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#the ghoul x you
ghoulphile · 1 day
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janey's dad | c.h./the ghoul | part 01
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➥ pairing | cooper howard/the ghoul x f!reader ➥ word count | 3.7k ➥ warning(s) | 🔞 smut; age gap, hair pulling, teasing, making out, mutual pining, lipstick kink, stockings, frottage, porn w/ feelings, porn w/ plot, mild angst w/ happy ending, divorced!coop, babysitter!reader, pre-war/bomb ➥ summary | “We really, uh, shouldn’t - oh fuck, you look --” ➥ notes | i'm so sorry this is later than it should be. i am unfortunately a corporate slave and this fic just did not want to cooperate 🫠 there are a lot more things planned and this fic is turning into a bit of a beast (20+ pages and counting rip lmao) so i've decided to split it into two parts to make it more manageable for myself mostly un-beta'd atm a special thanks to @corinthianism for all her lovely help ❤️!!
feel free to send in thots, questions, requests! | masterlist
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Divorce is hard, but being a divorcé is downright hellish.
One of the ugliest things in the world, if Cooper Howard has any say. At least when he was a Marine, they told him where to point his gun, where to aim; nameless threats vanishing with a quick squeeze of the trigger.
Here, these ‘enemies’ aren’t enemies — not really.
It’d be easier if they were.
Worse still, they have names he holds as dearly as his own. There’s Barb, whip smart and always so clever. Then Janey, the light of his life and so sweet his teeth ache.
Once upon a time, life was sweeter than apple pie on Sundays.
Then came the separation.
Afterwards, he finds it hard to look at what’s left of his family without losing breath like a horse kick to the chest. Their absence rips open a hole inside him ten miles wide, its edges jagged and wrong.
And when he can’t take the silence anymore, fingers of malt liquor help dull the ache, though it’ll never be enough to mend what’s broken.
See, war’s something he understands.
But these domestic battlefields where he sits across from his ex-wife while lawyers barter this weekend and that holiday?
How he struggles to meet his daughter’s eye every time she asks if he’s coming home?
When Barb keeps the house and the money while he keeps the scrapbooks and the dog?
He doesn’t — can't — refuses to comprehend.
Because in what world can you reconcile looking down the barrel of a smoking gun only to find the woman you love staring back, finger on the trigger? Left out to hang as Vault-Tec orchestrates his downfall.
The true depth of their involvement is unknown, but it’s no coincidence his bank accounts dried up faster than the Mojave in June. The ink still wet when the media snapped up the story of his failed marriage.
Thus, his reputation (rather what’s left of it) unraveled faster than a spool of thread.
Knocked on his ass and kept there by a boot heel crushing his windpipe. Whose? He hasn’t got a fucking clue.
But whoever they are, they’re making sure he stays a washed up nobody who struggles to land a call back, much less pay his monthly alimony on time.
See what we can do? You were America’s favorite gunslinger - now look at you. Mind your place.
Hell, millions used to scream his name.
Nowadays people whisper it behind their hands like a dirty secret, “Oh, did you hear? Cooper Howard…” as they dissect pieces of his life into bite-sized Before’s and After’s. “Hah! Serves him right. Y’know, I never liked him much.”
While he grits his teeth and swallows his bitterness with a smile, he hates how he can’t protect Janey from snide reporters and nosy strangers. Juggling actor-father-divorcé with fumbling hands.
It’s only been six months; a heartbeat, a lifetime, and already he’s scraped thin like butter over too much bread.
Something’s gotta give.
After all, he’s only one man.
But just when it's bleakest, the clouds part.
A young woman moves in next door, the first bright thing that’s come his way in a long, long while.
At first, he kept his distance.
Exchanged vague hello’s and how-are-you’s. Then Janey took a shine; always so friendly and eager to talk about her latest books.
Any reservations he might’ve had died when he saw how enamored you are with her.
Only made sense that over time small pleasantries turned into playdates. Then those playdates turned into sleepovers.
Before long, you’re watching her when a gig runs late.
Rustling up grub and tucking her into bed more often than not these days. And when he slinks in through the door, knees aching and stripped to the bone, there you are with a shy smile and a warm meal.
So what if he takes himself in hand after you leave, stroking his cock to the thought of you down on your knees in that pretty little sundress?
Imagines the wide stretch of your ruby lips as you swallow him down, lipstick smeared an awful mess?
Cums hard to the fantasy of your teary eyes and hiccupy breaths as you choke?
What you don’t know can’t hurt you.
After all, he’s a gentleman... he promises to keep his hands to himself.
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“All right, Sugar Bomb, it’s bedtime.”
Bundled in navy bedding up to her nose, Janey’s wide brown eyes peer up at you from beneath a riot of frizzy curls. Roosevelt, her ever faithful companion, plasters himself to her side. The tip of his tail swishes once, twice before falling limp.
“Ah, c’mon guys. Don’t look at me like that.” You sigh with a fond shake of the head, hip popping out to rest against the doorframe. “I don’t make the rules, I just follow ‘em.”
A muffled response sounds from the lump of little girl, “Nmfhm.”
Squinting, you dip your head and tap the side of your ear, "Pardon?"
“Mnhfmmmm.”
“Ye—eah… Didn’t catch that, Mumbler.”
Janey tugs down the blanket, her mouth pursed in a moue of displeasure. “I said,” she crosses her arms with a huff, “not until Dad gets home.”
Shit.
“M’sorry, baby. He’s still gonna be a while.” Walking across the room, you stop beside the bed and motion your hand back and forth. “Scooch over.”
Gangly limbs fumble as Janey wiggles into the middle of the mattress, her feet tangling in the blankets. Roosevelt takes a toe to the nose during the transition, but flops across her knees all the same.
Together they settle with a bounce of springs.
In the open space, you slide in.
The bed sinks under your weight, a plume of rich cologne tickling your nose; mint-spiced citrus. Cooper. Your stomach swoops, and your heart trips.
“I didn’t see him at breakfast — or lunch!” A pout tugs at her mouth. “Not even dinner. I gotta go home tomorrow. So when am I gonna see him?”
“Oh, bug.” You sigh, propping yourself up on your elbow. “Your dad’s been real busy at work. And I know that’s been hard for you, but I promise to make sure he’s here for breakfast tomorrow.”
“D’you mean it?” Her cold nose digs into your skin. “Me and Roosevelt miss him so much.”
Cuddled into your chest, Janey tosses an arm around your back. Her fuzzy head rests in the crook of your arm, springy curls tickling your skin.
You squeeze her tight and trace your fingertips over her forehead.
“I can do you one better,” you say, bopping the tip of her nose just to hear her giggle - a soft sound that sits warm and gooey in your chest. “I pinkie-promise.”
Her finger loops around yours, so small and fragile.
“I’ll even make pancakes. How’s that sound for a promise?”
“Oh, yes, please! I think Dad will like that,” a wide yawn cuts her off mid-sentence. “He’s sad, but he always smiles when you make food.”
Janey’s words — unexpected as they are sudden — cut so deep it steals the breath from your lungs. You flounder, your heart a throbbing bruise in your chest.
“... Then pancakes it is.”
As if nothing happened at all, she asks, “Do I have to go to bed now?”
“Afraid so, little miss.” Your responding chuckle sounds stilted even to your own ears. “Just you wait. When you wake up, Dad’ll be home.”
“Fi—ine, but I want extra pancakes.” Janey pauses, considers you with narrow eyes, then adds, “With syrup!”
“Whatever you want,” you say with an indulgent smile. “Now... time to sleep. It’s really past your bedtime.”
She gives you one last squeeze then lets you tuck her in nice and tight, blankets pulled up to her chin. You drop a kiss on her forehead while Roosevelt re-settles on the pillow beside her after a quick scratch behind the ears. 
Everything in order, you turn to go only for a little hand to stop you.
“Yes?” you reply, glancing at her from over your shoulder.
“... can you put on one of Dad's movies?”
The tremble in her voice - like she’s about to get scolded - breaks your heart clean down the middle. Stitching on a soft smile, you nod and walk to the darkened TV set in the room's corner.
After fiddling with the nobs, static flashes to life.
“The Man from Deadhorse okay?”
The holotape sliding into the track swallows the sound of her tiny “Yeah.” Starting up with a whirl of machinery, the second-hand Radiation King flickers to life in black-and-white.
A vast plain and bright sky stretches across the screen.
Then Sugarfoot creeps into frame with the one and only Cooper Howard sitting astride the noble steed. The sheriff’s badge on his chest glints in the sun.
“Thank you,” she mumbles, already half-way to sleep.
“Anything for you, baby. Sleep tight.”
Flicking off the lights, you leave the door cracked. Walk away pretending like hearing her whisper goodnight to the TV doesn’t lance through you like lightning.
The desire to whisk her into your arms and soothe all of her ails is almost impossible to ignore.
Somehow, you distract yourself by wiping up the table, then by fixing a plate of dinner for whenever Cooper rolls in. Though all the while, how brokenhearted Janey sounded sits in the back of your mind like a leaden weight.
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When Cooper stumbles into the living room, it’s half past midnight.
You’d gotten up to greet him, curled as you were in an armchair reading, when something about the stern line of his mouth gave you pause.
Where the usual lighthearted greetings lingered, a pensive stillness trembled to life.
Tension crackles through the air; a held breath of agitation. By the faraway gaze and defeated slump of his broad shoulders, it’s plain to see the night didn’t go as intended. And no matter how much you long to soothe, you can’t.
After all, he’s not yours to touch.
Instead, you offer a sympathetic smile and ask, “Rough night, huh?”
Cooper ignores the prompt, squeezing past with a brief touch to your elbow as he makes a beeline for the dry bar. The heat of his body is there and gone in a flash, his cologne teasing your senses. He says, “Thought you’d be asleep by now.”
Your heart flutters in your throat. “Ah,” you lick your lips, “well, I was going to finish my chapter first.”
Humming, he turns his back to you and fiddles with high balls and decanters. The tink of crystal glassware fills the air as he speculates which alcohol goes best with his mood. 
“Thanks again for watching Janey.” He nods in approval and fixes his whiskey neat. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble, Mr. Howard.” You shrug. “She’s a sweetheart.”
He shoots you a dry look from over his shoulder, stirring the dark amber of his drink with a forefinger. When he sucks his skin clean with a soft pop - a flash of a pink tongue taunting, teasing - your stomach swoops.
God, I wonder what else his mouth can do.
Flustered, you clear your throat and stare at a spot on the wall.
“How many times do I gotta tell you to call me Coop?” he says, digging through some drawers until he finds what he’s searching for: a lighter. “It must be a million and one by now.”
Flint sparks as flames jump, eating away at the end of a cigarette. Cooper inhales in short little puffs, pulling on the filter. His cheeks hollow, the shadows enhancing the cut of his jaw before the tip catches alight.
“Well,” he exhales, his gaze catching yours through a plume of smoke as he turns, brow raised. “Anything to say for yourself?”
“Old habits die hard, I guess,” you chuckle.
The corner of his mouth lifts in a lopsided smirk. “I’ll drink to that.” He knocks back the last finger of whiskey before refilling with gin.
Springs groan in protest when he drops to the couch, settling in with an outstretched arm and wide spread thighs.
“It’s been a long fucking day,” he rasps.
Gulping, you try to ignore the space at his feet.
The stirrings of desire provoked by the urge to sink to your knees and fill it with your body, to ease tension from those shoulders with your hands, your mouth, your cunt — if he’d let you.
“You heading home?” Nursing the fresh drink, he swallows a mouthful, only to hiss low through his teeth at the chemical burn. His throat bobs, framed by the open collar of his shirt. “Whew! Goddamn, that’s strong.”
“No, I can stay for a while.” A bird on a wire, you perch on the cushion beside him. “Got nothing else planned for tonight, anyhow.”
Cooper snorts. “I doubt that very much. A sweet young thing like you,” he motions towards you with his glass, “I’m sure you’ve got plenty of fellas calling, especially on a Friday night. Don’t waste your time with me.”
“That’s not why I--” you stop yourself short.
Save for the bustling LA avenue right outside the complex, the apartment itself is stone silent for several heartbeats. Words hover on the back of your tongue, catching in the bend of your throat molasses thick.
Meanwhile, Cooper continues to swirl the alcohol in his glass.
Maybe in a different life, you wouldn’t hesitate to express yourself.
But here — with him — you shouldn’t.
Christ sake, he’s a grieving divorcé, you chastise yourself. The last thing he needs is me trying to lay one on him.
When you speak, his name glides off your lips for the first time, clementine sweet, “... Cooper, I’m not wasting my time. I enjoy spending it with Janey - and you.”
“Well,” he husks, hooded eyes dragging down your visage in a slow once-over, “you’re the first one in a long while to feel that way, sweetheart.”
Dripping like honey whiskey from Cooper’s lips, the simple phrase burns its way down-down-down until it blooms like liquid fire in your belly. Warms you all the way to your toes as your heart pounds against your ribcage.
“I mean it.” Your knuckles twist in the pleats of your sundress, bolts of blue fabric bunched around your knees. “Everything I do is because I want to.”
The flash of red nails plucking at the sheer nylon of your stockings snaps up his attention, his gaze snagging - staying as he chases the curve of your exposed leg, hungry.
He wets his lips, and tenses his jaw when he spots how the soft fat of your thigh dimples in because of your garter. “That’s awful sweet of you to say.”
You tremble beneath the intensity of his attention.
Greedy.
Little kisses of awareness spark bright along the path his eyes carve like the caress of shy fingertips.
However, before you’re able to confront him about his interest, the heat leaches from his expression, grows mute and cold like a muzzled dog. 
Readjusting the waistband of his slacks with a tug, he says, “I know you got better things to do than keep an old man company.”
Irritation sparks. “Cooper--”
“If this is about paying you for tonight,” his lips quirk into a sheepish smile, “I won’t be able to yet.” He scrubs a hand through the stubble peppered along his jaw. “The gig tonight didn’t… Well, it doesn’t matter.”
“No, that’s not what I --”
He plows on, “Anyway, the one I’ve got tomorrow should be enough. How about I stop by around seven o’clock? I’ll treat you to dinner as an apology.”
Frustration bubbles beneath the surface of your skin, antagonism thrumming through your veins. Your hands shake almost as much as your voice. “Cooper!”
“I… uh, yes?” He blinks.
Your brows furrow. “You don’t get it,” you say. “I mean, you truly don’t know?”
“I’m afraid there’s a lot I don’t get. You’re gonna have to be more particular.”
Maybe not said in so many words (or at all) but actions speak far louder.
Otherwise, why else would you spend most of your time in his apartment, fill every spare moment with Janey, and reserve evenings for his company?
Hell, you even cook and clean!
Almost scream your interest from the rooftops, and it’s obvious to everyone but him, it seems.
Here you are thinking he was preserving your dignity whenever he ignored a passing comment or lingering touch when, in fact, he’d been oblivious to their existence to begin with.
How a man can be so obtuse when you’re throwing yourself at him is beyond you.
If he wasn’t so captivating…
“Are you kidding me,” you ask, mindful of your tone, “how could you not know?” You throw your hands in the air. “I’ve been — for months!”
“Well, I don’t have a goddamn clue what you’re talking about, sweetheart,” he snarks, setting his glass on the table. “Care to enlighten me?”
Fine. If that’s how he wants to play, let’s play.
When he moves to take another drag from his cigarette, you strike, fingers locking around his wrist mid-lift. And although his glassy eyes narrow, he keeps his hand still.
Waiting to see what you'll do.
Tucking your knee under you for balance, you bend forward and watch his face from beneath your lashes. When your lips wrap around the filter, a dark hunger bleeds into his expression, his pulse a steady thud against the pad of your thumb.
Inhaling, the cherry lights up, a flashbang in the dim overhead light.
Cooper’s breath hitches, and then you’re pulling away with a lungful of smoke; the taste of ash heavy on your tongue.
He tracks your movements with greed, gaze flicking for the briefest of moments past your chin before refocusing on the ring of red lipstick staining white paper.
“If you wanted one,” he chokes, gripping the back of the couch with white knuckles, “all you had to do was ask.”
With a coquettish grin, you exhale to the side and stare at him with hooded eyes. “Is that so?” Plucking the cigarette out of his limp hold, you stub it out in the ashtray. “What if I wanted to ask for something else, Mr. Howard?”
The next moment finds you deposited in his lap, his hands shooting out to grab at your waist only to freeze before they make contact.
“Woah! I--”
“Tell me something.”
Your lips caress the shell of his ear, sharing breath - sharing space as you plaster yourself to his front, arms looped over his shoulders. He jolts, body trembling with restraint.
“Would you give me what I wanted if I said please?”
The distance between you snaps taut with anticipation. “C-Coop,” he stutters. “Call me Coop.”
You hum. “Well, Coop, would you?”
“That depends almost entirely on what you’re asking for, sweetheart.”
Red nails skate along the back of his neck, play in the downy soft hair of his nape just to feel him shiver. And then you’re leaning back with your hands braced on his knees, your legs falling open in invitation.
The hem of your dress bunches around your waist, exposing the soft cotton of your underwear, and the darkened patch of slick soaking through.
“I think you know exactly what I want,” you purr. “Because you want it too. Don’t you?”
He bites down on a strangled moan when your hips arch forward, rocking the soft plush of your ass against the heavy weight of his thickening cock. The zipper digs into your skin as he tents the front of his slacks.
