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sky-kiss · 15 days

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Lucy & Cooper: Eye to Eye

A/N: So short but needed it out of my head. Vague spoilers for the end of Fallout's first season, so be aware.

L & C: Eye to Eye

Vaultie doesn’t talk much for the first couple of days.

Coop tries not to dwell on it—lot easier for him, lot safer for them, if she keeps her mouth shut. Just…well, hell, it’s one of those things that niggles at him, twitching in the back of his mind like a worm on a hook. Dumb fuckin’ fish that he is, Coop lets it draw him in.

The ghoul gives her a once-over as they settle in for the night. Blood’s still crusted on her uniform, near the corner of her mouth, some of it flecked into her hair. A mottled bruise stretches across her cheek and up over her temple, purple at its center before paling to yellows and greens on the edges. Coop knows it hurts, but Vaultie doesn’t say shit.

A noose and a prolonged stay on death’s door, dehydration, and irradiation hadn’t shut her up, but she’s sitting there, staring into the fire, all banged up and silent.

Cooper chews a sardine ponderously. There’s no taste, not anymore, just the tension of flesh and little bones giving way beneath his teeth. He grunts before sliding the rest of the tray across to her. Vaultie doesn’t take it. He clucks his tongue. “Eat when then eatin’ is good, Vaultie. Get deeper into the Wastes and…well.” he shrugs as if the silence should be all the answer she needs. And it should be, but she just goes on staring with her huge doe eyes.

“I’m not hungry.” Almost as an afterthought, she adds. “Thank you.”

“Do what you like. You’re a big girl. And I ain’t your daddy.”

The phrase jostles something in her head. Vaultie’s whole face screws up—nose scrunching, lips curling—and she opens her mouth as if to speak, only for it to snap shut. A muscle twitches in the corner of her mouth and it’s…it’s a hell of a thing.

He doesn’t see his daughter in her face…doesn’t see Barb. He’s looking in a mirror. It’s two centuries ago, and he’s staring at himself—all offended dignity as he reads something unsavory in a script or listens to a suit wax philosophical about a battlefield they’ll never see.

Vaultie must clock something about his reaction. All the stiffness leaves her posture. She just…deflates, eyes dropping. “I know that,” she says, voice soft. Not the “let me de-escalate this situation” bullshit she’d put on in Filly…just human. Very human and so tired. “I’m sorry—it was wrong of me to snap at you.”

Coop almost laughs. He holds his arms out wide instead. “No harm done.”

She goes back to her staring, back to her silence. Something howls off in the distance.

Out of nowhere, and because it’s all just fuckin’ disorienting—the silence, having somebody around again—the ghoul says, “Reckon you’ll kill him?”

“Excuse me?”

He picks nonexistent grit out of his teeth and spits. “Think you know exactly who I mean, sweetheart.” Vaultie cocks her head to the side. Firelight licks at her skin—it makes his hard lines harder, edges more jagged, but for her? She looks soft and young…a gross oversimplification. There’s steel in her eyes. Coop shrugs, flashing a smile that must look horrible. She doesn’t shrink back. “You find it offends your finer sensibilities and I’ll do it for ya.”

“No.” Her tone leaves no room for debate.

“Vaultie, that’s not a word I’m in the habit of hearing.”

“It’s Lucy,” she corrects. “And I…said what I said.” The girl hugs her arms around herself. “He’s still my dad. I don’t want him…” Vau..Lucy pauses. Her brow furrows, “...Well, I guess I don’t know what I want yet. But…I have time.”

“Less and less of it every day.”

She screws up her nose again. “Maybe. But it’s my choice.” It’s the damnedest thing: the words just hang there for a second, silence broken by the crackle of the fire. And then she seems to actively register what she’s said. It’s Lucy MacLean’s choice. She smiles and nods—brilliant and bloodied and somehow still clean. “But…thank you for offering.”

Like he’s suggested giving up his seat on the bus and not filling her daddy full of lead. Fuckin’ Vaulties…Coop shakes his head, “Anytime, sweetheart.”

#fallout #lucy maclean #cooper howard #the ghoul #fallout tv #fallout spoilers #fallout fanfic #lucy maclean x cooper howard #dunno that I should tag it as shippy it really isn't #i can feel the hyperfixation growing

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