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The difficult thing about the wastelands was that in order to be a sorry sight: someone had to feel sorry for you.
Otherwise, you were just a sight. Making a scene at the entrance of the market. Covered in mud, blood, and enough tired sorrow under your eyes to be comparable to that of one Arthur Maxson- who had not yet shown his face in the commonwealth, but would do so soon.
Then, the guards would finally get tired of you, and spend five minutes arguing on whether or not to throw you out.
Five more minutes and the puddle of water beneath your feet would be tinted red, you’ve done nothing but stare blankly and with the same frightened expression as a wild animal. You need help, you don’t ask for it. You don’t trust anyone enough to do so.
One minute later, just before they decide a jail cell is an appropriate solution, someone pipes up.
“Why don’t we take ‘em to Valentine?”
“The synth? You crazy? What’s he gonna do?”
“Don’t know, he solves mysteries. This is one of that, ain’t it?”
And then you’re being escorted- or at least they’re trying. The guards really should have asked why you were bleeding, maybe asked if you knew your name or where you were.
They didn’t: just told you to come along instead and when you didn’t comply, a gun barrel in your back got you moving. Not for the sake of it being a gun, but because it was pushing against you and your body recognizes the motion. Go forward.
You take a few shuffling steps, bleed some more, and suddenly you’re turning down an alleyway and towards a neon sign. You didn’t notice the first one, but you notice this one.
It’s red, bright, a little heart probably fills in as recognizable for those that can’t read. The only thing you can think of is the guard at your back and your surprise that neon signs still exist.
It’s a good thing it was a slow day at the market, more people would have caused problems, or scared you off altogether.
Then you’re being told to go inside, and the door shuts before either you or the detective have time to ask questions.
“Hell. I told them to stop bringing people here-“
The detective grumbles under his breath. He thinks you didn’t catch it, but a few months of living like a wild animal has taught you how to listen.
Then the detective turns around, there's a momentary surprise on his face at the state of the newest stray in his office.
“Jesus, that your blood?”
The new charge hasn’t toppled over yet, but he looks like he might.
Nick goes to pull out the chair, he backs away. Nick wonders just why the hell they’ve brought this guy here. His hair is long, messy. An unkempt beard and wide eyes like Nick saw in that lost cat he had to climb onto the roof of the Stands to rescue. He’s terrified, looks like he doesn’t want to be in Diamond City whatsoever.
So why, pray tell, is he in Nick’s office?
Well, Nick knows why. It's because the Diamond City guards can’t handle anything minorly inconvenient by themselves. It usually falls on him.
“Take a seat, it’s alright.”
The platitude doesn’t work. Nick wonders for a few seconds if it's his fault. But this doesn’t seem like ‘scared of a synth’ scared. This seems like ‘scared of everything’ kind of scared- and frozen. He isn’t sure if the guy has blinked those dark, sad eyes in the past minute. Maybe Nick ought to hold out a piece of food and click his tongue at him, see if that’ll get him to come closer.
“You’re not… a human”
Well, there it is. Every case that isn’t a local plays through these few steps, and Nick is becoming quite the practiced dancer.
“Not that I need reminding, but yes. I’m a synth”
He gets a blank and unknowing look, an out-of-towner kind of look. Nick might have said vault dweller, but there’s nothing clean nor haughty about this guy.
Dirty, scared, frozen, sad.
So, so unbelievably sad. Nick almost feels like he wants to apologize. He didn’t do anything, as far as he knows. Maybe there’s a Nick 2.0 fresh on the streets causing problems. Something he doubts, but it doesn’t stop him from wondering.
And then, after a few patience-draining seconds- as if the reservoir wasn’t endless for clients like these- Nick swears he sees the guy relax a little.
His shoulders drop, the gaze softens ever so slightly.
He glances at the chair, Nick steps back half a foot to invite him towards it, but the man doesn’t move.
“I need help”
Missing husband or stolen jewelry?
He doesn’t ask either, only nods and waits for the man to continue. This doesn’t seem like the type to enjoy being prodded at for information. He’ll go at his own pace.
“I’m.. bleeding. A lot”
Yes, you are.
Nick takes half a second to be sarcastic in the privacy of his own mind before realizing that that does in fact mean this man is injured. The synth banter made it momentarily slip his mind that this was potentially serious. Guilt and concern and sympathy rush back in and he's turning around to fetch a stimpack. Or two, maybe five. He keeps them on hand just in case even if they don’t entirely work on him. They’ll heal the almost human parts, but all the machinery requires a more mechanical approach.
By the time Nick turns around, he’s watching this guy make a few wobbly steps towards the chair before falling over.
Nick darts across the tiny room in a few steps and catches him.
He’s not a small man by any means. He’s tall, taller than Nick. But just barely, and he’s leaner than a brahmin on a grain strike. Detective’s eyes start to pick apart more and more from every clue he sees.
Lean. Starving.
Hurt. Fought something.
Scared. Fought something bad.