Mouth dropping open, his tongue flicks out to wet his lips - a slick circle of temptation that makes you clench. “I, uh, I don’t…”
Reaching between your splayed thighs, you hook a finger beneath your panties and pull the fabric aside. He jerks forward, exhaling hard at the flash of your soaked cunt and twitching clit.
“C’mon, be honest.”
With a sigh, you gather your arousal on the tips of your fingers.
Cooper’s gaze is a heavy weight pinning you in place as you pretend it’s him dragging his knuckles over the top of your mond. Him dragging calloused fingers up along sticky folds to play with your sensitive clit, ripping soft little mewls from your lips.
“Can’t you see what you do to me, Coop?” you say, pulling your hand away to show the webs of slick stretching between your fingers. “I’m so wet. Please, I’ve wanted you for so long…”
His hips rock against your ass in an aborted thrust. “Shit - shit!” Eyes slamming shut, he grits his teeth and digs his fingers into your sides hard enough to bruise. “We really, uh, shouldn’t - oh fuck, you look --”
“Why not?” Your hand brushes over his groin. “I can feel how hard you are.”
“It isn’t right, that’s why.” He stutters, stumbles over his words, “Besides, Janey…”
“I can be quiet,” you say, lips trembling. “I promise.”
“Goddamnit, you can’t say things like that and expect me not to --” Cutting himself off, strong fingers seize your chin and tilt until you’re met with Cooper’s severe expression, his scorching gaze. “You need to tell me now: are you sure this is what you want?”
There’s no hesitation, “Yes.”
In what world would you refuse?
The words barely pass your lips before Cooper’s bowing his dark head, mouth ravenous as it captures yours in a slick glide of bruising lips and hungry tongues.
He steals your breath, licks into your mouth and traces along the sensitive inside of your lip.
Pulse jump starting, your toes curl over the edge of the cushion and your thighs squeeze the barrel of his chest, kneecaps digging into his ribs.
“Oh,” a moan punches itself out of your throat - a breathy little thing swallowed up by his lips. “That’s--”
Anticipation swells, simmers between you like a band before it snaps. A strong forearm locks around your waist, tugging you into the cradle of his chest until you’re plastered from stem to stern.
Too hungry for tenderness as his free hand slips up to cup the back of your head, fingers catching in the briar of your hair and tugging at the roots.
You claw at his shoulders while sparks of pain ricochet down your neck, sufficing into a prickly flush that heats your blood. “Hnn, Cooper,” you gasp.
He murmurs your name through languid flicks of his tongue and sharp little nips of skin that leave your mouth tender and swollen. When he pulls away to survey his handiwork, his eyes are dark. Fathomless.
"I never thought I'd get the chance to kiss you like this," he says, wicking his thumb over the pillow of your bottom lip. "You taste as good as I imagined."
Dragging your nails across his scalp, you plead, “No more teasing - I can't take it.”
"Well," he grunts, fingers twisting up in your dress, “If that’s how you feel, then you better put those hips to good use and work for it, sweetheart."
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part 2 dropping soon
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eupheme · 2 days
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— below the belt [into the fire, part iv]
part i | part ii | part iii | masterlist
cooper howard / the ghoul x f!reader
rated e - 4k
tags: dubcon, power dynamics, vault dweller!reader, bounty hunting, sex for favors, sub/dom elements, brief somno, fingering, light degradation, oral (f & m), light ass play, hair pulling, swallowing, miscommunication, cooper is a diiiccckk, canon-typical violence and death
a/n: just a small warning there’s very brief references about pregnancy and infertility in this, in reference to reader’s vault (in regards to other members)
“I don’t think I‘ve ever been more desperate. Told myself I’d do anything to make sure they didn’t find me.” A small smile, then - as you remember, "But then I found you, and..."
As you turn, you notice he's gone still. Hat tipped down low, a guarded look as the pink of his tongue slips across his teeth.
"Huh. Should've known." He muses - voice slow and rough, "Think I'm startin’ to put things together."
(Or - you open up, and things don’t go as planned)
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There’s a pressure at your hips. Something nudging your thighs apart, strong and solid. The ghost of fingertips at the hem of your shirt, pushing the fabric up.
You stir in your sleep, the dark room swimming. Jerking awake at the press of something against your core - a hand splayed across your lower back, pinning you down.
A snarl in your throat, as you try to twist away.
“Easy there, you lil’ yao guai.” The Ghoul’s voice cuts through the dark, and with it - you feel your muscles start to ease.
“What are you doing?” You croak sleepily.
“Takin’,” He husks - teeth biting into the leather of his gloves, tearing them from his fingers.
Cupping you, the heel of his palm pressing against your clothed cunt. Fingers sliding beneath the thin fabric of your underwear, as your thighs nudge wider.
Back arching, as you stretch out on your belly. A rough hum as you fill his palm. Warm against his fingers, as the tip of one rubs at your clit.
“Was just gonna sleep.” It’s quiet. You don’t know if it’s early or late - the room still bathed in moonlight, “But seeing all this skin, the way you’re offering up your pussy on a silver platter…”
He tugs at your underwear, ripping it down your thighs, “Makes a man wanna take a bite.”
Teeth sink into the soft curve of your ass - a yelp as you jerk beneath him. Glaring at him from over your shoulder, from beneath heavy eyelids.
He’d been gone all day. Something about needing to check the next place out. Not wanting you slowing him down.
There had been a spike of something in your stomach at his words. Fear. Unease.
Condescension dripping in his tone, in his “You best stay put, or I’ll make you stay put.”
Funny how after all this time, it’s him being apartfrom you that had you pacing. Checking out the battered windows, ready to dart back down to the basement. Fighting the nausea of the RadAway still that lingers in your system as the radiation purges itself, after the days before.
Busying yourself with more scavenging. Scrubbing the grime and dust from your clothes in a bucket of radiated water, your pants still hanging off the back of a chair to dry.
The hours slowly ticking by, until the sun dipped under the horizon. The thin blanket pulled up to your chin, as you waited - until finally, you drifted off.
You’re not ready to unpack that. Or the fluttering in your belly now. The relief.
His features are even more skull-like in the darkness, his hat discarded on a nearby table. Faint shadows cast across his face by the still-buzzing static of the television. Dark hollows carved out at his nose, the set of his eyes.
A smear of red against his cheekbone. Flaking off the leather of his discarded gloves. Adrenaline slowly leeching from his system, from an unexpectedly rough afternoon. Unable to resist the urge to sink into something soft and wanting.
There’s a low sound of amusement as he nudges at you, urging you onto your knees. Your back still arched, shirt riding up to where your tits still press into the bed, your face now buried in the crook of an arm.
“Ain’t this a sight.” His hands grasp at your hips, fingers denting flesh as he spreads you open. Baring all of you to him.
Spit pools on his tongue. The dip of his head as his lips part - letting it drip down, warm and wet against your holes.
It makes you gasp, clenching down around nothing. He must see it, how you string tight, with the rough exhale he makes.
Your fingers curl against the mattress. Holding you breath - waiting for the press of his cock, the sharp stretch that you know will follow. Waiting for whatever he gives you.
Not expecting the brush of his tongue, as it flattens against your folds. Languid when it flicks up to your entrance. The sound you make is ragged, thighs pressing together.
They’re caught by his hands. Wrapping around the crook of your knees, forcing them apart again.
“No you don’t.” He hums, feeling your muscles flex in his grip, “You best keep these nice and spread for me.”
Another exploratory lick, tasting you - a muffled groan as he discovers how wet you are when he parts you.
He’s never touched you like this. Your mind is still caught on the kiss, his tongue against your tits, knuckles bruised by the bite of his teeth. Never expecting to know the feeling of his mouth anywhere else.
You don’t want him to stop. Arching more, using your leverage on the mattress to hike yourself higher for him.
“That’s more like it, sweetheart.” He rasps, “You learn fast, I’ll give you that.”
You keen, as he teases at your clit. Tight flicks of his tongue that have you rocking against him. Smearing his spit and your slick across your skin, before his lips are following.
Devouring you. Groaning at your taste.
“Been dyin’ for another taste,” It’s almost a coo, with the syrupy drawl of his words - muffled against your cunt, “Sweeter than stolen honey.”
Marveling at how wet you are, for him - in this dry and dead desert landscape. Nothing but sand and death for miles but you’re here, soft and slick against his mouth, biting back a muffled whine for more.
His tongue dips into your tight heat. Feeling the tight clench of you as he presses close, unhindered by the bulk of a nose.
Your hips rock against his face. Fully awake now, eyes tightly shut. Soft sounds melding with the suck of his mouth, thigh muscles tight and trembling.
“S’good,” It’s rough from sleep. Quiet, as if afraid he’ll stop if you reveal just how good he feels, “Feels so fucking good.”
A whine when his mouth does leave you.
“Yeah?” His voice is low, as his hand leave your legs. Thumbs finding the curve of your thigh, pressing into the meat of your ass, “Like getting tongue-fucked by a Ghoul?”
Opening you up, his thumb ghosting across your clit. Your answer is half-moan, half-sound, as he pinches the tight bud.
“Only if it’s yours.”
He makes a low, rough sound at that. Palming himself from his potion behind you.
“Still talkin’. Sounds like you need a little more.” It’s your only warning before two of his fingers nudge against your opening.
Your gasp rings out, turning soft when they press deep to fill you. The nudge of his thumb with each plunge of his fingers bringing you ever closer. Unable to help the rock of your hips, as his fingers curl inside you.
Each breath is a pushed from you. Ragged and high-pitched, as your fingers pinch tighter. The slight plateau spiking again as he strokes against a spot his cock had found.
Fingers twisting, as the pleasure climbs higher. A third fitting into you, one knuckle at a time. It’s almost too much, your legs pressing flush against his, knees locking as heat pools in your belly.
“Look at these tight little holes. Always takin’ what I give you,” He admires, as feels the way you clench down around him.
The tip of his thumb sweeping up. Following the path of slick and spit, until it rubs against your tight rim, “Good girl like you gonna let me in here, too?”
It shocks you. His words, that hint of praise. How unexpected his touch is. Your focus narrows to the pad of his thumb, the steady pump of his fingers. His groan rough as he feels you tighten around his fingers.
“Fuck. Filthy little thing.” He grins, adding the slightest pressure.
Your own moan is wanton, loud and needy in the near-silent room. So close you can almost reach out and taste it - ready to sink your teeth into the ripe flesh.
“I’m gonna-” You manage, but it peters off, slipping into a moan.
“What? You gonna come?” He mocks, but it’s ragged. Losing its edge with his own need - too focused the wet squelch of his fingers, how your hips buck against his palm.
The mattress is rough against your cheek as you nod. Words are all but stolen from you now, leaving unable to answer. Nothing left but the ache for your release, everything inside you winding tight.
With your soft sighs, his neck bends - another lick against your pussy, where his fingers still pound.
The next slick brush is against your clit. The tilt of his head so his tongue can flick at the tight bud. Again and again - and with the third, you feel yourself shatter.
You wail, as he rips it from you. A bright pulse that radiates inside you - your release dripping from you with the clench of your cunt. A low hum as he feels how hard you come around his fingers, against his tongue.
Eyes closed so tightly that stars spark behind your lids. There’s the rough cadence of his voice, but everything is muted except the pleasure that sends your nerves alight.
Not noticing the panting whines are coming from you, until you drift back down.
Softening, when his fingers ease from you. A hiss when he leaves you empty, already missing the heavy fullness.
“Flip over,” The Ghoul growls, as he leans back on his heels.
Your muscles tight in the best way from the bend of your knees, the pounding of his fingers. A soft groan as you shift, your back pressing into the mattress as your thighs open for him.
His eyes already there, seeing the slick shine between your legs, the pretty gape where he’s worked you open. There’s the clink of his belts, as he works himself free, achingly hard in his palm.
Anticipation swelling as you wait for him to hike your legs around his waist and bury himself in you.
That heavy gaze flicks up, instead. Bare skin, the pushed-up tangle of your shirt. The cock-drunk haze of your eyes. Your soft, parted lips as you catch your breath.
He’s like a shadow as he crawls up you. Tattered coat licking at your legs, lean thighs spreading as they bracket your ribs.
A hand plants next to your head as he arcs over you. The other wrapping around his cock - where it hangs heavy, brushing your chest.
Your eyes are wide, focused on the thick shine of him as he works your slick over his cock - how the flushed head disappears with the stoke of his fingers. Lips already parted in anticipation.
His hand unwrapping, fingers slipping against your bottom lip. Hooking around your teeth, as your tongue licks at his knuckles.
A sharp inhale, when you close around and suck.
“Gonna use this mouth,” He husks, “The way it ought to be used.”
Pressure against your jaw, until you’re opening. He leans back, thighs spreading wider. The hand by your ear leaving to curl around his base.
Eyes dark as he feeds himself into your mouth. You can’t help but moan when he hits your tongue - the musky taste of you that clings to him.
Fingers slipping free, but his eyes stay fixed as he inches between your lips. How quick you are to close around him - watching the grit of his jaw. Licking over the rough and uneven flesh, swollen and leaking against your tongue.
He eclipses everything else, with how he fills your vision. A hand slipping beneath your head to angle you, so you can take him deeper.
A shallow thrust that inches towards the back of your throat, constricting around him as you moan.
Intention in the way you slide your hands up for him. Fingers wrapped around the straps of the pack you were using as a pillow. His knees framing your tits, as he rocks into your mouth.
A silent submission that he does not miss. The curl of his lip and the shine of teeth, as you let him decide how much you can take.
His weight presses into your chest, keeping you pinned. Unable to go deep at this angle, but content with the hot suck of your mouth, the wet swirl of your tongue. Finding his rhythm, the clink of his spurs as his knees dig into the ground with each thrust.
There’s an unsteady buck of his hips, and his shaft scrapes against your teeth. You go still - eyes rounding with a jolt of fear - but all he does is let loose a rough groan, chin jutting as his teeth click together.
His hand still cradles the back of your head. Fingers twisting in the hair at the nape of your neck, but not enough to hurt. Almost as if grounding himself, as he pumps into your mouth.
“Goddamn.” He growls, “Should thank whoever taught you to suck cock. Gonna make me come, sweetheart-”
Your eyes do close then, resisting the urge to let your hands drift. To slide up his thighs, across his vest, aching to slip beneath. They curl instead, grasping at the straps.
Air rushing into your lungs, as he pulls from you. Eyes fluttering open to catch the way he strokes himself, angling the tip towards your parted and glossy lips.
“You gonna take it?” He rasps, and you nod - letting your tongue peek out for him.
His hand tugs at your hair, his chin tipping down to watch, “Wanna hear you say it. You gonna let me fill your pretty mouth?”
You don’t know when use became let, but if he wants your permission - he has it. It’s always been his, even when it’s been wrapped tightly around you. Tied up in a bow.
“Yeah,” Your eyes are on his when you say it. Focusing on the grit of his jaw, the dark shine of his eyes, “I wanna taste you.”
His fingers tighten, brow pinching. A jerk of his hips into his fist - something bitten back between his teeth, caught in the heave of his chest.
“Open.” The Ghoul groans, and it’s all the warning you get before he’s coming - spilling across your lips, and then into the wet heat of your mouth.
Your eyes flicking up to watch again, though you’re torn. Tempted to watch the rough jerk of his fist, all that exposed skin. But it’s nothing compared to the way he looks at you as you take him. The weight of his gaze, the baring of teeth that has nothing to do with anger.
The Ghoul still tastes like a man should, as the salt of him as it floods your tongue. The kick of his length between your lips with each throb, his eyes rolling shut as he milks himself into your mouth.
His thumb smears across your lower lip, before it sinks inside to join his cock. A ragged breath, when he feels you swallow around both. Your tongue flicking across your lips when he eases from you, the tips of your fingers wiping away the rest.
“Fuckin’ Christ.” It’s a low exhale, a held tension gone from his shoulders. Fingers finally loosening from your hair, though you would have kept your heady steady for him without them.
He flops down on the mattresses, where they are pushed together. Stretching out beside you, the long hours finally catching up to him.
A lift of his hips as he tucks himself away, as you reach down to find the twist of fabric around your knees - tugging your underwear back into place.
Your mind is blissfully quiet - drowsy again, in the late hour and your post-orgasmic haze. Warm, as you roll on your side, studying him from under half-lidded eyes.
He’s close. Enough you can see the rough cut of his cheekbones, the straight line of his teeth. A second as you wonder, not for the first time, what he might have looked like before.
Your cheek grazes his shoulder, as a dark eye flicks your way. An arm splayed out, still tucked beneath your neck from where he had angled your head.
The phantom pinch of his fingers still lingers. The taste of him on your tongue when you lick against your teeth.
“What?” He grouses - as he does, when he can’t read you. When you manage to surprise him.
“Nothing.” You murmur, sleepily, “Just glad you made it back.”
It’s easy then, for your head to tilt without thinking. For your lips to ghost against his throat, where his pulse flutters beneath rough skin.
A ragged breath rattles in his chest, when you press another kiss lazily against his jaw. He stiffens beside you, fingers curled in the fabric of your shirt.
Before he’s pushing - rolling you over. Tucking you between him and the old basement wall, his back to the locked door.
“Yeah, yeah.” He grunts. All bark now, with the way his bare fingers splay across your skin, where your shirt has ridden up.
“Get some sleep. Long walk tomorrow.”
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The morning dawns, and there’s something about it that seems more clear.
