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Hancock was a great mayor, a lousy dancer, and a damn good friend sometimes. Daisy could admit to being a little bitter when some scavenger wandered through and started stealing him away all the time, but Hancock seemed happier for it, and the Vault-dweller was honestly really lovely to talk to, so she couldn’t stay mad. Life went on in Goodneighbor with or without him, after all, and she stayed more than busy enough with the sudden influx of people the town saw under Fahrenheit’s new housing construction initiative.
She almost missed them arriving back in town, actually, which was amazing considering how loud his coat was. The dog was the first to run up to her, and maybe, maybe she’d started carrying bits of dried meat under her counter for the big dummy. Hancock sauntered up to her counter while she was loving on the dog, all swagger and shit-eating grin. “Not gonna complain about the smell this time, sunshine?”
“If you wouldn’t let him roll around in the filth out there, or at least bathed him, I wouldn’t have to remind you, would I?” She found the best spot for scritching and told Dogmeat, “Yes, it’s not your fault you travel with filthy miscreants, is it?”
“You wound me,” he sighed. “Do I get a hug or do you only have eyes for dogs now?”
Daisy scoffed. “You can wait your turn. I can see your ugly face any ol’ time.” She fished out a chunk of dried radstag and tossed it up for Dogmeat, who caught it deftly and started circling her store, looking for the best bit of floor to muck up with drool. Only after did she come around, easily accepting a hug and a kiss to her hand.
“Isn’t your ladyfriend going to get jealous?” she giggled, letting him twirl her awkwardly. It really was the thought that mattered when Hancock tried to play suave.
Nora and her friend, someone Daisy hadn’t met before, joined them at the counter. She nudged Hancock aside to claim her own hug, and Daisy was reluctant to admit how nice it was when someone smooth was so freely generous with touch around ghouls. Nora didn’t comment if the hug went on just barely too long, just gave her a firm squeeze as they finally broke apart. “Oh, Daisy, I know you’re his number one gal. He is more than enough to share.”
“Oh, is that what this is? You thinkin’ of expanding those horizons, Nora? This ghoul too much for one woman to handle? I have heard the stories, darlin’, and Daisy here is no wilting flower.”
The stranger looked distinctly uncomfortable, and Nora finally took pity on the poor guy. “Excuse us, we’ve been rude. Daisy, this is Preston Garvey.”
“Of the Minutemen? I’ve heard about you.” She gave him a long look, taking in his rugged features. What was it with the modern men hiding their handsome faces with silly hats? Hancock himself had been awfully handsome as a scrappy young smoothskin, and he might have had a certain appeal now if they hadn’t been as close as they were. This Garvey kid, though-- woof, someone did something very right there.
“Nothing good, I hope, ma’am,” he schmoozed with all the grace of someone who’d never told a joke in his life. Daisy couldn’t help but find it endearing. “I’m Daisy, and I’d prefer if you didn’t ‘ma’am’ me. I might be two centuries old, but I don’t want to feel old.”
Garvey tipped his hat, and showed an awful lot of straight white teeth when he smiled. “Two hundred? Why, you don’t look a day over one.”
Daisy met Hancock’s smug gaze briefly, meeting his silent ‘You’re welcome’ with ‘You’re forgiven.’ Damn him and the inability to stay sore with him for long. “Alright, you I like. What are you doing traveling with those two reprobates?”
“Aww, afraid my bad habits are gonna rub off on him?” Hancock stealthily removed his hand from where it had slipped beneath Nora’s armor to roll himself a cigarette on her counter, spilling tobacco and God-knows-what else all over it.
“No offense, Mayor, but I think I’d prefer if you didn’t rub anything on me,” sighed the kid, and Daisy suspected this was not the first time they’ve had this particular conversation. Some things just never changed, and Hancock trying to get into a pair of pants as fancy as Preston’s was just inevitable.
She didn’t think she could be as understanding as Nora was about it if Hancock had been her man, but they both seemed happy, so she didn’t ask questions, even if they were more than happy to talk about it.
