Chapter Text
"Fuckin' raiders." Jacob mumbled under his breath. "Can't even be bothered to take their dead friends back with them." The body he was dragging behind him through the forest was heavier than most of the ones he'd had to bury in the past. Just as he was about to drop the guy and start digging, Jacob heard a rustling in the trees. Drawing his shotgun, he cautiously walked towards the source of the sound. Hope it's a radstag, he thought. Could use the hide to make a new jacket. Instead of a radstag, though, what he found was a person- unconscious, but decidedly still alive.
The man was caked in dirt and so much blood that his skin was tinted an odd red-orange. His clothes were soaked and torn. Jacob's brows furrowed. "Fuck, man, what happened to you? ...You can answer that later." He picked up the stranger, throwing him over his shoulder. The mile-long walk back to his house felt like hours, each step followed by the thought that Jacob was making a big mistake. But something about the man was just different. Jacob knew this guy had been through hell in ways he couldn't even imagine.
The first thing Simon saw after regaining consciousness was a scar-covered man with patchy blond hair, standing over him and holding a roll of bandages. The man smiled, a slightly odd sight considering his missing front tooth. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Glad you're alive." Simon's voice was hoarse from screaming. "...If I'm in heaven, you're ugly for an angel." The stranger laughed and shook his head. "Nah, if this was heaven I wouldn't be here. What happened to you anyways?" Simon tried his best to explain, but as soon as he got to the part about the ocean of blood the man just sighed. "You know what? Don't worry about it. You're clearly pretty out of it and none of this makes any sense to me. Wait until you're more recovered and then you can write all this down or something. I think I've got a Stimpak somewhere, don't steal anything while I go find it."
A few minutes later, the man returned with a strange metal syringe. "You know what this is, right?" Simon shook his head no, trying to stand up to leave but falling onto the floor instead. "Please, you don't have to do this. I just want to go home." At that, the man sighed. "This is medicine, okay? I don't 100% understand the science behind it, but it'll speed up the healing process like crazy. I don't have anything for your radiation sickness right now, though, that'll have to wait until a trader comes through here." After a moment, he added "You don't have anything on you worth killing for, anyways, so you can trust me." Simon nodded hesitantly, knowing the man was probably right. The needle didn't hurt like it should have, and after the injection was finished Simon's pain slowly began to fade.
Jacob felt the man's arm muscles relax slightly under his hand and smiled. "Alright. You remember what you told me about where you came from, yeah? With the blood ocean and everything?" Seeing the man nod, he continued. "Well either magic is real or you've got some serious brain damage, but for now I don't think it matters which one is the truth. Fact is, I've got a lot to explain to you, Mr- hm. What is your name?" The man smiled slightly, trying to block out the memory of the last person who bothered to ask him that. "My name is Simon." Jacob nodded as if taking a mental note. "Hello Simon, I'm Jacob. Good to properly meet you." And so Jacob began, to the best of his ability, to sum up the past 300 years of American history.
At one point during the explanation, Simon raised his hand- wincing at the movement. "You're talking about all this like you've lived through it. Probably a stupid question, but... how old are you anyways?" Jacob smiled, though a little more awkwardly this time. "I was about to get to that part. I, uh. Mentally I'm probably still in my twenties, but physically?" He sighed. "I turned 193 in August. I was one of the handful of folks lucky- or unlucky- enough to survive the initial nuclear blast that hit Indy back in 2077, and it turned me into the supermodel you see before you now. People like me are called ghouls, and as long as I don't get murdered or start goin' crazy I could probably hypothetically live until the Earth gets eaten by the sun... if I was stupid enough to want that, of course." He sighed, knowing Simon probably had more questions but not having enough mental energy to answer them. "Get some rest, Simon. Sun's goin' down, I'll talk to you in the morning."