Or maybe it’s just you, your mind drifting back to the night before. How you woke up with the heavy press of him against you.
It hadn’t lasted long - a rough groan against your ear. Nothing said as the hat fixed itself back where it belongs. A silent tilt of his head towards to door, indicating the departure.
He still follows behind you, but you think just a bit of that gap between you has closed. A silent corner being turned, somewhere between dusk and dawn.
Only thing shared is that he’s narrowed the bounty down to a settlement, six miles from here. Deeper into the desert, instead of the crop of trees you had been hoping to head towards. Shade would be a welcome improvement, to the miles on empty road.
Maybe before, you would have been disappointed. But somehow - today - you don’t mind.
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"Yesterday." The Ghoul’s voice comes from behind you - some time later, "You didn't want to stay alone."
It's not a question, but you can hear the way his words trail off. A second as you pick through your thoughts, settling on something you’ve been carrying since the beginning.
"Didn't want to be found." The wind carries your words back to him.
A few more steps pass, before he's asking, "What'd a thing like you do to get a bounty?"
Your steps slow, until he's beside you. A sideways look sent his way, catching his eye.
"You took it." It's the first real time it's been addressed, after your init meeting, "Wouldn't you know?"
He could outpace you if he wanted, with those long legs. Content enough at the moment, to stick by your side, "I know what I know. Wanna hear your side."
You hum, contemplating. Wondering how to explain. If it would make sense to a man like him. If he’d think you were weak.
"Our Overseer had a… god complex," You start slowly - never having to explain it out loud, trying to find the words, "Had it coded in the beginning that only his direct, patrilineal bloodline could work the Vault. Everything went through him."
Food. Water. Power. Everything locked under codes and keys. Thumbprints and DNA, the role of Overseer shared across the current generation.
"All his sons, then their sons, and so on... they all got married off to other families in the Vault. Or they’d find a way to bring in new blood from the outside.” Your mother had been a Wastelander, carrying you when she had been traded. You had never seen the sun until a few weeks ago.
“If you couldn't produce a male heir, you disappeared. If you tried to leave, they'd bring you back, and then you'd disappear. Been like that a long time."
A whispered secret that many knew. Followed, because the security of control and safety outweighed the horrors of the unknown. The knowledge that whether you left or not, your bones would stay in the Vault.
"So what? Didn't want to play the role of broodmare in your utopia?" He sneers, and it's not the first time you've picked up on his distaste of the Vaults, of Vault Dwellers like you.
“Seems like a goddamn picnic compared to the shit you see up here."
“You asked.” Your arms cross over your chest, as you scowl at him.
A few weeks ago and you would have gone silent. Now, you’re starting to her used to his gruff comments, the sharp bristle. Waiting, until his eyes tear away, a small jerk of his chin to continue.
"My name got drawn. Was supposed to marry one. But… in the last five years he's gone through three wives. Not a single child." You can feel the weight of his gaze on your face, the pinch of his brow.
A beat, as you start off again, "Told you, I worked as a chemist. I saw his vitals. It wasn't them, but  for it."
"So you left." His words comes reluctantly, as he fits the pieces together, "I take it they weren't happy about that."
"Wasn't gonna let it be me next." You nod, "But no, they weren't. Like I said, no one truly leaves, but I was dead either way, right?”
A beat, as you take a breath to steady yourself. Stuck in the fear from that day and the ones that followed, afraid of your own shadow.
“I don’t think I‘ve ever been more desperate. Told myself I’d do anything to make sure they didn’t find me.” A small smile, then - as you remember, "But then I found you, and..."
As you turn, you notice he's gone still. Hat tipped down low, a guarded look as the pink of his tongue slips across his teeth.
"Huh. Should've known." He muses - voice slow and rough, "Think I'm startin’ to put things together."
"What are you talking about?" You ask with a frown, thrown off by the change in pace.
"I think you know." He presses, your eyes flicking down to watch the way his wrist reflexively presses against the butt of his revolver, where it juts from his holster.
Scowling now, stalking closer, "Not a bad plan, Vaultie. Was gonna have to fuck someone either way, right? Might as well pick the man with the biggest gun. That what you thought?”
There's venom in his tone, biting into you. The first time his fury has fully been directing at you, freezing you in place.
A shake of your head, your voice sounding small, "It's-, it’s not like that."
You haven’t been using him. Not like he thinks, though you don’t know why he’s so angry. He’s treated almost everything like a transaction - keeping you at arms length.
You’ve been the one that’s falling, not him.
"Christ, you really had me going. You're a damn good liar, you know that?" He spits, with a low shake of his head. A scoff, as his eyes narrow, "Been wondering why you’ve been offerin’ yourself up so eagerly to me."
It makes your head spin, as you try to make sense of his words. Another small shake, the words caught in your throat.
You don't know how to explain that your desperation in the beginning did have its roots in self-preservation. But in all the days and moments that have passed - that surely, surely he couldn’t still think so.
“I know how it sounds but, I-” Your words cut off, as a hand reaches out, wrapping around your bicep. Yanking you closer until you stumble.
"You do, huh? Let me tell you, all you did was trade one devil for another.” The words ground out, snarled between clenched teeth, “You're a goddamn fool if you think I hadn’t been planning on turnin' you in the first chance I get."
His words chip away at your heart. With an effort you try to wrench your arm away - a shove against his chest that does nothing, as your own fury boils inside you.
"How can you say that? You found me, asshole." You snarl, "I haven't lied about anything. I could have left, but I stayed because I wanted to. Didn’t last night mean anything to you?”
“It was just business.” He growls, “Ain’t that right?”
The look he gives you is the final piece that shatters you, as his fingers pinch harder against your skin.
He never cared after all.
Your throat aches. The urge to fight, to make him understand, slips through your fingers. Another shove, harder this time, right into his gut. A ragged breath as his grip loosens, and it's all you can do to twist on your heel.
Shooting him a venomous glance from over your shoulder, "If you're going to take me in, then fucking do it."
You don’t care anymore. Waiting for the rope to lasso around your waist. Bind tightly around your throat, until it chokes you.
But, it doesn't.
You don't look back.
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Tears prick your eyes, as you hoist your pack higher on your shoulder. One of the few things that has made the journey with you - so much shed over the miles.
You had endured enough. Had thought something had changed, since those first days together. That maybe, as the days had passed, he had softened. That maybe you weren’t alone in your feelings. That offer just a mask, to act on them. 
All you did was trade one devil for another.
A foolish thought. It makes your jaw grit, an angry shake of your head. You wouldn't cry over him, not after everything you've been through.
The edge of the abandoned town passes, fuzzy with the way your eyes fix ahead.
Blinded to the rest of the world, as you set off for the unknown.
Small pieces forming a loose semblance of a plan. Something about another settlement, a while down the road, into the forest. No bounty there, but you didn’t give a shit anymore.
With the food in your pack, you might be able to trade for some caps. Find some work - maybe stick around, if it's safe.
If not, it's not like you're not used to sleeping on the ground.
Sand leads to dirt paths, then to grass. Brushing your ankles as you weave through the barren forest, the bark stripped bare and bleached by the sun.
The weight of him follows you, though you do not turn around. A hand held loosely on your holster by habit more than anything, as you pick your way across fallen branches.
You didn't need him. Right now you tell yourself you didn't even want him.
But, you’ve never been a good liar.
There's the snap of a branch, then. A metallic creak.
It's cruel, how your heart leaps. How you look for him, breath held with the swivel of your head.
Only to feel like you are falling, when it's not the Ghoul. When a figure steps out from the trees. Two more from an outcropping of rock.
Your body freezes on its own, when you see them. All familiar.
The two from the town, those days ago. Springing to your mind now, as you had peered from over his shoulder at the bounty board. The amateurs - the man with the scar, and his partner.
And the other. All that blue - encased in padded leather armor. He is the one that makes your blood run cold, your fingers curling into fists.
Baine. He was from your Vault. Someone they sent out to bring people back, and every time they came home battered - left to you to patch up, if they lived that long.
"Took a bit you find you," He smiles, though it does not reach his eyes, "Had to enlist in some local help. Thought you'd never split off from that creature."
Your head whips to the side, as they shift - trying to box you in. Fear and fury licks in you, as you grit out, "He's not a creature."
He scoffs, "You keep strange company, but you'll be back where you belong soon enough. I am sure the Overseer will be... forgiving, if you come quietly."
The man with the scar lunges - reaching for your arm. At the same time, you remember yourself. Just able to get your fingers around the butt of your gun, drawing it out.
There's a snarl but you're firing - downing him just before he reaches you, his body careening over the edge of the rock. Your aim twitches towards Baine, but he's faster.
His hand wrapping around your wrist, twisting until you cry out - fingers opening. A sharp pain in your chest, as his fist slams into it.
Fingers unfurling to reveal the syringe, slipped between your ribs. The plunger flush with the base - whatever was inside, already flooding through you.
"Should've gone quietly, girl." It's faded, as if you're in a tunnel. The world tilting on an axis, as your legs give out.
You cry out, for him - the broken noise sounding like it comes from a thousand miles away.
And then… there's nothing.
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(someone got their feelings hurt 👀) thank you so much for reading!! 💖 I have really loved writing this and them, really appreciate all the love!!
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leviathanleva · 3 days
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Daisy
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Pairing: Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x Fem Reader
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Description: Cooper Howard was not a kind man, he cared for nobody, but himself. Then he found you, a lost little dove, barefoot and crying, torn dress and big innocent eyes staring at him like he was a hero. He knew you’d be a burden, he knew you couldn’t survive in the wasteland, he was doing you a favor.
But he couldn’t pull the fucking trigger...
🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼
Chapter 4 "The Plea"
You stretch and groan.
The sound comes out jumbled and is drowned out by the violent vibrating of the washing machine you’re perched upon. You strain your legs, flexing your thighs and working out the sleep from your numb muscles. Your toes squish against the inside of your boots before you relax and rub at your eyes, wiping away the tears your incessant yawns were causing.
You’d seen plenty of pictures of children hollering in front of a fan on a hot summer day, some sort of weird way to entertain themselves because the beat of the fins distorted their voices. It was a good commercial for any fan whenever summer rolled around. Sadly, now when you were free to wander and do as you pleased, much of the mundane experiences you wanted to dip your toes in were impossible to achieve. You were two hundred years too late. You took what you could get though, hence why you’d let curiosity guide you on top of the washing machine once it had started centrifuging.
The steaming coffee mug sat on the L-shaped kitchen counter just next to you and after a moment of being thoroughly jostled around, you picked it up with as much care as you could. Lips latched onto the edge of the mug with haste before you took a big sip, slurping audibly before the coffee could spill out from the violent thrashing causing your arm to quake.
Wet hair clung to your bare shoulders and the aromatic droplets of water dripped and soaked into your dress. It had taken you a good hour to get the ghoul inside the shower after you’d gotten out, all squeaky clean and smelling of lavender soap. How he managed to bear being a grimy crusty prune was beyond you, but as soon as the generator had kicked back to life and restored some power in the vault, you’d jumped at the idea of a nice hot shower.
His clothes were strewn on a dangling cable, as clean as they could get after being worn for who knows how long without a proper wash. Some stains persisted and the washing machine couldn’t do anything about the faded colors, but at least they didn’t smell of death anymore.
He’d dismissed your proposal to launder his rags at first, bumped the butt of his shotgun against your stomach hard enough to make you wheeze and still you hadn’t relented. It was the least you could do, you’d said, begged even. After everything he’d done for you, you wanted to repay him outside of the hefty tato sack stuffed to the brim with bloody Pip-boys and medical supplies and provisions. You’d chewed at his ear until he’d given up with a sigh and hidden behind the shower curtain before tossing his clothes at you layer by layer.
In truth, you just wanted to prolong his departure. Thinking of anything and everything because you didn’t want to be left alone in this haunted vault, you’d come up with ploy after ploy and the power coming back had only aided you in your private battle. So traumatized by the last day that you clung to him even if he was a demented, deadly wastelander probably no better than the raiders he’d slaughtered.
Your sleep had been plagued with nightmares that night; grotesque sceneries of violence and gore were painted in detail over your closed eyelids, making you stir and whimper in your bed. The ghoul was a light sleeper, trained to spring into action at the slightest noise and you tossing and turning and making the bedframe creak gave him all the rights to chuck a cushion at you. He’d scared you half to death with that, but the reminder that he was still there, grumbling on the couch and trying to catch a wink of rest, had given you enough comfort to sleep peacefully for a few hours.
When the washing machine stilled, your reminiscing ended.
You tipped the mug, suckling at the last few drops of sweetened coffee, before setting it aside and hopping on your feet. After pulling the foggy lid open, you drape your socks and your old dress over your forearm and a scowl pinches at the corner of your lips.
Apparently, Abraxo wasn’t strong enough to wash away radroach intestines. You mourned the ruined dress, bitter with wasting the cleaning product for nothing, but decided to hang it up regardless and let it dry.
Who cared for stains anyway? You had bigger problems on your plate.
The screech of the shower tap and a curt whistle have you automatically groping at the ghoul’s clothes.
“Be right there, mister!” you call out and bunch them up in your hands, placing his hat over your head to save space, his coat is still damp but you doubt he’d mind. You skitter to the edge of the shower and leave the pile next to his weaponry before your manners lead you away to give him some privacy.
The half-empty coffee pot caught your attention once you were back in the bright yellow kitchen area. Despite your low tolerance and the apparent twitches in your fingers, you refilled your mug, deciding that adding sugar wasn’t needed this time.
You were free now, you could drink all the coffee you wanted.
Once the rustling of clothes and buckling of belts and straps ceased, the ghoul appeared from behind the wall, finding you sitting on the counter with ankles crossed and kicking your feet rhythmically. You beam at his slightly less disheveled state, eyes darting from him to the full mug waiting for him. He scoffs and accepts your silent offer.
“Feeling better?”
“Like a new man.” he declares with a sense of peace to his tone and leans back against the fridge before taking a long sip from his lukewarm drink.
Cooper was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. He’d caught on to your innocent scheme quickly. From the coffee to your constant close proximity, to washing his clothes. The biggest giveaway was you trying to hide your nervousness and biting back victorious smiles whenever he accepted any of your domestic offers. You were kneading him like sourdough, nice and good and gentle, hoping for something in his brain to click and his simple plan of taking his things and leaving to take a different course.
That’s why he fought against melting in the shower and suppressed a genuine smile when he saw the coffee. He kept his guard up, concrete walls so high one couldn’t see the top, locking away whatever humanity was left to rot, untouched and undisturbed. Joy was an illusion, peace was the quiet before the storm.
Nothing lasted, neither would you.
“Take me with you, I won’t be useless, I promise.”
He could almost hear those words twirling on the tip of your tongue, threatening to spill but never being voiced. Like hell, he’d ever entertain that idea.
“So what now, mister?” you ask casually, hiding pouty lips behind your mug and looking up at him in question. “Where you headed off to?”
“Well, – ” he rasps and clears his throat. “ – considering my bounty’s prob’ly dead. Gonna head off to Tillburry.” he nudges his chin at the sack resting by the exit of the suite. “Gonna sell some o’ that, make me some profit.”
Your vigorous slurping stops and you swallow the mouthful of bitterness before cocking your head.
“Tillberry?” you test the unfamiliar word with hesitation. “And that’s…what?”
“Tillburry.” he corrects and rests one foot against the fridge door, the spur on his boot clanking against the metal. “It’s a settlement, darlin’. Quite the big one too.” he mulled over a particular memory, looking down at his drink. “ ’Bout three hundred people last time I checked.”
“There are settlements?” you choke and cough out the spit tickling your throat with a fist to your mouth.
The thought that a good number of people had survived and were thriving enough to start rebuilding was unfathomable. Even if said settlements were based on the ruins and scraps of the cities from the old days it was still such a groundbreaking piece of knowledge.
Considering the raiders and the ghoul, you’d assumed everyone on the surface was deranged and out for blood. A man-eat-man nightmarish hell in which not even the strongest survived for long.
But no, there were people, honest hardworking people, that were coming together to build safe havens and restore some order to the chaos they had been born into. Sure, they had probably seen their fair share of hardships and were rugged and hard-skinned, but if they’d managed to keep the peace and grow towns and develop businesses, they couldn’t be that bad.
You had to see this. You needed to.
“Plen’y of em.” he pipes in, then tips his head and his voice acquires an almost mocking twinge. “Wasteland’s not as dead as you think, sweetheart.”
“Take me there.” you blurt out before even realizing it.
“Pardon?” he’s surprised for only a moment before his demeanor shifts to dangerously sharp and his eyes harden. He moves in an instant, large palms planted on either side of your thighs and you have to jerk back to avoid him smashing his forehead into yours. “Mind your fuckin’ tone with me, missy.”
When you squint and recoil, he eases, satisfied with your reaction.
“Just cuz I been toleratin’ you don’t mean I can’t stuff a bullet in your belly.”
“I’m sorry! Sorry, sir.” you rush to undo your mistake, having spent too much time with him while he was docile to remember that you weren’t dealing with a friendly neighbor. “I meant no disrespect.” with a lowered gaze and a lump in your throat you continue. “I’d just really like to see such a place…”
“And I’d like a fifty-acre ranch to breed horses.” he sneers at you, yellow teeth peeking under his chapped lips. He shifts his weight around, resting from one hip to the other as he pulls away just barely. His fingers still grip the counter, still around you and ready to subdue another fuss. “But we don’ always get what we want.”