“Me and Nora—well, mostly Nora, let’s be real—just took down a fuckton of raiders at Nuka-World. Garvey here is the liaison between all the new settlements popping up and the Minutemen, and since fewer scumbags means a safer Commonwealth, we’ve got a damn good reason to celebrate. You’ll be at the Rail tonight?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she purred.
By the time she’d closed up for the night, Nora and Hancock were pretty deep in their cups at the Third Rail. Hancock had taken the stage by to tell the story while Fahrenheit, Nora, and Garvey took a couple of the best couches. The story was pretty incredible, and almost certainly a fabrication from what she was hearing—honestly, ‘Overboss’? There was no such thing, and nobody would just accidentally become one even if there was—but he always was good at telling a story. Even the mercenary in the back had come out to listen, hooting with the rest of the crowd at the good bits.
Daisy tuned out the story of how her friends nearly got murdered as they took on hundreds of raiders on their own, as it hurt her head to think of that being even remotely possible, and grabbed a couple of stouts from Charlie before joining Preston on the sofa.
“Think any of this is true? I can never tell with them,” Preston whispered to her, and she shrugged around a mouthful of beer.
“Hancock exaggerates, but he doesn’t lie much, and Nora really does have strange things happen all the time. My guess is that they did run some kind of maze, that she didn’t really crush a guy’s neck wearing a Nuka Girl costume, but that they probably did ride the teacups with a magician.” She offered him the beer, and Preston looked surprised to see that the one he’d been holding was empty. He accepted it graciously and took a long swig.
“You know, I didn’t like that guy much in the beginning,” he admitted, glancing over at Nora half-draped over Fahrenheit. Damn, Magnolia wasn’t going to like that—or maybe she would? Daisy sometimes didn’t understand these modern couples.
“—but I think I was just upset that Nora chose him to help her instead of me. My work with the Minutemen kept me too busy to just wander off for weeks. You’d think being a mayor would keep him busy, huh?” He shot a dirty look at Hancock, who was taking his bows as his story concluded to a round of thunderous applause.
“He was good at it, but he wasn’t happy just sittin’ on his rump. A man like that needs to wander to feel alive. If a ghoul loses his purpose, then… well, it isn’t pretty. Fahrenheit has been doin’ a really good job covering the daily stuff, and he stops back in often enough for the big things.”
Preston watched her pick at the label of her beer for a long moment, oblivious to Hancock throwing himself into the pile of people on the couch behind him. “If I can be too forward here, miss, what keeps you going? And you can tell me it’s none of my business.”
“Me? Huh. I haven’t really thought about it.” She played with a lock of hair from her wig, frowning in concentration. “Well… I was around before the War, right? And things were different then. Simpler. Beautiful. I guess I still love to see the beauty in things, especially when people remember that we aren’t just any animals, but that we’re capable of so many wonderful things. For example, Hancock was nearly lost to it, and he did lose his physical beauty, but his mind always had it. He just needed a little push.” She sighed, smiling softly. “I’m happy that she can see past the surface. Ghouls like us don’t get happy endings.”
“Why in the world not?” He looked honestly confused, the sweet little lamb.
“Oh, honey.” She took a long drink and shook her head. “Most of the world thinks we shouldn’t even exist, that we aren’t even people.”
An argument was breaking out behind them, with the mercenary breaking a chair over someone’s head while Nora cheered him on from her perch on Hancock’s lap, all while Magnolia had taken the stage and cranked the speakers loud to drown out the fight with her song. Preston looked alarmed by it all, unsure if he should intervene, until Daisy said, “Oh, relax, this is nothing. Guess you haven’t done much partying with Hancock, right?”
Preston flushed and sat back down. “He and I have a number of irreconcilable differences.”
Daisy laughed behind her hand. “But some of the same ideas, just a different execution. And for you, sober while you do it, right?”
“Guilty as charged.” A few chairs ahead of them got thrown to the back of the bar, clearing out a patch of floor. He cleared his throat nervously. “Daisy? Would it be alright if I asked you to dance?”
She looked over him for a long, long moment and smiled. “Why, Preston Garvey, I would be delighted.”
And, turns out, he was a much better dancer than Hancock, but maybe she had a bias for tall, pretty, and smooth after all.