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Audrey rolled off of her and Hancock’s great big floor mattress, yawning as felt her way towards the stairs in the wooden shack on top of the Red Rocket gas station. It was grey and drizzling on and off, but not enough to really bother her— she’d been sleeping out of proper shelter for more than a year by that point, and her immune system had been forced to really start pumping its fucking legs to keep up.
“Well look at you. I must still be dreaming,” Hancock said groggily, turning over. Audrey paused and tilted her head up to stare at the ceiling imploringly. The fucker knew that there was no better way to get her to crawl back into bed than pulling that sweet sappy shit on her.
“I have to water the flowers,” she said, turning to face him. The flowers in question were mostly relocated hubflower and thistle for various chems— not the sort of garden Audrey would have ever pictured herself starting, but there she was.
“It’s raining,” he reminded her, and… that was a fair point.
He had the decency to cuddle when she crawled back into bed, at least. “You lose some weight, stud?” she asked as his skinny arms wrapped around her waist. He made a noncommittal noise into her neck and she frowned. “You promised you’d eat,” she reminded him.
“I did.”
“It doesn’t count if you down a bag of chips.”
“Be more specific next time.”
“John,” she scolded.
“Gimmie a little credit, I’m trying,” he argued. “Better than forgettin’ altogether.” She wrinkled her nose a little because it was only just barely better and she knew he didn’t see a difference but… “Don’t make that face, you’re making me all guilty.”
“Lemme make you something,” she said, sitting up.
“Or… you could stay here,” he suggested, his arms locking. Fortunately that really wasn’t enough to stop her, what with her only doing chems during a fight and Hancock doing chems instead of hydrating. “Come on Drey, gimmie five more minutes.”
“I’m making breakfast, John.” Another thing she’d never thought she’d have to do— warn someone that she was making breakfast or else. “You don’t have to get up, but you’re gunna shovel food in your mouth.”
He rolled to his feet, conspicuously missing the ruffled shirt and jacket (and yet somehow the hat and boots had made it) and shuffled down to the kitchen behind her. The Red Rocket was really a marvel of engineering, all things considered. Barns and shacks and sometimes metal walls had been repurposed into a tentative three story building on top of the gas station.
The top floor was their room, admittedly littered with all their stupid shit: Grognak comics on top of mentat tins on top of empty whiskey bottles on top of Guns & Bullets mags. Below them was the workshop, usually empty unless Audrey got it in her head to fuck around with something or when Codsworth hung around when he wasn’t tending the guard posts. Bottom level was kind of chaotic, a mix of living room and dorms used by everyone whenever they had time to drop in (surprisingly frequent considering the Rocket’s inconvenient location).
The kitchen was on the bottom level and came with a stove, a fridge, and a cabinet filled with irradiated junk food that Hancock had been nipping away at while congratulating himself for being so health conscious. “You did remember,” Audrey conceded as she approached the stove. Hancock wrapped himself around her, the knot on his flag belt pressed against her tailbone.
“Just for you, Sunshine,” he added, settling himself in to stand there while she cooked. “Haven’t made anything in awhile besides chems, though. Think you can teach me somethin’?” He kissed a trail to her shoulder and she smiled.
“If you think you can keep your eyes front and centre,” she said, turning her head to look at him. He kissed her mouth, pulling back with a crooked grin.
“Gunna be tough, but anything for you Drey.”