“Maybe I could…live there?” you didn’t believe your own words, but you still persisted. Flickering lashes swatted over pity eyes as you stared at him like an expectant street cat waiting to be adopted.
A preposterous idea. You didn’t know the first thing about surviving on the surface, couldn’t tell a radroach burrow from an anthill, and yet however difficult it would be anything would be better than living by yourself in a hole in the ground. Maybe you would have managed if the raiders had just left and the ghoul never crossed your path. But now, after knowing the bliss of company, of a friend who didn’t talk about medicine and made-up cures, now you couldn’t.
You needed him and not just for his skills or his wisdom of living off a toxic land. You needed him for him, just the ghoul, just the man who’d shown you kindness.
“Sweetheart, you needed t’ read the manual before turnin’ on the washin’ machine.” he states in a very mocking matter-of-fact way and snorts with a half-smile. “Twice.”
“But I did it.” you say back, struggling against a lost battle but how could you not when there was a blueish limp hand peeking from beyond the complex exit.
He gives you a once over, considering for a second before shaking the thought away with a bitter glower.
What the hell was he even thinking?
“You don’t really fit in with the common folk.” he counters again and he’s confident that soon you’ll wane. “Don’ think they’ll take too kindly to you.”
“What’d you mean, mister?” you tilt to the side, leaning on one hand with a faint pout.
“Yer too clean.” he mumbles while skimming over you with a judgmental expression, his mouth pursing as he took you in. “Too pretty. Too kept.” he leans back to cross his arms, a half-frown of disapproval glooming over his face. It wasn’t a compliment; it was dry facts that he offered you to get through your thick skull that you’d be in more danger than you realize if you ever managed to reach a local town. “Surface dwellers don’ like your kind.”
“Then I’ll work on it until they like me.”
The back of your boots hit the counter each time you kicked your feet, egged on by the caffeine overdose. You kept your eyes glued to his because you didn’t know of a better way of pleading without sounding pathetic and getting on his nerves.
“You can’t even fire a gun, darlin’.” the ghoul sighs in defeat, not because you’re getting under his skin, but because you fight this ferociously for your demise.
Both of you are aware that you wouldn’t last long outside. You were defenseless and had no usefulness, you weren’t accustomed to radiation, and everything on the surface was soaked in it. Most available jobs either needed you to get your hands dirty or break your back with overtime and you’d nearly passed out after walking half a day in a desert and thrown up at the sight of a dead body.
He’d be damned if he let you abandon a life of comfort and security because you didn’t know what you were asking for. Letting go of constant food and fresh water and hot showers just because you were too scared to learn by trial and error on your own was too much for him. It was stupid and you rebelling against him tooth and nail made it worse.
You weren’t winning anything; you were just giving him a headache.
“Someone would be willing to teach me.” the naivety in your comeback makes him laugh and your brows rise and furrow at his reaction.
“Ain’t nobody gonna do shit for free.” that was his last pushback before he made up his mind on ending your charade. His hat dipped and his tone lowered to an even rasp. “You’ll be just fine here, darlin’.” he takes a few steps back and chugs the remainder of his discarded coffee before grunting in satisfaction. “Good cup o’ coffee…Now be a dear ‘n show me the way out.”
“I could make you more if you stayed a bit longer, mister.”
A drowning man’s attempt to keep from sinking.
You give him a tiny smile and roll your ankles to release some tension. You knew you were pushing it, from his stiff shoulders to his thinned upper lip, but you didn’t want to stay here anymore. Disregarding the steady supply of provisions and the regulated temperatures, the medical supplies and the safety. You wanted to go with him. Wherever he went, no matter the danger, you want to be in his shadow. The radroaches and raiders forgotten, ignorant of just how hostile his world was and selfish by continuing to thrust your life in his hands when he didn’t want it.
“Das enough, darlin’.” he mutters while picking up the supply sack and flinging his bandolier over his shoulder.
“What if – ”
“– Enough!” your mouth shuts at his command. His glare is piercing while he stands by the door with his back turned to you, giving you only a stern side-eye. “Move.”
You slide off the counter without another word and pat down your dress, not that anything could be seen underneath the thick tights but common decency forced you to. He waits for you, motioning with his hand once you're by his side and you walk forward, through the dingy corridor and past the raider he’d gutted the day before.
You try not to look, but it’s difficult when the deep red hues contrast with the metallic white of the wall and floor. It’s an abominable sight. There’s a cut spanning over the entirety of the man’s neck, horizontal and precise, so deep that amidst the flesh and blood, you see bone.
You could almost simulate the pain and you struggled to swallow.
He was a raider… he was a criminal. He was a bad man, he’d tried to murder you and failed by just an inch, the ghoul did what he had to do. There would be plenty more with much the same mindset if he agreed to take you with him. Scenes like this would probably be a daily occurrence, but you wouldn’t be the one doing the killing and still seeing the raider nearly decapitated scarred something deep within you.
Were you really willing to go through this again just to stay with the ghoul?
Maybe, for him, maybe.
“Fuckin’ piss stain…”
You look to him at that remark, then down at the center of his attention. He had one foot set in a puddle of blood and pieces of flesh, both attached to an unmoving vault dweller. He wiped his boot in the corpse’s suit and spat with malice.
 “You really don’t like this place, mister?” it’s more of a statement than a question, but your quizzical expression gives him enough room to reply.
You had noticed his visible disdain once he’d first entered the vault with you, but you’d blamed it on him being an experienced bounty hunter who knew better than to let his guard down. Then you’d seen his complete lack of empathy for the dead bodies littering the hallways and even a drop of anger edging his default scowl. He had a personal vendetta against the inhabitants, a distaste that went so deep he’d preferred to sever the wrists of the corpses over just unclasping their Pip-boys and claiming them for himself.
You’d never brought it up because it wasn’t your place, but now you had a reason to, and your curiosity was peaked.
“Vaults ain’t my thing, darlin’, nor vaulties.” he speaks with spite, a cruel smirk tugging at his lips when he raises his gaze to you. Then he kicks the mess out of his way without a hint of shame, splashing the gore over the floor, and continues after you.
“Why?” you peep and it’s so innocent and light because you don’t understand the gravitas of the answer you’re reaching for.
There’s a small pause as you glance at the ghoul with a blank visage. There’s a certain lethargy to your step and a bounce to your slack shoulders because you’re relaxed and clear-minded and you have no idea just what you’re asking him. He could be angry, you’re poking around topics that are beyond your capacity, ones of resentment and shrewd grudges that span over such a long time that you couldn’t even begin to imagine.
But he wasn’t upset, there was no point. You were just a stupid little thing trying to sow a light chat before your paths diverged.
The memories are knocking on the front door of his consciousness, but he refuses to indulge them. Not now, maybe later when he was alone and could recollect everything in peace.
“That ain't none o’ your business.” his words are snippy but his tone is placid, he doesn’t even reciprocate your prying eyes, just stares straight ahead with a tense jaw.
His reluctance to delve deeper and the shift in the air give you a good enough hint to not press the matter further. You would have reached to pat his arm, a benevolence he undoubtedly deserved along with so much more, but refrained from doing so. Despite you having placed him on a golden pedestal for all he’d done for you, which wasn’t much, but enough to leave you with an unforgettable impression, he didn’t see you in the same manner. His life had hardened him both physically and emotionally, he hadn’t even trusted you to sleep together in the same suite, having tucked one of his pistols under his pillow with a finger on the trigger.
You’d seen it, you just didn’t mention it.
He didn’t need your pity nor your good-heartedness, he didn’t care and that’s why you kept from overstepping even if you wanted to comfort the restless beasts pacing somewhere within his being.
“You’ve been nice to me though.” you put forth a honeyed smile and steered the conversation to a lighter note. A small sugary quip to oppose his hardened exterior and alleviate him of his hissy mood.
He chuckles, a raspy chortle that tickles your ear and curls your lips into a grin.
“Ain’t nice, missy, just tolerant.”
Your chirpy chat continues as you pass through the whey field and into another brightly lit tunnel. He doesn’t have to know that you could have led him to the elevator three times already through a shortcut. You like him, harbor such fondness for him in all his gruffness, you might have agreed to lead him out but you never said you wouldn’t take the scenic route. An extended detour while you continuously banter with each other and you always relent because you want him to be happy with having the upper hand in the conversation.
But no matter how long you tried to prolong the inevitable, eventually, you found the way to the elevator. Before it had been your savior, taking you away from those vile people before they could sink their grimy claws in your flesh. Now it was an unwelcome vestige, the last step before the ghoul left and you were abandoned to waste away in an underground prison.
He entered first and leaned against the steel wall, a thumb tucked in his belt and hat tipped over his eyes. You turn your back to him and press the button and it’s suddenly awkward and silent.
You wished the damn thing moved slower, but it propelled up, passing by vault levels within a blink. Such a cruel construct…
Misery didn’t thrive for long, you didn’t let it.
Maybe one day you’d meet him again. You’d learn to shoot a gun, there had to be at least one stashed somewhere for emergencies, then you’d learn to sustain yourself and grow crops, fiddle with the mechanisms of the vault and read every book and article and document regarding medicine. You’d prepare well and one day leave again to explore the world outside and maybe if fate was kind, you’d run into him on your journey.
Maybe he wouldn’t remember, maybe he would, but you’d be happy all the same.
And you’d be different then, stronger and more independent and not useless. Maybe he’d take you with him when you proved that you wouldn’t be a burden anymore. He’d take you on his adventures and teach you how to be a bounty hunter like him and you’d make the best duo the surface has ever seen.
Your self-assurance dwindled when the elevator reached the top level and the door slid open. He walked out unbothered and you struggled to keep the calm façade going.
It wasn’t healthy to form such attachments so quickly, but it happened and you were torn between begging him one last time and giving him the solace he craved. But could you really be blamed when you’d known only solitude?
He stood at the vault entrance and tossed you a slow, expectant look and you fiddled with the Pip-boy. Stiff fingers scrolled through the menus, determined to take as much time as possible while you prayed for a miracle. Your pleas remained unanswered, the time for stalling ended as the gate screeched and rolled to the side. A hot gust of wind crept through, drying your eyes and making your throat scratchy after a few silent breaths.
“Best of luck, vaulty.”
He raised his arm and flicked his wrist in a goodbye after readjusting his hat, boots clinking as he set forth with an even pace. You watched him leave, heart asunder, mouth cracked open but no words came out. Gripping onto the control panel, frustration flaring, desperation so intense it made the hairs on your arms lift up.
Was this really it? Was this the end of it? Was this the last time you saw him? The only friend you had, the only person you knew, the only warmth ever given to you.
He could let go without a second thought, but you couldn’t.
“Go…GO!”
A shaky step, then another.
With each step, the quake in your legs eased, determination overpowering hesitation, and before you knew it you were jogging and then running. The sand wasn’t kind to your shoes, you nearly tripped, wide strides bringing you closer to him because, unlike his tempo, yours held intention.
He knew you’d do this, he knew and he had the common sense to pull out his pistol and threaten you back inside.
You might have tumbled him over if you had the strength, but instead, you splat yourself against his back and drape your arms around his abdomen. His hand faltered, resting on the holster of his gun as you squeezed him and slid your fingers past his coat, grabbing at his vest.
“Please.” you force through a clenched throat, choosing to beg him instead of breathing. Saliva pools in your mouth and tears form in the back of your eyes as you press your cheek against his spine. Your eyes squeeze shut as if cutting off your vision would make you deaf to his answer. “Please…I’ll – ”
He’d taken what he needed, completing your transaction and wanting nothing more, but maybe you could find something else he had use for. He sighs and you’re so regretful, but you can’t let it go without a final push.  And he’s fed up enough to maybe just shoot you, but if he was you’d have a chance at bargaining again and keep him around for a few more minutes.
“ – I’ll pay you.” you sniffle back the runny mucus seeping through your nostrils and swallow a mouthful of thick spit, it distorts your voice just a bit. “Please take me to Tillberry. I’ll find a job – I’ll – You can have everything I earn, I just need enough to buy some food.”
“Tillb – ” he grunts and pinches the space between his eyes as they shut.
He wanted to rip you off of him and leave, with no mercy and no care, but you just had to play nice. You had to play house with him and make him coffee and wash his clothes and be soft with him. The sweet gestures and light words did things to him, he was no fool, they reminded him that humans still existed and they were still kind. A peek into the past.
“I won’t be useless. I’ll learn quick and stay out of your way and do anything you ask…Just until the settlement.”
Whines and sobs and sniveling sniffs and chokes, they crawl up his skin like maggots and try to burrow and find an ounce of empathy, but he has none.
“Right.” he whirls around with such force that if it hadn’t been for the iron grip he clasped over your jaw, you would have fallen. He’s an eyelash away from your face, with a fowl snarl carving into his gaunt features and he spats poison at you. He speaks the truth. “Do you fucking know what the hell you’re asking for?” he’s so pissed that his accent dissipates. “You’re gonna fuckin’ die out here. With or without help.”
“Plea – ”
“ – I ain’t no God damned babysitter!” he snaps and forces you back. You stumble and curl your hands over your chest instinctively as he points his pistol at you, forefinger on the trigger. “Now get the hell outta my sight.”
His lips pinch in annoyance when you don’t move.
He didn’t give a damn if you lived or not, but you’d shown him respect and generosity and he repaid you by not shooting you down on the spot. He gave you a chance at survival, exterminated the pests in your home and made sure to leave enough provisions to live off of while you worked out how to take care of yourself. You wouldn’t receive half of what he’d done for you in the wasteland, it was a cutthroat fever dream that no one could wake up from.
Precious things lived in castles, not in the wilds.
But then you finally move. You move and it’s the wrong fucking way.
The tip of the gun glosses over your cheek as you enclose trembling fingers around his wrist and his sleeve is pulled back enough for you to find his skin, marred and leathery and disgusting and safe and wonderful. Your eyes close and press into his glove as the barrel rests against your bare shoulder and all it would take was a click and you’d be dead.
“Please, mister.”
You sink to your knees, bringing his arm down with you.
A lost little dove, fluttering in his palm, trusting and willing and kneeling at the gates of hell because it already knew what heaven was. Or maybe it didn’t, maybe you knew a different hell he was unfamiliar with so you begged for his instead of going back to your own.
“I’ll do anything…”
He’d seen plenty of people beg for their lives, for food or water or help. He’d heard it all, from bargaining to taunting, reverse psychology, and manipulation tactics all in the name of living to see another sunrise. This was the first time anyone had ever pleaded for him.
He should have left yesterday, the moment you’d found the storage unit he should have taken his things and been on his way. He should have tried to find the exit while you were sleeping and never looked back. He should have done more, everything in his power to not be in this damnable situation. You fed something within him, a slumbering behemoth forgotten over time, you sated a need he’d developed so long ago, a need so constant he didn’t realize was there anymore until you.
“Get the hell up.” he grips your arm like the brutish man he is, pulls you to your feet, and spins you around like a puppet.
You don’t fight, drained by both the searing sun and your turbulent emotions, letting him latch his hand to the back of your neck and drag you forward, back to the vault.
Back to solitude. Back to hell.
“Three hundred caps.”
You muster an inquisitive hum and dare to steal a glimpse of his expression. It’s haggard, annoyed, defeated.
“For your safe transportation t’ Tillburry.” he offers you nothing, not even a peak, but his hold on your neck tightens and you wince. “Now use your fuckin’ legs. We’re loosin’ daylight.”
🌼 Masterlist 🌼
Tag list: @bountydroid @windierhades @ultimatereality @gruffle1 @v3lv3tf0x @fallout-girl219 @one-of-thewalkingdead
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forever-rogue · 2 days
Note
you asked for fallout request, so here i am, eagerly writing this…
i’ve been craving a cooper howard x reader oneshot where him and the reader are navigating through life in their own way. maybe a run in with tricky people?? angst?? fluff??? it’s up to you best friend. THANK YOU!!!
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AN | Alright, let’s goooo. First go around with Cooper and we had to go with some fluff because that is my specialty. I’ve loved Fallout for a long time and I love the show too❤️
Pairing | Cooper Howard (The Ghoul) x fem!reader
Warnings | language; gun violence
Word Count | 3k
Masterlist | Main 
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
You weren't sure if you'd call yourselves friends.
More like…an unwitting duo of sorts. Unwitting on your end more than anything.
You'd promised him that you absolutely didn't need company or anyone to assist you. He'd insisted that the only way he'd let you go on your own was over his dead body. You'd contemplated that idea for a few moments. Given his reputation, you decided not to push him too much.
The realization that he was a stubborn old man who wasn't going to change his mind was the only reason he was still next to you. Begrudgingly, mind you.
“How much further, darlin’?” His deep voice cut through your internal monologue and you shot a glare in his direction, “I'm starting to think you're not the best judge of distance.”
“If you're just going to complain,” you pointed over your shoulder back to the last town you'd passed through, “you're more than welcome to go back and terrorize that town. I told you that I didn't need you to come with me.”
“And why would I listen to you, huh?” He rolled his eyes lightly as you scoffed, “you'd be dead before the sun went down, sweetheart.”
“So what?” You turned on your heel, walking backwards so you could face him, “why do you care?! You don't even like me!”
“Contrary to what you believe, I do have somewhat of a conscience,” his voice was gruff but somewhat soft, “and if I let you go and then heard that you were killed, I'd be a little annoyed.”
