each step. Most of the seats had long been scavenged, leaving decent sized space on the floor- where Cooper unceremoniously dumped you onto. To your credit you caught yourself in time to not smack your head off of the floor, but still resembled a sack of potatoes when tossed to the ground. Drawing your knees in, you did your best to gather yourself while Cooper set the bags down (a lot nicer than he'd been with you, you noted).
While you were now out of the weather, you were still soaked to the bone and you were cognizant of the fact that you should be freezing right now. Instead, however, you began to feel warm, starting in your chest and working its way up into your head. If your mind had been clear you'd have recognized it as a fever from the radiation poisoning, however your only thought now was to rid yourself of as much clothing as you could to relieve some of the quickly-growing heat beneath your skin. Fingers fumbling, you undid the straps of your armor and shoved it away desperately, as if it'd burned you. When your hand went to the zipper of your jumpsuit, however, a gloved palm covered yours and gently removed it.
"As much as I'd love a show, darlin', this ain't the place. Keep that on, you'll be freezin' once that fever breaks." You gave the cowboy an irritated frown, but couldn't see his reaction as your eyes refused to focus. Cooper had retrieved something from your bag and was now tying it to one of the railings above you, a thin tube trailing down from it. Satisfied the bag would stay, he knelt before you, taking the tube in hand.
With practiced motions he grasped your arm firmly, but not painfully so, and rolled the sleeve up enough to reveal a nice, thick vein in your forearm. You'd put your head back and closed your eyes trying to combat the vertigo you'd begun to feel, so flinched suddenly when there was a sharp prick in the limb. You recognized the burn immediately, however, as the Radaway worked its way into your bloodstream. A sign of relief escaped your lips, and you just sat quietly as the chemicals slowly began eradicating the poison flowing through your body.
The ghoul sat back opposite of you and dug through his own belongings for a moment, retrieving a grisled, rigid piece of jerky from somewhere inside, and began gnawing at it. Outside, the storm showed no signs of resolving any time soon- you'd be hunkering down here for the night. Whether Cooper would be there in the morning... that remained unknown.
Your mind began to clear as the Radaway worked its magic, and with it your sensibility and rational thinking.
"Why did you do that?"
Your voice was somewhat hoarse from all the previous retching, and your head was still foggy, but the question needed to be asked. Cooper raised his nonexistent brow at you, not missing a beat while chewing his jerky.
"What? Save you? I guess I'm just a nice gu-"
"No," you cut him off, snapping at him more forcefully than intended but not regretfully so. You weren't going to let him play dumb. "I mean, why did you make me walk through that shit in the first place?"
Cooper's brow lowered, pinching instead to a furrow and his mouth setting in a staunch frown.
"I didn't make you do anything. It's your own stupidity that got you into this mess now-" You scoffed loudly, causing that frown to deepen even more as Cooper was interrupted for a second time.
"I don't buy it, Cooper. I'm not just about to let you ditch me, and don't forget I'm helping you, so-" It was his turn to interrupt you now, raising a gloved hand wordlessly but with a look that halted the words in your mouth. For a long moment he didn't speak, just staring at you, eyes raking over your body in indecision. Finally, he spoke, though his eyes remained fixed to yours.
"I'm not good for you."
It was your turn to cock a confused look. Cooper growled softly in frustration and continued.
"If you're gonna be hangi' around, you're gonna wind up in dangerous situations, I can't help that. It just comes with bein' around me. If you have any sense of self-preservation, you'll not stick around."
Your heart fluttered uncomfortably trying to understand what exactly he was saying. Was this a test? Was he telling you to leave? But then you sat contemplating his words,and abruptly a sardonic chuckle bubbled up from your throat. "You're an idiot."
The cowboys gaze shifted dangerously, warning you to choose your next words wisely, but he said nothing. You shook your head, exasperated.
"I didn't think this was going to be easy, Cooper. I know the shit you get into. Hell, it's all but impossible to go anywhere without being robbed or mugged. When I agreed to help you find your family, I wasn't under some delusion that it'd be a walk in the park - those don't even exist anymore. You didn't need to drag my ass through a radstorm to prove a point, asshole." It was your turn to fix a hardened glare at him, finally able to focus your gaze though his outline remained fuzzy.
Cooper simply shook his head, though a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. He admired your conviction, even if it was ill placed.
"Alright then. Jus' don't say I didn't warn you."
You rolled your eyes, but the tension between the two of you had broken, now that he wasn't being a complete ass and you weren't dying. The ghoul stripped his own soaking outer layers off, hanging the duster from the back of one of the few remaining seats, and placing his hat carefully on the cushion. He grabbed his pack from where it was and propped it against the metal side of the bus' walls, then settled on the ground with it as his pillow.
"You're gonna be up for a while with that shit, so you take first watch," he said with a smug smirk. You lightly kicked out, just knocking his boot.
"I'm still mad at you," you stated, though your tone was less hostile and more exhausted than anything. He waved a hand towards you, waving your words away.
"You'll get over it. Good night, darlin'." You didn't respond, but your chest did swell a little. After this whole ordeal you should've hated Cooper, but you didn't. You weren't sure why, or what made you put up with his attitude and abuse, but no matter what you couldn't drag yourself away. After all you'd been through, you'd resigned yourself to seeing that man get answers about his family no matter what the cost.
With your veins still burning and rain pounding above, you settled yourself as comfortably as you could and watched out the bus windows at the wasteland before you. Yes, you thought, this was your purpose. It was too late for your family, but maybe he could have his.