Nick eases him into the chair and steps back to orientate himself. The client is slumped backwards, head lolled to one side. Out cold, or dead. Synthetic fingers against the side of his neck confirms it's the first one, and Nick gets a stimpack into him before he allows himself the time to sigh.
Half an hour later Ellie walks in. She goes to greet him as she always does, and is surprised when the synth holds a finger to his lips. Ellie is, thankfully, one of the smarter people Nick has known in his life and understands that it's a request. He thinks about that missing persons case. The one where he’d tried to stealthily untie the person of interest from their bindings- courtesy of raiders. They’d only loudly inquired why he wasn’t untying them already.
He’s never quite worked out the damage in his wrist the ensuing fight caused.
Nick nods towards the bedroom part of his office, where the client now resides, when she gives him a curious look. She seems to understand right away.
They could talk, but at a lower level perhaps.
“Missing husband or stolen jewelry?”
Nick can’t help but crack a smile, and she returns it in kind.
“I’ll be honest. I don’t know”
Now Ellie looks really surprised, and Nick can’t say he blames her.
“Nicky. You’ve got a client sleeping in one of your beds and you don’t know why they’re here?”
The detective shrugs, the kind of laid back attitude that’s reminiscent of a large cat waiting to strike. Except he isn’t an old-world big cat, and there’s not impressive speed and strength hiding underneath the… years… he wears.
But there’s a damn sharp mind, and Ellie knows that’s what is coiled up waiting to strike at the first clue it sees.
“Guards dropped him off without a word. He’s in a hell of a state too, looks like he’s seen a ghost. Said two sentences to me before he passed out.”
Ellie nods in understanding, then looks down at the small rug that is now blotched red. She’s standing where the mystery client had been, and frowns. Nick bought it, but she’d picked it out.
“Sorry kid, we’ll get another one.”
“Should have warned me this job came with hazards Nicky-”
He smiles at that, and this time it's a playful half grin.
“Sorry Ellie, let me get the jump on it now. Be on the lookout, I hear there’s a synth in Diamond City.”
She snorts, then covers her mouth and bats at him with the hand no longer holding a bag of groceries.
“Nick! You’re gonna make me wake him up!”
She whisper-yells at him.
His smile turns fond, and he stands to help her with the groceries placed down on his desk. Items he asked for, things she likes to keep around. Treats they sneak in between clients. It’s not entirely in the budget, but it makes Ellie happy. So it's worth it to Nick-
They’re unpacked, through a box and a half of snack cakes, and reading case files that need reviewing by the time there’s a noise from the bedroom. It's well past dark now, and the stray has been sleeping for a few hours. Between that and the stimpack Nick has been giving him every thirty minutes or so, he’ll be just fine.
“Ellie-”
She’d come back with him, just once. Looked over the stray with a sort of sadness. Sympathy and a big heart. Nick was proud she’d kept that growing up in the wastes.
Now she was staring at Nick, and he gestured back with his head.
“Take my seat while I check on him. I don’t know how he’ll react to another face being here-”
She nods without objection. There’s an unspoken ‘I don't know if this guy is dangerous or not, and I’m not putting you in harm’s way’.
Nick takes a few steps into the back office and moves even slower from there. Raising a hand to balance himself on the door, a head turns to register the quick movement. He’s been seen, but since there isn’t any screaming yet, Nick thinks it's going rather well.
“May I come in?”
No answer. Not a yes, not a no. Eventually he sees a minuscule nod.
Nick trods in, keeping to the far wall as he comes to inspect the other. The stimpacks had stitched him up nicely, but they haven’t fixed the wild eyed look he’s got. Still scared, but no longer frozen.
No, now it's a nervous energy. Nick is reminded of a rabbit that looks ready to dart at the smallest thing.
He’d taken off his coat long before this one ever walked in, now he takes off the cop persona.
Just good old Nick.
“Sorry if I gave you a fright. You needed medical help, but I wasn’t sure about that either. So, stimpacks will have to do-”
Your old friend Nick. The guy down the street. Well, the synth down the street, but your friend nonetheless.
The man considered the words, looked almost thankful that he hadn’t been dragged off to some medical unit. The walls of the agency were starting to feel a lot safer than he ever thought anything could.
Nick could see it on his face there was more than one reason why he seemed thankful to have remained here however.
A long silence, Nick sensed Ellie was getting impatient. But he didn’t want to bring her up just yet. Any chance of this guy walling himself back off would set Nick back to the start again.
“Where am I-?”
Ah, they really were starting from the beginning.
“Diamond City, Commonwealth of Boston. Commonwealth for short. You got a name?”
Nick poked- just a little. He had to know what to call this guy besides ‘stray’, maybe see if the name was one he recognized from a missing persons case.
The man looked stumped at that. Or maybe not, but a name was an easy enough request and he looked like Nick had just asked him to find the meaning of life.
Not difficult per say, but awkward as hell. Because your meaning of life was probably something cheesy, and there was a good chance the next guy they ask after you drops something that would make ancient philosophers jealous.
The man looked like he was choking on whatever answer he had cooking up.