“Why?” 
“Because I’ve already saved your life once,” he so sweetly reminded you as you sighed heavily, “and I didn't just save your life so you could go and be killed by someone else.”
“Ain’t that sweet? You’re a modern day prince,” you mocked his twang as his expression refused to shift. It was almost annoying how unfazed he remained the majority of the time, “I had it handled. You happened to come at an inconvenient time.”
“If that's what helps you sleep at night,” he had to fight to hold back a laugh as you turned back around and you marched in front of him, making it a point not to look back at him. He had to be the most infuriating person you'd ever met. He'd had two hundreds years to perfect being annoying and he had done exceedingly well.
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
The two of you had been traveling together for a number of days. You'd managed not to kill each other, luckily, but otherwise things had remained mostly the same. Silence, and if it wasn’t silence, it'd be harsh words and fast quips.
You didn't hate him - not really. You hated the idea that anyone, let alone a man, believed that you needed help. You'd had things handled and would have kept yourself safe. He'd just happened to come fight when you were in the midst of either killing or getting killed. 
He wasn't going to let that go anytime soon. That much you already knew about him.
“It’s cold,” you announced as the two of you made camp for the night. You pulled your jacket tighter around your frame but it was no use, “I’m cold. Can we make a fire?”
“That, princess, is one of the many reasons you need someone out there to keep an eye on you,” if you didn’t know any better, you’d almost have thought that he was being kind - nice. 
“Listen,” you sat down and leaned against one of the trees near the clearing you’d decided to call home for the evening, “I know it’s not exactly safe or the best idea, but I’d rather do that than freeze.”
“It ain’t even that cold,” he mused, stripping off his overcoat and tossing it over to you. You made a sound of surprise, but didn’t hesitate to put it on, “life really was different for you, wasn’t it? I’d say it was almost as easy as those vaulties had it.”
“It wasn’t…” you knew he wasn’t wrong. You’d come from a place of privilege, having been born into a family with wealth, new world wealth anyway, and had it pretty easy for a surface dweller. You’d lived in a large, well stocked and safe home with people around to do your bidding. Those were some of the perks of having a father that was some sort of merchant prince, “it wasn’t like that.”
“Yeah?” he rolled out his bedroll, a bitter laugh escaping him, “sounds like you had nothing to do and everything done for you.”
“I mean…” you trailed off, knowing it was futile to lie to him. He’d known your father after all; Cooper Howard was the one sent to fetch you and return you home once your father had found out you’d run away, “it was…good sometimes. There were a lot of bad times too. But I still know how to do things for myself. I could kill you with my bare hands if I wanted to. I’ve done it before.”
“Huh,” he grabbed a vial and downed it one go, his eyes never leaving your face, “guess that makes you a killer. Just. Like. Me.”
“I did what I had to do,” you swallowed thickly, blinking back tears that threatened to well up. Cooper knew that you had run away, but he didn’t know the full extent of what had happened to cause you to run away, “and we’re here.”
“Tell me what happened,” your eyes snapped to him as you tried to weigh his words in order to see if he was being serious or not. He’d never really taken an interest into your personal life, but you wondered if that was because he genuinely didn’t care or if he’d just created some sort of creed for himself that didn’t allow him to get close to anyone, “what made you run away from your sweet little life, darlin’?”
“Cooper,” you wiped your hands on your thighs and shrugged your shoulders nonchalantly. You’d never really said his name before and that caught him off guard, “does it really matter?”
“It’s still buggin’ you, clearly,” he mirrored your position and crossed his arms over his chest, “and we ain’t got nothing but time.”
You inhaled deeply before slowly exhaling and looking at the sky. You could feel his attention still focused on you, “my father told me that there was a man I was going to marry. I told him no and he told me that I didn’t have a choice. Said man found me shortly before the wedding was supposed to happen and he…he tried to…”
You paused for a moment, wiping away the tears that had unwittingly rolled down your cheeks. Cooper’s gaze had darkened but he was still watching; the expression on his face looked like he was ready to commit murder.
“He didn’t get a chance to do anything,” you said softly, “I killed him before he could. But he managed to get me a little bit when he was trying to fight me off. That’s why I had a black eye and all the bruises.”
“Darlin’-”
“I didn’t hesitate, Coop,” your expression steeled as you looked him in the eyes, “and I won’t hesitate now. A man will never tell me what to do. And I don’t need anyone thinking I need someone to protect me.”
Cooper had been listening with rapt attention, his mind already thinking of the things he could do to your father.  Bringing you back to him definitely wasn’t one of those things. He’d made up his mind about that almost the moment he’d met you. You’d been sporting a black eye and cut lip, dried blood caked on your hands and arms. He was smart enough to put two and two together.
“For what it’s worth,” he looked back at you with the gentlest expression you’d seen on him, “I’m sorry for what you had to go through. Those are not men, those are monsters.”
“And you’re going to bring me right back to him,” it was a question presented as a statement. You weren’t entirely sure what his plan with you was; you’d been scared to ask. But he also wasn’t hadn’t mentioned a word of bringing you back to your father, “aren’t you?”
“I ain’t bringing you back,” he admitted and you couldn’t keep the surprise off your face, “I never was. I’ve been around a long time, little girl. I know what your father is. I figured it was a better option for me to find you than someone else.”
“You’re not?” you hated how small your voice sounded; how you almost sounded scared. In a way you were. Scared of going back to the place that you hated and would surely make sure you suffered, but you were also scared of forging a new path. You didn’t really know where you were going or what you were going to, “really?”
“On one condition,” of course. You waved your hand, motioning for him to go, “you admit that you have no clue where we’re going and we’ve basically been making this hell of a trek for no real reason.”
You tried to look serious for a moment, but you couldn’t help but start to laugh at how well he could already read you. Cooper was so taken aback by the soft, sweet sound that he couldn’t help the smile that tugged up the corners of his mouth. When you managed to catch your breath, you looked at him and cocked your head to the side, “I have no clue where we’re going and we’ve been making this hell of a trek for no real reason.”
“Honesty,” he pulled one of his knees toward his chest and drummed his fingers on it, “it’s refreshing. You’re gonna be alright, kid.”
“There’s a place,” you murmured after a few moments of silence, “that my mom told me about when I was little. She made it sound like this magical place. I guess really, that’s where I want to go.”
“I hate to break it to you,” Cooper said, “but magical places don’t really exist. They never really did.”
“I know,” you admitted softly, “it just seemed like that when I was young. She died a long time ago, but I’d always think about that place, going there someday.  She said it was west - just go west and you’ll know when you’re there.”
“Hmm,” he nodded and paused for a moment before getting up and grabbing some nearby sticks and bringing them to the center of the clearing. He started making a fire before you could even question him, “if it draws anything out, I’m sure we can handle it.”
“Thanks Coop,” you watched him work, an odd feeling settling in the pit of your stomach. Once the fire was going, he settled down near you, “Cooper?”
“Hmm?”
“We are going west, right?” your question caused him to chuckle before he reached into his pocket and pulled something small out that he passed over you. It was a small silver compass worn and weathered just like him.
“I’m sorry to tell you, sweetheart, but we’ve been goin’ east for the last couple of days,” he shrugged as you groaned at yourself. At least you didn’t have anywhere to be at any particular time, “had I know we’ve been searching for a magical place, I could have told you we were going the wrong way.”
“I guess I’m not as handy as I thought,” you grumbled to yourself, clutching the compass tightly in your hand, “you know you don’t have to come, right?”
“I know,” he nodded, “you think anyone could force me to do something against my will, you don’t know me at all, sugar. Now stop your yapping and get some rest. We’ll start heading west at sunrise.”
You paused for a moment, pulling his coat tighter around you, “thanks, Coop.”
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
The next couple of days of trekking passed in relative peace. The two of you were now making your way west for whatever magical place your mom had made you dream of you. You weren’t sure why Cooper was still with you, but you weren’t about to complain. He provided some decent company since you’d had your little heart to heart, but he owed you nothing. You weren’t exactly complaining; he was the closest thing to a friend you’d had in a long time.
But, as things would have it in the wasteland, life threw a wrench in your plans. A wrench in the form of two raiders that definitely weren’t looking to get chummy. 
“Ugh,” you groaned as the two figures approached from a distance. The two of you were outside of a saloon, trying to decide whether to keep pressing on for the evening or staying put and turning in. Cooper followed your line of sight and made a sign of annoyance, “why do I feel like they’re going to make trouble?”
“Well, darlin’, that’s because they’re about to make trouble,” he touched the brim of his hat and pulled it further down. 
“Look who it is,” one of the men sneered at the two of you. He looked about as unfriendly as they came, “the Ghoul of the hour and his little bounty.”
“We heard you were having some trouble delivering her back home,” his partner came up and eyed you without shame. He looked disgusting with greasy hair and rotting teeth, a sinister expression on his face, “so we came to take over.”
“Go fuck yourself,” you spit at him, reaching for the dagger that was at your side. You felt Cooper reach for your hand and gently squeeze it in order to stop you from making any rash moves.
“What this charming sweetheart means is that she is not going back with you,” Cooper smirked at them, “so you can run along now.”
“Fucking Ghoul,” the first man snarled at him, “you couldn’t even do your job. Turn the bitch over and we’ll let you go alive…or whatever the hell you are.”
“You can go back to my father and tell him that he can go fuck himself too,” you hissed, blood boiling with sheer annoyance and anger, “and if you don’t turn around right now-”
“What?” His voice was sticky sweet and filled with vinegar as he smiled at you; both of them had pistols in their hands and that made your stomach churn. They could easily get the jump on you, “you’ll kill me?”
“No,” Cooper pushed you behind him and looked at them with a grin on his face. Of course he’d  be enjoying this, “but I will.”
“Why don’t you just-” but the man couldn’t get another word in as the sound of the gunshot rang through the air, causing you to stumble backwards and cover your ears. A second shot rang out within seconds and you saw the other body fall to the ground. 
It happened so fast that you couldn’t help the shock that ran through your body, causing you to let you let out a loud sob. You’d seen death before, you’d seen things much worse than before but there was something about the moment that was overwhelming. 
Blood spattered the side of the building, causing you to dry heave as you noticed the bits of brain and bone clinging to it. Your ears were still ringing as you tried not to completely lose your grip on reality.
“Hey,” you heard his voice cut through the fog and you felt his hand on your shoulders, helping to keep you steady and upright. You shifted your gaze up and found his eyes concerned, “hey.”
“I-I…” you couldn’t even form a proper sentence as you looked at him, “they…you. You saved me.”
Before he could even respond, you threw your arms around him and held tightly onto him. He was taken aback for a moment before he hugged you back, and you could feel his breath of relief. There was something so good and reassuring about the feel of his arms around you.
“You would have had it handled,” he insisted and you shook your head. 
“No,” you looked at him and to your surprise he gently wiped away your tears, “I couldn’t have. I couldn’t have saved myself this time. Thank you.”
“No need to thank  me, darlin’,” he took your chin in his hand and kept your gaze on his, “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
“I do,” you wrapped your fingers around his wrist and nodded slightly, “I do need you. Don’t go.”
“The only place I’m going is west,” there was that smile again, the one that rarely graced his features. The same one that made your legs feel like jello, “are you comin’?”
“Yes,” you promised, “I’m coming.”
“Well then, we best get goin’ sweetheart,” he glanced over the carnage that he left behind, “before someone else comes to make trouble.”
He checked himself over to make sure he had everything ready to. You missed the feel of his touch almost immediately. 
Once he made sure he had everything, he held his hand out to you.
You took it without hesitation. 
333 notes · View notes
lacontroller1991 · 13 hours
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Rumors (Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x F!Reader)
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Main Master List || Misc Master List
Summary: After you believed he was dead, it comes as a shock to you that he's alive and wrecking havoc.
Warnings: 18+, HEAVY LANGUAGE, drug usage, drinking, mention of cannibalism, violence, gun slinging, blood, nudity, fighting
Author's Note: I swear I'll work on my other requests but the Cooper Howard brain rot is REAL and its STRONG, anywho, first time so let me know how you guys like it :)
Word Count: 3k
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In the wastelands of California, rumors get you killed and you’ve heard rumors. Whispers of his return. It’s been a while since you’ve seen him. Since he left you on your own in the middle of a gun fight to collect his bounty; and it nearly cost you your life. 
The last you’ve heard about him was that he was 6 feet deep and locked in a coffin with no way of escaping, unless someone purposely dug him out. Yet, you can’t think of a single person who would. Still, rumors spread like wildfire, and you’d be damned if you don’t try and get revenge.
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The California sun beats down on your back. The heat weighs you down, but not as much as the pain in your chest. He let you believe that he cared about you. He really fooled you into a sense of partnership, romance, but you really should’ve known. Cooper Howard is a lone wolf, nothing and nobody will stand in his way. 
The site of Filly in the distance is a welcoming sight. If anyone has seen anything, it would have been here. It doesn’t take you long to cross the remaining distance, sweat dripping down your back as you enter the market. 
“Haven’t seen ya in a while (Y/N).” A local merchant snides with a creepy smile, showcasing his rotten teeth. Walking over to your side, he runs a hand down your arm and you resist the urge to gag. “What are ye in town for?” 
“Information.” You eye the stairs that are being fixed, along with other wooden structures, a signature sign that he’s been here.
“Looking for your Ghoul, huh?” His face is offly close to yours and it’s enough for you to draw your gun, casually pressing it into his side, causing him to instantly back off. “He was here two days ago. Got in a firefight with a knight, seemed like he was after a bounty.” You scoff. Of course he is. Anything for those damn vials. Vials. At the thought of vials a malicious smile forms on your face. Sooner or later, he will need to get more, and you’ll be there when he does. 
Holstering your gun, you flip him a bottle cap in appreciation before stalking off, heading to the one place you know he will be.
By the time the sun sets, you’re settled in an abandoned building, low enough to the ground where you can see what’s coming, but high enough to be out of any immediate danger. Wrapping your arms around yourself tighter, you can’t help but to think about the times where you and him would be shoulder to shoulder, barely touching, but enough to make butterflies fly in your stomach.
Despite his ghoulish appearance, you find him to be quite handsome. His rugged cowboy exterior does barely enough to hide the last shred of humanity he has, and at times, it was directed towards you. With a sigh, you let your eyes shut, sleep easily consuming over you.
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“Please, let me go.” A feminine voice stirs you from your unconsciousness as your eyes blink against the harsh light of the sun. “Please, sir, I’m begging you.” Shuffling slightly, you peer your head past the concrete wall, spotting two figures, one in a blue/yellow vault-tec suit and the other in a cowboy hat with a lasso around the girl. 
“Well I’d be damned,” it’s hushed and to yourself, afraid of him hearing you and spotting you.
“I done told you vaultie, ain’t gonna happen. You deaf or sum?” His drawl sends chills down your spine as he nudges her forward with the tip of his gun. “Now hur-” his words are cut off by a coughing fit but his grip on the lasso remains. After regaining his breath, he wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “Hurry up. I ain’t got all day.” You watch in silence as the pair walks past your hideout, unaware of your existence. Grabbing your things, you rush off after them, making sure to stay in the shadows as your brain goes through different scenarios of what could happen. Would you and Cooper make up? Would he try to kill you? Would you try to kill him? Does he even care? The closer they get to the supermart, the more you hang back, hand slightly hovering over your gun. 
Trying to listen to the conversation, you strain your ears but to no avail. Peeking over an abandoned car, you focus your eyes on the situation ahead of you, watching as he gestures for the girl to go through the sliding glass door. The minute they shut, he collapses on the ground and you resist the urge to go and help him. Sighing, you open the bag at your side, rummaging through a variety of equipment before your fingers run over the cool glass of the vials that keep him sane. “That’s just ironic,” you chuckle, looking back to him still laying on the ground, a slight tang of pity radiating through your chest. If there’s anything you hate about yourself, it’s that. You’re too soft for people who have no problem leaving you out to dry. 
You could confront him now, kick him while he’s down, but being dramatic is more fun. It’s useless trying to talk to him when he’s in that sorry state. 
An hour later and you’re still outside, covering from the sun and waiting for the right moment to make your appearance. The sight of the vaultie walking alone gathers your attention as you keep out of sight? Now how the hell did she manage to escape? You’re not an idiot, everyone and their mamas know that the SuperDuper Mart takes in bodies and harvests the organs, selling them to the highest bidder. So how on this God forsaken planet did she escape practically unscathed? As she walks further away you ponder the possibility that maybe you and everyone on the surface has really underestimated the ones who live below. 
Once she is out of sight, you rush out from your hiding spot and toward the mart, hoping to find him. “Well, he isn’t where I saw him last,” you huff out, drawing your gun from its holster as you walk through the glass door, keeping your eyes vigilant. With the mart being practically empty aside from overturned themed rides, it’s easy to hear a person stumbling around, knocking stuff over. 
By the time you spot him, his back is to you, head tipped slightly back as he downs a bottle of alcohol he found. The sound of you cocking your gun causes him to freeze in place, and if you were facing him, you would spot the smile on his face. 
“You ain’t gonna shoot me now, are ya?” Your silence is deafening and you don’t move an inch, not really sure if you would actually shoot him or not.  “Was wonderin’ when you were gonna find me.”
“It’s pretty easy to find a drug addicted ghoul these days, especially ones that have a penchant for the dramatics.” You keep your gun trained on his back as he slowly turns around, dropping the glass bottle and letting it shatter to the floor. 
“Me? Dramatic? I don’t think I’m the dramatic one sweetheart. You’re the one who came in here, guns blazing. I think you’re the dramatic one.” He takes a step forward, and another, and another, until his chest is pressed right against the nozzle of your gun. “Now why don’t you put your gun down and give Coop a big ki-” your gun whacks across his face, tearing the flesh slightly only for it to heal right away, causing him to growl. His gloved hand reaches up and wraps around your throat, hoisting you against the wall while you struggle in his grasp. “That’s no way to greet me. Where are your manners?” He asks, his southern accent penetrating each word.
“Fucker,” raising a leg, you kick between his with all you can muster and spit on his face, the shock being enough to let you loose and allowing you to slip out. 
He looks at you for a second before laughing sadistically, using his thumb to collect your spit and put it in his mouth, closing his eyes as if he was savoring it. “I missed you kitten.”
Scoffing, you holster your gun and take a seat on the couch, turning your attention to the tv where you spot a young, handsome, human Cooper Howard on the screen. “Really Coop? You’re that full of yourself?”
Shrugging his shoulders, he plops down next to you before taking another bottle and giving that a swig. “Was the only half decent shit in this hell hole,” at the mention of the place, you take a proper look around, bodies laying everywhere, some human, some ghoul, and even a robot.
“The fuck happened here?”
“Was traveling with a vault dweller, traded her for some vials but I guess she didn’t take too well to the idea of her organs being sold,” he comments nonchalantly, twisting off the cap of a vial and draining the liquid into his mouth while you look at him like he grew two heads. 
“You’re meaning to tell me that that vault dweller managed to do all this?”
“Did I stutter?” Now you know you really underestimated the people in the vaults. You honestly wonder if they’re all like this or is she just some random four leaf clover. “Why’d you come in here raisin hell anyway?”
Leaning back on the couch, you look forward to the tv, trying to concentrate on the handsome man on the screen instead of the one sitting next to you, “heard you were dead.”
“The details of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Still doesn’t answer my question,” he looks at you with a look that says ‘I frankly don’t give a shit’ but something deep down inside of you tells you that he does. 
“I’m pissed as hell that you left me. I thought we were partners?” Rolling his eyes, he laps at a random white powder laying on the table before leaning back.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist. Didn’t see a need to stick around. You got what you wanted and I got what I wanted. Seemed like a fair trade.” 
A sigh escapes your mouth as you take the bottle from his one hand and downed it, scrunching your nose as the alcohol burns down your throat and lights a fire in your stomach. How can he be so naive? You had initially joined him when you were both after the same group of people, but for vastly different reasons. He had wanted the large bounty on the head of the leader and you wanted to find your past lover, but somewhere along the route to finding them you developed feelings for the Ghoul sitting next to you, and you thought he developed them too. You initially didn’t spot him when the shooting started, too occupied with the Ghoul pressing his back against yours, the two of you working in tandem. Everything happened so fast and before you knew it, you were the only one shooting back at the group of people, most of them lying dead and your companion nowhere to be seen. The bounty was also gone.
He had left you on your own and it hurt. It also didn’t help that once the shooting was over and you remained, you found your former lover in the arms of another. It’s true that you found who you wanted, but at what cost? Was it really your lover than you wanted or was it Cooper Howard, the Ghoul, who you wanted?
Realistically, you know the answer. It’s pretty obvious by the way that when you heard he was alive, you practically dropped everything in pursuit of him. Taking another swig of the alcohol you ponder over your next course of actions. Should you admit your feelings for him or should you leave it? Looking back at the tv, you watch the former Cooper Howard get down from his horse, gun in hand and hat tipped ever so slightly over his eyes, much like how the man next to you does. He’s never going to be the same man again, you know that, but maybe he still has the ability to love? “I love you, you know?”
Cooper looks over to you with a puzzled look on his face before it goes blank and your heart sinks. If there was any sort of superpower you could have right now, it would 100% be mind reading. “You’re stupid.” 
“Right. Yep. Totally.” You’re pissed. You took a gamble and lost. Laid your heart on the line only for it to be destroyed. Swallowing down your pride, you get up from your seat and holster your gun, taking a couple of vials for safe keeping. “Have a good life Coop.” You don’t bother turning back, tears welling in your eyes. How could you have been so stupid? Of course he doesn’t return the feeling. You kick the dead body out of your way, too overwhelmed with your emotions to realize that he is calling your name. A hand wrapping around your wrist stirs you from your thoughts as he hand spins you around to face him, a soft look gracing his features.
“I ain’t finished,” it’s soft. Softer than anything you’ve ever heard from him but you yank your hand away, rebuilding the walls around your heart.
“I don’t wanna he-” he cuts you off with a rough kiss against your lips, his arms wrapping around your body and holding you close as his scarred lips move against yours. The kiss is rough, demanding, but also loving, intimate. It’s enough to make you dizzy. Pulling away, he keeps you in his grasp as you look up at him through blown eyes, trying to figure out what he’s playing at. “Coop?”
“Shh darlin’. You didn’t let me finish. I said you’re stupid. Stupid for loving someone like me. I’m no good for anyone, especially you, you should know this.” You can tell by the restraint in his voice that he fully means what he’s telling you. Smiling softly, you dust off his duster and pull on his vest, straightening out his clothes as he watches you, not really sure what to make of your intentions. 
“Y’know, there was this one cowboy I met years ago and when I asked how he survived as long as he has and you know what he told me?”
“What’s that?”
“We take it as it comes.” He closes the bridge between the two of you with his mouth against yours, this time it’s more eager. Taking in your bottom lip, he bites hard enough to draw blood, causing you to gasp in surprise. Using that to his advantage, his tongue slips in, exploring every crevice of the mouth that he’s longed for.
“Well ain’t this sweet. We have a ghoul and a ghoulfucker. I wonder what that sex looks like,” you and Cooper pull away abruptly, you eye the three men in sheriff uniforms while Cooper scowls, annoyed by their presence. Moving towards them, Cooper raises his hands in false surrender while you get behind his back, one hand reaching for his shotgun and the other reaching for your own gun, ready to draw at any moment. 
“What can I do for you folks?” The three men eye each other before pointing their guns at Cooper, you still standing behind him, ready to take on each of them.
“Destroying a legitimate business? That’s illegal around these parts,” one speaks up, aviators covering his eyes as he moves around to get a better view of you. “My my, don’t tell me this pretty little thing did all this damage. Why don’t you raise your hands sweetheart, let’s see that gorgeous figure.” 
If looks could kill, that man would be 12 feet under and blasted to high heaven with the biggest nuke Cooper could find. “I’d be careful if I were you, she may be pretty, but she's also a pint sized atom bomb.” His head tilts, telling you all that you needed to know. Reaching for your gun, you quickly shoot the two companions as Cooper lunges for the man who dared to flirt with you. Kicking the gun away from reach, Cooper wraps his hand around the throat of the sheriff and hoists him in the air while you loot their supplies. Turning the men around, you cut their pants off, leaving their backside exposed for Cooper to take his fair share of ass jerky. The man in his grasp squirms at the site of his counterparts being exposed, but Cooper’s grip doesn’t falter.
“Why are you sick freaks doing this?” The man continues to struggle in Cooper’s grasp, hands trying to claw away at skin but to no avail as you load your gun, sliding over to the duo. 
“Wanna do the honors sweetheart?” It’s rare that Cooper offers anybody anything, let alone a kill and it takes you a minute to process his proposal.
“We do this for the love of the game.” A gunshot rings out while the man goes limp in Cooper’s hand, brains splattered on the floor below you. Dropping the man, Cooper’s eyes flit to your body, chest rising and falling as you come off the adrenaline high. 
“Now that was hot as hell sweetheart. You sure know how to make an impression on an old man.” 
“Is that right?”
“‘m afraid so.” His eyes watch as you begin to unbuckle your armor, letting it fall from your frame to the floor.
“Then come and get me cowboy.”
@reveluving
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rattini · 3 days
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Honey Whiskey // x
The honey whiskey's kickin' Go down, go down I think I better go before I try something I might regret But if you wanna free your body tonight It's our secret, it's our secret
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Minnow’s first run-in with The Ghoul The Ghoul x OC // The Ghoul x F!Reader Set several years before the events of the Fallout TV show.
The unfortunate plaything of drug lord with a bounty on his head, you’re dragged to a bar as his little pet. With nothing else to do but drink with them, you try to lose yourself in liquor, wondering how long this was going to be the theme of your life. Luckily for you, the bounty on the head of your captor has attracted the attention of a ghoul with nothing to lose. A man you noticed eyeing you and the men accompanying you from across the room for more than an hour, before letting loose his bullets into the heads of everyone but you. Hazy from alcohol, you ponder if you should return the favour, the only way that had worked for you so far.
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You’re used to being a ‘pretty thing’ on the arm of a man trying to prove his power, it had been your primary mode of survival not long since you were evicted from your vault. Sneaking around the desolate wasteland with minimal water and just enough drugs to curb the pain of your current skin affliction got old fast. Your self-doubt had convinced you surviving alone wasn’t an option. When a group of leering, greasy men cornered you one afternoon in the highest heat of the Mojave sun, your flight or flight response chose fawn. It was easy enough, you figured standards had dropped significantly out here these days, yours clearly had.
Right now, you were tethered a sweating hog of a man with a severe lack of investment in personal hygiene, who had made himself more than acquainted with your inner thigh. He bragged endlessly about being untouchable, the most powerful fucker in these parts. Men and their need to showboat. Eyes were not on you at present, that you were aware of at least, so you allowed yourself to roll them in response to his gloating. Fortunately, as a perk of being his little toy, you were welcome to help yourself to the liquor decorating the bar where you sat.
Perched delicately on a stool, you had little choice but to sit properly, since you were donned in a less than savoury getup that didn’t really flatter you in the slightest. Either way, it crept uncomfortably far up your thigh, you were pretty sure your asscheeks were stuck to the cracked leather of the bar stool…but anything for easy access, right? That’s all that mattered for you now. You had made your bed, now you had to lie in it, on your back usually. For every grubby prod of his fingers, you sip a little harder at the old whiskey in your glass, a task in itself since your wrists were bound. You had just enough freedom to grip a glass and bring it to your mouth, but your ankles were also bound, so you weren’t going very far any time soon. Swallowing down the sting in your throat, you barely grimaced at the taste as the heat spread through your chest. It was rather pleasant really, or at least, the growing fuzziness in your limbs and face were.
Your boredom growing as the evening droned on, your eyes wander across the room. A dingy old bar, all but a few patrons scared off by your adoring captors. Except one. You’d noticed them from the corner of your eye near an hour ago, focus shifting away from them easily from the liquor. An unmoving figure draped across an old couch, head bowed low, crowned with a cowboy hat with legs lazily spread. You find yourself pondering them some more, intrigued by their mystery, coyness lost on you at this point as alcohol seeps into your bloodstream.
Just as your focus intensifies, you notice their head rise, the brim of their hat revealing a dark, masculine jaw. His body remains unmoving, but you can’t help but feel like his attention is fixated on you. Attempting to shake the feeling of being watched, you turned your own attention fleetingly back to your glass, which was near empty. Disappointed, you attempted to reach over the counter for the bottle of whiskey balancing on the edge of the bar. Unaware of the flesh you were flashing to do so, you park yourself again, fumbling the bottle with your barely free hand to pour yourself another glass and meeting your lips with it. Tilting you head back far enough for the liquid to escape down your throat, you glance once more at the man in the corner. His eyes, visible through dark sockets under the brim of his hat, are hooked on you more obviously this time. Feeling warm and brave, you meet his gaze, trying to decipher what kind of face is hiding beneath the shadows. Visible are his sclera, but his irises appear dark, along with the rest of his features. You didn’t mind his gawking, enjoying the dangerous entertainment it provided for you.
Interrupted by the poking grip of stubby fingers above your knee, your eyes dart back at the raider, drug lord, scumbag whatever-he-was. He wasn’t looking at you, but his hands were wandering all the same. Gliding up the inside of your thigh, shudders rises from the base of your spine. The encroaching tipsiness meant hiding your grimace was more of a challenge, and so you twisted your neck with a look of disgust you hoped no one would notice. But it didn’t go unnoticed. Lifting your eyes again, you notice the man is still looking at you, posture leaned forward, revealing his visage. A ghoul. Not awful on the eyes either. Hell, not that your current company was anything to compare to. He noticed your eyes widen and it cracks a smirk on his mottled skin, head cocking to the side. Unblinking, your cheeks flush hot for a second, your only choice to swallow hard and shake it off.
A sharp tug on the rope slowly cutting into your wrist yanks you from your drifting gaze. A waft of halitosis and liquor exposes his intoxication, which probably also meant his desire to have his way with you was near. Encroaching on your personal space, which didn’t really belong to you anymore anyway, he leans in with an open mouth, ready to take what he wanted from your lips. The pungency of his breath almost knocks your off the stool, and when he notices you lean away from his kiss, he makes sure that you do end up on the floor. Crashing to your knees with an audible pop of your joints, you let out a cry that brings a wicked grin to his lips. Stifling a growl as you ride through the pain of your aching joints, you’re ordered to return to your feet. Knowing full well that you’re unable to get up, the raider boss drunkenly draws his shotgun to meet your forehead.
“Up, bitch.”
You shoot him a furious but desperate stare through furrowed brows, despite being in no position to argue with him. You attempt to return to your feet to no avail, through stifled groans of pain that radiate in your kneecaps. Growing more frustrated by your lack of movement,  the raider disables his safety and your heart drops. A cold sweat beads rapidly against your back, this time bracing yourself for his inevitable itchy trigger finger.
A gun shot.
Followed by another.
Eyes squeezed tightly shut, reflexes delayed by your assurance that at least one bullet was lodged in your flesh, but no pain followed. Your ears ring from the gunshots and you spring your eyes open to check yourself. The spattered blood of the man accompanying you covered your front, but it seems you were free of any further injury. Vision darting around the room, you attempt to collect your gall and figure out the situation. To your right, two more raiders, the lackies, guns poised straight ahead of them. To your left, the ghoul on the couch, now standing with a shotgun in each outstretched hand. The standoff is short-lived before the ghoul sinks a bullet into the forehead of each raider, splattering their grey matter across the dingey walls of the now abandoned tavern.
Silence fills the room, besides a few shells clattering to the floor and the thudding of your heartbeat pounding through your ringing ears. Your chest heaves as the panic sets in, you may have been spared, but that means very little in the wasteland. You come to the assumption that you’ll be next by association. Unable to return to your feet, your hands reach to cover your head as you hear the clicking of the ghoul’s spurs approach with each heavy step. As the footsteps cease, you dare peak at the boots that have appeared at your knees, following them up until you find the face of the man they belong to. Towering over you, his eyes darken to an almost predatory look. His gloved hand finds your bound wrists and he lifts you to your feet in one rough swoop, propping yourself on shaking legs as you stand uncomfortably close to him.
A knife emerges from its sheathe to meet the soft skin of your neck, drawing up to linger on your bottom lip. You don’t take your eyes off his for a second, hoping the familiar deer-in-the-headlights tactic will prove useful once more. It was almost embarrassing how often it had saved your life out here. The ghoul keeps your gaze, unblinking, cocking his head to the side as if he were considering something. His stare bores into you, eyes oddly warm brown to match the heat radiating from under his duster. The blade slowly raises past your eyes, where he still firmly held your aching wrists above your head. With a swift tug and low grunt from his throat, the rope bindings loosen and release the pressure from your joints, and you check your them for blood.
Feeling his eyes still on you, you scan back up to his face again, silence filling the entire room as your world still gently spins from the alcohol. The rope remaining tightly around your ankles begins to chafe, rubbing away the top layer of skin. A quick glance down to your feet and back up at him again, hinting. The smirk he flashed you from the other end of the room prior to the shootout creeps back on his lips and yellowed teeth peek through. He practically leans over you, encroaching on your space much like the raiders and those before him had done, but this was different. This time you liked it. The liquor buzz and tingling fear created quite a thrill, one that engulfed your entire skin with prickles and sank into the pit of your belly with a fluttering warmth.
Without uttering a word, he slowly descends. Close enough that you feel the heat of his breath as he meets your face and continues down your form to crouch in front of you, head now level with your navel. Time slows in the room, hazy with excitement, or was it your life flashing before you? Gripping the back of your knee, he slowly reaches down to slice at the bindings on your ankles with the other, almost as if he were savouring the moment, the brim of his hat tickling your lower belly as he tilts his head down. A familiar release, as you reposition your feet to stand more comfortably, skin itching from the rope. The grasp of your knee pit rises until his fingers dig into the meat of your hamstring. Your leg twitches as you imagine the sensation of his rough, ungloved hands wrapped around the underside of your ass cheek. His blade makes contact with your skin once more, cold and stinging on the inside of your calf. Your body stiffens and you hold your breath, before the knife begins to rise up the soft flesh of your leg, past your knees and settling mid-way up your thigh. A gasp escapes your lips as the cold metal tickles your sensitive skin and sends jolts into the heat of your underwear. You dare not move but your body betrays you with a soft tremble. He emits a low hum, humoured by your obvious attempt to hide your growing fear and excitement.