“What's in a name anyways? Forget I asked. You got anything you can tell me that might help me get you back on your feet?”
Nick was starting to suspect memory loss. Chems causing confusion? He’d put word out to Hancock and ask if the mayor had seen anyone like this getting strung up in Goodneighbor on the cheap stuff.
“Cal”
Nick felt his synthetic heart skip for just a beat.
Not a name he knew, but there it was.
“Cal?”
“Callum” The man corrected.
“Callum. Nice to meet you. I’m Nick Valentine.”
Nick almost let his mind have the space to chime up about synth copies and brain scans and a bunch of other pre-war junk this guy wouldn’t get.
“I got attacked. It was so big-”
Nick hummed at that. ‘It’ implied an unknown creature, and ‘big’ implied a deathclaw.
Who didn’t know what a deathclaw was these days?
“Don’t suppose it was a big lizard with a face you’d be less than eager to compliment?”
Nick watched Callum tilt his head at the description, then nod again.
“That's a deathclaw. Meaner than the in-laws, about half as ugly too. Not many of them are near the city, you come from up north?”
“Yes-”
“How far?”
Callum shook his head. He didn’t know the answer to that one. He didn’t recognize many of the areas he once knew now that he was wandering on foot in a trauma induced stupor. But then he held up his wrist, and Nick took note of something he’d been wanting to get a better look at.
A real, honest to god, pip-boy.
Callum flicked the screen on, then turned the dial until he hit a map. He offered out his arm to Nick almost instinctively, then froze before the detective could even make a move.
“Want me to look from over here?”
Another nod, and Nick squinted slightly at the image Callum held up. The angle was awkward and the screen was small, but Callum pointed out where he’d been. Nick took stock of the little arrow indicating his position within Diamond City at the moment, and shook his head in disbelief.
“That’s a hell of a walk. Why come here?”
Callum looked back down to the injury, then gave Nick a sorry look. There was that stray again-
“Couldn’t get it to stop bleeding, didn’t have a choice. Saw the lights…”
So this had happened within two days at least. Callum would have seen the lights of DC the night before, and been walking the whole day.
Nick hadn’t seen any bite marks when he’d unbuttoned the guy’s shirt to get the stimpack closer to the wound. No long scars from a swipe at his midsection either.
No, this was a puncture wound. The nastiest kind of injury a deathclaw could cook up.
All of a sudden Nick pauses. Callum looks like he’s worried he broke the guy, and Nick thinks it might be because his eyes are probably flashing blue.
Sudden realizations catch his processors off guard now and then.
“Hold on, if you don’t mind my asking. If a deathclaw did this to you, how are you not lizard chow?”
Nick was being both a good and bad detective. He was asking questions, being curious, wanting to help. But he was also so utterly clueless about this stray that he wondered if he needed to change the sign out front.
‘Nick Valentine, clueless synth’
Callum had managed to stump him this far. He wandered into Diamond city, looking scared as hell and shell shocked too. He’d been stabbed by a deathclaw- lived, and had made it to Nick’s office without fainting. Didn’t know where he was, barely wanted to say his own name. Looked like everything terrified him. Caravan guard maybe? Attacked by a deathclaw, got smacked in the head a few times.
Nick watched Callum frown, felt the retreat happen before he could visually see it in his features.
He’d crossed a line apparently.
‘Bad detective’, Nick scolded mentally.
Before Callum could speak, Nick raised a hand in a stopping motion.
“It's okay, don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
That offer was the right choice, because the relaxed look Callum had begun to form was slowly coming back.
Nick considered countering his ‘bad detective’ remark with some sort of praise, but he was beginning to feel like a damn dog.
“You have any family in the area? Anywhere to go?”
Nick was back on track now. Asking the questions he knew would help smooth things out.
Or make them more complicated- like they sometimes did. Like they were doing now.
Callum was shaking his head, looking sad again. Not that he’d ever stopped, and not that Nick’s chest had ever stopped aching for it either, but it looked more prominent now.
“Everyone is”
Dead, Nick thought with a sigh
“Dead…”
“It's… the whole neighborhood. Everything is rusty and in pieces and there’s people there I don’t know… they live in my house…”
Nick could sense the sad anger from here. But he dismissed it, knowing it was only a child of fear and confusion. What he was more interested in was the description of Callum’s home.
Houses weren’t uncommon, settlements happened. And bad things happened to settlements.
But Callum had said something- something that got the circuits in Nick’s brain firing up.
“Your neighborhood. What was it like the last time you were living there? Before all of this trouble happened-”
Nick wasn’t sure what answer he wanted, what answer he expected.
He wasn’t sure of a damn thing so far.
“Clean… the paint was better. Elton’s Mr. Handy kept my flowers neat too, always saying it was no trouble. It was… nice. Even with all the noise from the… from the vault they were building.”
The last part sounded painful to say. Nick knew it was. But your old friend Nick was a little too busy pulling back on the cop getup to offer a comforting word.
Stick some bread in his mouth and call him a god-damned toaster.
Callum was pre-war.