Nonchalantly, he returns to his feet, examining his blade before sheathing it again, the corners of his mouth still curled slightly. As his attention returns to you once more, he reaches over your diminutive form, the collar of his aged shirt almost brushing the tip of your nose. His aroma is powerful, perhaps not in scent, but certainly in the way it makes your belly rise and flutter and tingles creep into your throat. Old leather, Mojave dust, and a musk that was fairly pleasant, all things considered. He recedes with a glass in his hand, your glass, as he knocks back the remainder of your drink before tipping the glass to you with a nod and returning it to the bar.
Stepping around you he strolls over to the body of the man you had belonged to until now and makes quick work of looting his pockets and removing his head with efficiency. He examines the head with a scoff and glances back towards you, almost mocking your choice of company. Grabbing a fistful of hair, the head now dangles by the ghoul’s side as he steps off to leave the bar. As he reaches the fractured doorframe, you dare to finally move. First your lips, a wobbly “Thank you.” escapes them, but you remain with your back to him. His gait halts and he twists to peer back at you, raising an eyebrow in  surprise, but says nothing still. Perhaps pleasantly surprised by the rarity of manners, perhaps wondering how well those manners could serve him. He stands awaiting you, dark figure almost filling the doorway. You wonder if he left already, but are met with his widening, lopsided grin. He tips his hat to you and slinks off beyond sight.
Intoxicating…intoxicated. You’re intoxicated. Your flight or flight response drags you back to your sobering reality. You had been spared by a bounty hunter, and a ghoul at that. Unfortunately for you though, the group of thugs providing some sort of protection were now splayed out on the rotting wooden floor, decorated by their own blood. You were alone, again. The reality of your situation sinks in as you fumble to collect the least bloody jacket from one of the bodies as an attempt to cover as much of your bare skin as possible. Your mind has other plans however, as the lingering image of his sultry eyes are bore into the back of your eyelids, and you can’t help but wonder how those hollowed features would look if you were underneath him.
Fuck.
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expirednukacola · 6 hours
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ORANGE COLORED SKY 🏜️ || Cooper Howard x Fem!Reader
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𐚁⊹₊ ⋆☆
My first fic about this bonafide work of ART! AKA The one and only, Cooper Howard / The Ghoul. This MAN has everyone lined up to get a taste so I am here to deliver! This is also a little surprise for @lexiway121!!! Reader is fem and in her mid-ish - late-ish 20s in this fic! This will also be a two part fic!! ..Maybe even more. SUMMARY: reader is little miss janey’s babysitter (cooper is going to need all the help he can get ESPECIALLY DURING A DIVORCE) and reader was invited to the kids birthday party (seen in the beginning of ep 1) as cooper’s plus two just to keep an extra eye on janey and the horse/sugarfoot. after the bombs were dropped and a couple hundred years of “beauty sleep” and a decade of getting use to the wastelands go by, reader is now.. a fucking ghoul.
og gif made by: @lousolversons !!
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“Flash! Bam! Alakazam!”
“Out of an orange colored sky!”
The birthday party was going perfectly! You and Janey were standing somewhat near Cooper as he did his lasso tricks on his beloved horse, Sugarfoot. The birthday boy, alongside with his plethora of friends, were all staring and gasping in awe as the cowpoke twirled the lasso up and down to where he was inside of the spinning circle of rope. Cooper noticed their precious, little reactions and smiled back at his audience, a tender yet low chuckle escaping his throat.
Seeing how happy he looked and smiled as well, your cheeks became a tad bit blushed.. definitely from the L.A. heat — and that’s when Janey looked up at her and noticed how you, her babysitter, were smiling at her dad.. “Twitterpated..” -Was what the seven year old mumbled under her breath; she really needed to slow her roll on asking her dad what certain words meant. You, on the other hand, didn’t quite hear what Janey mumbled so you jokingly decided to peep out a little, “What was that, sweetie?” and all you got in response was an “innocent” little “Nothiiiiiiiing!”
After a few minutes of continuing his lasso show, Cooper got off his trusty stead and adjusted Sugarfoot’s saddle with such care while Janey rushed over to try and help her father. “Alright, birthday boy,” The cowboy said while looking at the VERY excited kid, “Let’s get a photo of ya up here on Sugarfoot.” As Cooper picked up the boy to place him on the horse while his daughter held onto the reigns, the birthday boy’s dad and his buddy, aka Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dipshit, start talking about Cooper Howard.
“Why the hell is Cooper Howard workin’ kids’ birthday parties?” The dad’s friend muttered as he held onto a bottle of some pretty cheap beer, and the dad responded with the most embarrassing answer known to man, “What else? Alimony.” The asshole said nonchalantly before he went back to nursing his shitty bottle of beer. That made Cooper whip his head around to look at the father with his mouth slightly agape, flabbergasted he would even bring that shit up at his kid’s party. To make things worse, sweet Janey popped up and asked the billion dollar question.. “What did they say, dad?”
Cooper looked down at his precious little angel with a quiet yet warm voice, “That I’m lucky to have such a good helper like you.” Poor, innocent Janey didn’t know what was going on between her Dad and Momma. All she knew was that she would have some very long weekends with her Momma and her Grandma and then she would go back to stay with her tired Dad.
Knowing what Cooper was going through and hearing those horrible words come out of that assholes mouth, you glared at the boy’s father so hard that he could fucking feel it. The dad looked back at you and rolled his eyes, pointing at you while muttering, “Some people say he cheated on his wife with his kid’s babysitter.” That was the last fucking straw and you wanted to smack the living daylights out of him. “Are you fucking kidding me, you goddamn pig-” You muttered but Janey quickly grabbed onto your hand with that same sweet smile she always had.
The anger that boiled inside of your body slowly began to simmer down into nothingness as you moved out of the way so the dad (AKA the head honcho of being an asshole) could take a photo of his son on top of the horse with Cooper standing next to him and little Janey holding onto the reigns, “All right- You ready?” The dad positioned the camera and even though the kid had a smile that was brighter than the 4th of July, the cowboy’s smile seemed.. off. Usually, Cooper would have these sweet dimples on either side of his mouth when he would smile real big for photos or when his daughter would do something extraordinary.. But those dimples weren’t there for these pictures.
Click!
After the photo was taken, the cowpoke carefully lifted up the giddy child from the saddle on Sugarfoot to the soft and lush green grass beneath them. Cooper was just about to check up on you and his daughter, but- “Hey, honey- Honey! Get with Cooper. Let’s get a picture.” -Mayor Asshat of Assville motioned the man to stand next to his wife. Though Cooper was a little awkward about the whole ordeal, he quickly posed up next to the wife and had that fake smile on his face once more.
Click!
“Aw- Coop, Coop, Coop! Do your thumbs-up.” The jerkwad ordered and right as you were about to intervene, Cooper (sorta) stood his ground and quickly responded with, “..Yeah, you know, given the state of everything, I prefer not to, if that’s all right.” But guess what? Señor Shit-for-brains wasn’t having it because being an asshole was in his damn genes. “Why not?” asked Count Fuckhead-ula, “It’s what you’re famous for.” he added right after but his wife, the one with common sense in the relationship, told “Bob” to drop it.
“We- uh.. We gotta get this rodeo on the road.” Cooper said with his head tilted slightly downwards towards the vibrant green grass beneath his worn leather boots while the boy’s mother handed him a check. Quickly, you grabbed onto the reigns that hung from Sugarfoot’s neck and clicked your tongue to get the horse to start walking. “..Well that was just fuckin’ lovely, huh Sugar?” Muttering solemnly under your breath, you walked alongside the sweet stead, tying the beautiful horse up to a tree so it wouldn’t run loose.
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A good 5 minutes roll on by like a tumbleweed and You were walking around with Cooper by your side.. while the two of you were picking up giblets of trash left behind by some kids and adults. “I never thought that I was going to be doing this at a kid’s birthday party, Mr. Howard. Picking up trash after people is not what I had planned.” You stood back up after having to bend over to pick up an empty bottle of orange flavored Nuka Cola. “Oh yeah? What did you have planned, missy?” Cooper looked over at you with one of his eyebrows raised up and a smirk growing on his lips.. those gorgeous lips alongside those beautiful hazel eyes- “Uhhh- I don’t know? Maybe mingle with some of the parents and swipe myself a piece of cake. I heard it was chocolate cake.” A little smile grew on your face but your blooming happiness all went to waste when you saw “Bob the Shit Talker” staring at both of you through the window.
“But for a grown ass man to talk shit about us with his lil buddy and then having us pick up trash left by him and his guests was definitely not on my list.” You angrily sneered at the man who continued to glare at you two through the window before letting out a loud and deep sigh. Cooper, God bless this sweet man’s soul, quickly stood up and looked at you. “He did.. what? I knew he was talking shit about me but he and Mr. Clean were talking about you? ..Fuck- It was that rumor again, huh?”
The sweet-hearted cowboy looked up at the sky as if he were silently praying to God himself to smite down that piece of shit before he looked over at your slightly blushed to make sure you weren’t boo-hooing over something that wasn’t even true. He knew you didn’t have to answer him because the look of embarrassment on your face was all he needed to know.. but at least you weren’t crying.
After a few minutes of some much needed silence, you both made your way back to Janey, who was eyeing that delicious chocolate cake as she wrapped her own little lasso around her hand. You saw how Janey was looking at that cake.. and you started to look at the cake the same way the little girl was staring at that frosted piece of heaven.
“Why didn’t you do it?” Janey’s words snapped you out of your hungered staring contest with the cake. You looked down at the little girl that was looking at her father, who was now crouched down next to her. “The thumbs-up.” Oh shit.. She just accidentally busted open a huge ass can of Marine flashbacks for Cooper. At first, he tried to make her forget about it by telling her it was “grown up business” but those sweet, sweet eyes of hers were just too much for his heart to handle.
You crouched down next to the girl and gently placed a hand on her upper back, gently rubbing your thumb against the material of her button up’s collar. “Honey.. The reason why your dad doesn’t like having his thumb up is because-” Your words were cut off from Cooper clearing his throat and placing a hand on your shoulder, immediately making you shut up so he could be the one to explain it to his daughter. The older man explained what they taught him when he was in the Marines to his daughter, telling her that he and his fellow marines would hold up their thumbs whenever a bomb would drop. If the cloud of smoke was smaller than their thumbs, they had to run for the hills.. and if the cloud was larger than their thumbs, they wouldn’t even have to worry about running.
“..Who wants some cake?” You chirped out awkwardly while standing up, brushing your hands against your top before placing them on your hips. Janey’s eyes immediately lit up with absolute joy from the thought of having a slice of cake, and she quickly nodded her head with her hands clasped together. “I’ll see if I can snag you girls a couple o’ pieces, ‘kay?” The infamous cowboy stood up as well and walked inside of the house and you decided to join him to grab your own slice of heaven.
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FLASH!
Once Cooper grabbed his daughter a slice and you grabbed your own, you two rejoined his little angel once more but instead of seeing her sweet smile shining brightly on her face, you were both met with her holding up her thumb and a horrified look on her face. Her body was trembling, her bottom lip was quivering, her eyes were tearing up, and when she spoke, she sounded like she was looking Death itself straight in the eyes..
“Is it your thumb or mine?”
“It’s just a fire..”
You could hear the dread in his voice and the sound of her little heart pounding against her ribcage as you followed their gazes to a.. large cloud of smoke and destruction. Your own heart start to rapidly beat profusely inside your body and your eyes widened in terror as a wave of radiation started coming your way. Everything felt as if it were in slow motion as you and Cooper both decided to crouch down to clutch Janey close to your bodies to shield her from any harm.
As the wave finally passed through, the glass windows shattered into millions of shards varying from large pieces to microscopic fragments and felt one of the medium sized pieces plunge itself into the side of your calf. “Oh GOD!!” A horrifying shriek of pain found its way from out of your body as Cooper quickly scooped both you and his daughter up in his arms, quickly running towards his much needed horse, Sugarfoot.
BAM!
Dread pulses throughout your body while your eyes darted across the scene around you — Parents with their sons and daughters in their arms, people running around aimlessly like ants after a menace of a child stepped on their nest, and the screams and cries of frightened young children wanting to go home. You’re pulled out of your frightened state when Cooper tried to push you up on Sugarfoot after he placed his daughter up on the saddle. “Cooper.. Cooper! No!! Get Janey out of here! You have to get her out of here!!” You pushed yourself away from him and stumbled back, your limp leg giving its all to keep you somewhat supported.
“Y/N- Get on the damn horse! I can’t just leave you here!” He tried to pull you back towards him but you limped back away from him once more. “You need to get her out of here, Coop.. Please.” Tears welled up in your eyes and they fell down your cheeks when they became too heavy for your eyes to hold. “Please.. Go- Get out of here!!” You pushed him away and back towards the horse, and you swore you saw him shed a lone tear.
As more bombs fell from the sky, you watched in grief as your beloved cowboy hop on his horse and grabbed on the reigns, immediately whipping them a little to signal Sugarfoot to get the fuck out of there — away from the chaos and away from the horror.. away from you. You dropped to your knees as you bawled your pretty little eyes until there were no more tears to shed.. and when you heard the faint whistle of a bomb dropping nearby.
ALAKAZAM!
This was the end, you thought. The end of the world, the end of your life, and the end of everything and everyone that you loved.. and the beginning of a new age: The beginning of a nuclear fallout. As you kneeled down on the green grass that was way too vibrant to be real, you tilted your head upwards and looked towards the sky, smiling one last time before your skin began to burn, your insides feeling as if they were being cooked at a thousand degrees, your voice becoming rasped and broken as you screamed in complete and utter agony. You took your final breath of irradiated air underneath that hideous orange colored sky.
THE END ..?
—————
thank you so much for reading the first chapter of Orange Colored Sky! i hope you liked it as much as i did and i hope you can excuse the.. nicknames i gave “bob” at the beginning (he deserved it though! he was an asshole for absolutely no reason.)
TAG LIST: @lexiway121
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beeslibrarycorner · 17 hours
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Cooper held you as you crumbled, you were having a hard day. Your walls were breaking and you couldn’t help the tears that started welling in your eyes.
He was there for you and that’s all you could ask for. “Deep breaths honey, it’s going to be ok”he murmured kissing the crown of your head and tugging you closer.
The cloudy weather was making your mood sour, you kept thinking about memories you don’t want to remember. Cooper could sense something was off and when you came to him for help that’s when everything came to a head.
He cradled your head to his shoulder and talked you through your emotions. “I know, today may be hard but we have to keep going sweetheart. For us to live we have to keep moving, you are so strong and brave” he said to you rubbing a large hand across your back and resting his head against yours.
“How about we sit down on the couch and watch a good movie” he leans back to catch your eyes. “That sounds good” you said and he smiled up down at you. “Let’s get you into something comfortable then” he says guiding you to your bedroom.
The rest of the day was filled with cuddles and comfort. Cooper always knew what was best for you.
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reveluving · 9 hours
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angel in hell ; the ghoul x reader
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summary: hell on earth is more tolerable with his light by his side.
warnings: allusions to s~mut (minors DNI!), reader as an 'entertainer' is used loosely (for your creativity!), cocky (softer) hard-ass x beautiful badass darling trope mmm, reader was born before the war, age gap but not really (think him in his 40s & you in your 20s/30s but in 200-ish years old), less angst and more fluff overall!
a/n: just a little tester because I could not help it HAHAHA had this in my mind for a few days, and now that I've started the show, I have an excuse to post it 💅🏼 please enjoy & don’t forget to leave some sugar! ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ
» curious about my writing? come & check out my main m.list!
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'You wondered how your dead father would react to your relationship with a deadly and smitten cowpoke.' ;
You were an entertainer before it all. The best of the best. A real knockout of the century and the kindest of them all.
If only you knew it had its downsides.
Your admirer (read: obsessor) being none other than the Overseer of 33 himself, forcing you into the vault lifestyle with him to be his beloved.
But your mental strength, your humanity, your free will was unbudgeable.
Not even the experiments could budge you.
Not until that one fucking serum.
You tried everything. Before and after your escape.
But the afterlife, or whatever the fuck that existed outside of this godforsaken world, just wouldn't take you.
Your mama always said that by living a good, long life, the universe gets to show you what they had to offer.
Thank the heavens she didn't live long enough to take her words back, if she knew the hell her only daughter was put into.
And though the Vault taught you how to survive better than poor souls on the surface, sometimes you wished you didn't remember how to. Yearning for the ignorance and the near-zombified state they were in over the pristine lifestyle that would jump out of you every once in a while.
At least whatever the underground snakes injected you with kept your youth intact.
Though, you weren't the only one reminiscing your old days, remembering the smiles that immediately bloomed from your presence.
Howard, The Ghoul remembers you.
Nobody at his great age could ever forget a sweet face like yours. Standing out from all the yuppies, despite being well-off yourself at the time, much like you were now. You knew your rights from your wrongs, and they were never for show. Regardless of the bags under your eyes on sleepless nights, or the scars that would decorate your skin after a rough-up, just until your curse magically wooshes it away.
Despite your scoffs, your wave-offs over your old life, that the present had no need for an entertainer, he would say otherwise.
All. The. Time.
Always countering your modesty with the highest praises, albeit sometimes lewdly.
But… not always.
He knew that you knew you were one of a kind if he was able to tell you his life before the bombs dropped. That he was able to tell you stories of his late family. That he was able to tell you that you were 'somethin' special t'him'.
You wondered how your dead father would react to your relationship with a deadly and smitten cowpoke.
But you were on your own now.
Always been for over two hundred fucking years.
At least, that was the way it was before.
Not anymore. Not with the foul-mouthed gunslinger and his pooch, who, to the chagrin of your man, adored you more than him.
Which, really, how couldn't you talk Howard's ear off for harming the sweetheart at first?
Disbelief was something he had lived with from the day he stumbled upon you in the badlands one fine night. The pretty little lady who didn't look like she could hurt a fly back then now aimed her trusty rifle at him with an unlit ciggy in between your lips. Not a tremor in sight as you looked through your scope.
He was half-tempted to be shot.
And well, you did, taking the shot. It did as good as a chocolate teapot, and as you quickly tried to reload, he took a good look at you.
You were a sight for sore eyes before, but today, gorgeous wasn't even cutting it, and if he wasn't daydreaming about your messy hair and sorry clothing article for a sleepwear, then he definitely was about that one night—your first night.
How you teasingly pulled the wide collar of your top down, revealing more and more of your velvety skin. How gentle your kisses were, brushing your lips along his neck like he'd finally break after a lifespan of wandering. How you looked up at him, lips parted and eyes dazed with lust and dare he say, affection.
He knew he was a goner.
But like all the time, he wanted to be greedy.
And for once in his life, after an eternity, the future was finally shedding him some light of hope.
˚ · . f i n . · ˚
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a/n: if something ain't right, no it isn't ❤️ don't worry about it, still hope you enjoy! ;; gorgeous rose divider by @firefly-graphics ♡
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geeks-universe · 2 days
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The Fallen pt. 4
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Cooper Howard x F!Angel!Reader
A/N: This contains smut.
Cooper was angry.
No, he’d been angry when the shit-for-brains had the audacity to look at you like he was stripping your body bare with his eyes.
Now, he was furious.
Rage was an easy emotion, a comfortable one. For years it’d been his only companion, and slipping back into its familiar embrace felt almost natural to him.
Lucy had been too preoccupied with saying goodbye to her lover boy to see the carefully lidded fury, a snake in the grass ready to strike.
You’d noticed though.
Of course you noticed, just like you did every other damn thought that crossed his mind. Maybe you’d noticed the hundred different ways he’d imagined popping that weasel’s head off, of making you pay for the tiniest bit of himself he couldn’t let die.
When you’d proclaimed a shelter for the night- a sad little shack with three walls- Lucy had wandered off with some lame excuse of looking for supplies, the dog trotting happily along with her. Or maybe it was checking the perimeter. He didn’t care, hoped she died, really.
You set a lantern on the ground between the two of you, laying out your pack to get comfortable on the floor. Cooper didn’t bother, couldn’t sit down while the fire burned through his veins. It roared through every inch of his body, consuming him with a vexation he hadn’t felt in a long time.
That fucking roach should’ve lost his hands for touching you, for thinking himself deserving of your silky skin.
“You should rest.”
He barked a laugh- a harsh, aggravated noise wrangled from his chest.
“Ain’t as delicate as you.”
It was meant to be an insult, and fuck didn’t that just piss him off that you let it slide right off you. Unbothered, the same way you’d been the day he first met you.
The same way you’d been when that rat had scurried to you, vying for your attention.
“Coop-“
“So now you want to speak to me?” He straightened his back, standing to his full height as he glared down at your sitting figure.
It was an intimidation tactic, and he knew you well enough to know that it wouldn’t have the effect he was hoping, but it would make you privy to his frustrations.
“Seems like I’m a great choice when I’m the only one.”
Confusion furrowed your brows, quickly replaced by understanding. You let out a low sigh, eyes tracing Cooper’s figure in the dim light.
He didn’t like that you could be so calm, that you didn’t feel his wrath.
“You’re jealous.”
He snarled, angry at the insinuation- even more so that it was correct. It wasn’t just jealousy though.
You were his.
He hadn’t had something worth holding onto in a long damn time, and nobody would take what was his.
“If I was jealous everytime you opened those pretty legs for someone else, I’d never get any rest.”
Your eyes flashed- hurt, followed quickly by anger.
Good.
He wanted you angry.
Wanted you to feel the inferno in your chest, the way he did- to let it consume you in a blaze of abandon, come undone at the seams and show the person beneath.
“We’re not doing this,” you stated bluntly, still holding onto the last bit of restraint.
That wouldn’t do.
He wanted you unraveled, raw.
“Runnin’ won’t change a damn thing.”
Your hands pressed into your knees, a quick outlet of irritation before you stood up. Your eyes were still burning, but it wasn’t enough. You still had too much control.
“You’re such an ass.”
The smirk he flashed was cruel.
“‘M honest,” he argued, “and doesn’t that just piss you off?”
Your chest expanded with a deep breath, eyes unfocused as you talked yourself down. He was so close, you just needed a little push.
“Poor little dove, just wants to run away from her problems like she did her family.”
Bingo.
Faster than a blink, you were in his face, your teeth bared as you raised a fist. He took the opportunity, watching your rage swelter as he grabbed hold of your wrist and twisted it behind you.
Fuck if your rage wasn’t the most intoxicating thing- the rise and fall of your chest hypnotic, the bare of your teeth captivating. You growled, an angry, ominous noise that went straight to his cock.
Your back was pressed against his front, moving with the rhythm of your erratic breathing, teasing friction exactly where he wanted you. His fingers pressed into your wrist harder, his mouth dangerously close to your ear. You weren’t fighting his hold- waiting, listening.
“Maybe that’s why your daddy left you too.”
Your eyes seemed to glow with an inner fire as you tried to pull your hand from him. He held fast though, put every ounce of his strength into restraining you. You lashed out like a wild animal, movements irrational and erratic. Finally, when it was clear you wouldn’t get free, you spit at him.
“Fuck you.”
It was the most vulgar he’d ever heard you, his wrath mixing with desire. Warmth seeped into his cheek where your spit had landed, and in a quick kick of his legs, he dropped you to your knees hard.
And wasn’t that a damn sight.
“If that sweet mouth wants to be filthy so bad, why don’t we put it to good use.”
He talked slow, controlled, as he grabbed your hair, pulling your head back. Wild eyes traced the arch of your back, the smooth column of your exposed neck.
He wanted to take a bite.
Your eyes were burning into his, an anger he’d never seen before from you shining through. You looked like you hated him, like you’d burn him on the spot.
“Now, sweetheart, try not to use your teeth.”
He clicked open his belt buckle, positioning himself just enough to free his hardened length. He’d dreamt of this moment, had pleasured himself to the thought of you more than he could count. The realization that it was coming to fruition had him so hard it fucking hurt. He took pride at the hunger in your gaze, your mouth still twisted in a scowl.
“Don’t act all innocent now.”
Almost as if it were a challenge, spurred on by your temper, your hot mouth took his entire length in one quick movement and-
Holy fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
You were impossibly warm, your tongue sliding the length of his cock while your eyes, the ones he’d spent so long admiring, stared into his own. You held his gaze, refused to look away as you hollowed your cheeks, daring him to keep going.
He didn’t disappoint, wrapping his hand around your hair just like he’d done with his lasso. Sturdy hands forced you to take him to the base of his cock, before pulling back out. He thrusted back in hard, unconcerned with the tears that gathered in your eyes as he slammed into your throat.
You were defiant in the way you took him, forcing a harsher pace than the one he’d set.
This had to have been heaven. Nothing on Earth could possibly feel this fucking good. His thrusts were feral, unrelenting, and you were meeting them with ferocity, your pretty lips wrapped so perfectly around his cock.
“Takin’ me so good,” he groaned, his abdomen spasming. The sound of your gags filled the air, tearing through any restraint he might’ve had.
It’d been a while since he’d felt any sort of pleasure, even longer since it’d been anything more than a quick fuck.
This, though…
This was a whole different beast.
Fuck.
He wiped at the saliva coating his cheek, staring into your eyes as he slid his fingers into his mouth, tasting your sweetness.
You moaned, and he was sure this had to be a dream.
Reality had never been this nice.
“My filthy girl.”
Another moan, and this one almost dropped him to his knees. Pleasure tingled up his spine, down to the tips of his fingers and the bottom of his toes. His body was practically vibrating, begging him for release.
He didn’t want it yet, wanted this moment to last an eternity. His cock was pounding into your mouth, your fingernails digging into his thighs- sweet pain mixed with hot pleasure.
Please, his body sung, begging for a release he desperately fought against.
His pace was brutal, chasing the high he both wanted more than anything, and wished would never come.
It wasn’t enough.
This wasn’t enough.
He needed more.
Needed all of you.
“You are mine.”
He emphasized on a growl, savoring the taste of you that still lingered on his tongue.
He was desperate for more, for every damn piece of yourself you’d give him. It’d never be enough, not enough time in the universe to get the fill of you he wanted- needed.
He was close now, only holding on by sheer will, and all it took was a tilt of your head and a long, low moan of what he only prayed was his name around his length.
Like a band, his restraint snapped, his hips surging forward as he grunted your name.
Fuck.
Fuck, his body was singing.
Fuck. Curses, unbidden, were falling from his lips. Pleas, praises, worships- fuck it all he couldn’t even tell anymore, blinded by the feel of your mouth.
It was hot, so hot, and you swallowed every drop he gave you, his sensitive cock was twitching, his knees trembling with the effort to stay on his feet.
You kept going though, pulling your lips back just far enough to lick his length clean, your eyes still so full of fire, the same fire racing through his body.
It was so much, too much almost, and yet he gave into the torturous pleasure, desperate for you, for whatever you’d give him.
His hat had fallen off his head when he threw it back, his legs shaking as you finally pulled away- and despite the overstimulation, his body still chased your mouth, not ready to feel the empty, consuming void left in your wake.
A breath.
A moment to consider what he’d done, what he’d said to you. It wasn’t anger in your eyes- not regret, either. He couldn't read it, couldn't grasp what you were feeling.
His heart pounded against his chest, exhausted arms releasing your hair as he slowly, cautiously, raised his fingers to your cheeks. Tears had fallen from how far he’d thrust himself into you. He wiped them away, let them press into the fabric of his gloves, as the air grew thick.
It was a soft moment, a gentle one, and he didn’t want to be the first to pull away.
So you did.
You got your feet and wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, your jaw flexing as you looked like you hadn’t just sucked him fucking dry.
He tucked himself back in his pants and secured his belt, waiting for you to speak. It was a tense moment, drawn longer by the way you wet your lips, like you wanted to talk but couldn’t quite form the words.
“Oh, fudge, are you two okay?”
His finger itched with the desire to end the vaultie for interrupting this, for causing you to cast a worried glance in her direction before your damn walls were thrown back up. Whatever you’d been about to say, you definitely wouldn’t now.
“Just peachy,” you smiled, one that screamed inauthenticity as you took a step to face away from Lucy.
“Think I need some air though, I’ll be back in a bit.”
It was a dismissal if he ever heard one, and the vault dweller had the good sense not to try and follow.
“Your hat’s on the ground, there.”
She went to pick it up for him, but he swooped down before she had the chance and deposited it on his head. On a good day he didn’t have the patience for her, but right now he was feeling downright venomous.
“So-“
“Leave it.”
His words were final, tone brokering no argument. That was the only bit of grace he’d give her- one more word and his reply would be a bullet. She understood, could see the tension in his stance and gave him the space he desired.
But it wasn’t space he wanted.
It was you.
It was your voice, so gentle and melodic.
It was your touch, sweet and resolute- full of heat, of passion, of something that resembled life.
Instead, he got the cold, hard ground and a head full of vicious thoughts. Why did you plague his thoughts the way you did? Why did you make him feel so fucking human?
He didn’t want to.
Didn’t want that, any of it.
Not the fucking feelings, not the guilt, not the stupid fucking spark of hope in his cold, dead heart.
Let Cooper Howard die.
But it wasn’t that simple.
All of the anger in the world couldn’t turn his affection for you to hatred. It was a stubborn thing, and a solid one. No amount of pressure could bend it. He’d just learned to live with it- a deficiency he’d carry for the rest of his miserable time on Earth.
He fell to the ground there, not bothering with getting comfortable, almost like it was a punishment. Truth be told, he didn’t have the fight in his veins anymore, didn’t wish to have to struggle to get comfortable.
He was ready to lie down and accept what he earned.
His eyes slipped shut, and though the vault dweller fell into a light sleep easily, he could not. His mind simply wouldn’t stop, kept replaying that look in your eyes.
What did it mean?
Did you hate him?
He wouldn’t blame you, could never fault you for hating the monstrous thing he’d become. He’d bet you’d have fallen in love with him before- Cooper Howard, the gentleman.
That was the kind of thing you deserved, the kind of life he’d dreamt about with you.
He’d love you in those dreams, so unconditionally and flawlessly, with no restraint or regret. He’d praised the ground you walked on, and would cherish every moment he had with you.
Not now.
He couldn’t love that way, not anymore- didn’t want to, didn’t remember how, if he were honest.
There was a quiet, tempered crunch of sand, a boot moving slowly towards him.
He knew those steps though, knew that it was you who approached him. He kept his eyes shut, curious as to what your intent was.
If you killed him, so be it.
“Cooper,” you breathed.
It was a prayer, an admission, and a promise. He didn’t reply, didn’t even crack open an eye, just listened with all the ravenous hunger of a starving man, hoping you would say more.
You didn’t.
A shadow casted from behind his lids as you knelt down, reminiscent of earlier, but of your own volition. This wasn’t with rage, with an animalistic hunger.
This was with compassion, with something that resembled fondness.
A soft exhale left your parted lips, and if he imagined hard enough, he could see the expression you wore. It was kind, open- something he rarely saw anymore.
A weight settled on his chest then, your head pressed snug against the tattered shirt he wore. An arm wrapped around his middle, holding him close to your warmth. The words you spoke in then sounded lyrical, more natural than anything you’d ever said before.
He didn’t know the meaning, wasn’t even sure what language it was- but a heat emanated from the feather he’d tucked into his chest pocket, and he understood that it was you sharing a piece of yourself.
He listened to the beating of his own heart, the slowing of your breaths, as he felt a peace wash over himself that he thought was long gone.
There, in the dim glow of a worn lantern, with the most beautiful soul he’d ever had the pleasure of meeting tucked into his side, Cooper Howard emerged- the man he was- if only for a moment.
Tags: @lacontroller1991 @giggle-shade
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psycho-betty · 2 days
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chapter one - the atomic rule
[the ghoul x lucy maclean]
She stood in front, admiring the flower, “I don’t get it. Why roses?" "Well, sugar, if you're so dead set on knowin', you're gonna have to rustle up the answers yourself. If you're half as sharp as you like to think you are, you'll figure it out. Cause I've got a couple of centuries of memories and such stored up here, so the nitty-gritty details? They tend to fade like paint in the sun.”
Now on Ao3! "Cherries and Nuka Cola" is my first published fanfic and is slow-burn multi-chapter fanfic for Lucy Mclean x The Ghoul.
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ghoulphile · 2 days
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i'm a dumbass and put no - so the no option is going to be "wait until tomorrow to post" 💀
janey's dad teaser
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eupheme · 11 days
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— on the fence [into the fire, part ii]
part i | masterlist
cooper howard / the ghoul x f!reader
rated e - 3.8k
tags: dubcon, power dynamics, vault dweller!reader, bounty hunting, pwp, restraints, sex for favors, oral (m), exhibitionism, spanking, biting, hair pulling, light choking, sub/dom elements, PiV, radiated creampie
a/n: hi! I had a couple ideas I wanted to explore, which turned into a mini-series. I have them all mapped out & I hope to have them up for you soon! 💖
“Why don’t you show me again,” He husks, “What you’re so good at.”
Your breath catches - eyes flicking warily towards the door, but he’s quick to call you back.
“Hey, now. Eyes over here.” The Ghoul snaps, “You need to worry ‘bout me more than anyone out there.”
(Or - the Ghoul gets you out of your Vault Suit.)
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You’re not sure you like the look of this town.
It sprawls wide and low across the desert, the inhabitants gathering in the shadows to escape glare of the sun. A low buzzing murmur that carries with you through the streets.
It feels suffocating, after the open miles before.
Following the dark figure of Ghoul, as you wind through the streets. Partly because you have to - that leash still pulled tight, wrapped around a fist.
Partly because you want to stick close, always.
“-don’t need you slowing me down.” The Ghoul gives the rope a yank, and you scowl, “You get hurt doing some stupid shit, and I’m leavin’ you behind.”
Your frown softens. His words still just as harsh, snarled out. But they’re a far cry from before.
Before, when you were certain he was going to hand you right back over to your Vault, in spite of how far you’ve come. Something significant passing in the journey through the desert, as he had taken what you wanted.
The taste of him has since faded, but he still lingers.
“Gotta earn your keep, too.” His head turns, eyeing you from beneath the brim of hat, “You good at anythin’?”
Unable to help it, you smirk - a brow raising. He scoffs in response, eyes narrowing.
“Anyone can be good at suckin’ cock, sweetheart.” He drawls, unimpressed, “’m not so bad at it, myself.”
Your lips part in surprise and he’s the one that grins, now.
The Ghoul picks up another bounty here. A shady, alley-way deal - keeping you close to his heels as he snatches the faded paper contact off a tattered board.
Running into another pair looking for jobs - a fresh scar splitting across the nose of a man who tries to start a conversation, before quickly retreating.
“Fuckin’ amateurs” muttered in reply to your heavy, silent judgement.
The client is tracked down for more information, after. Wasn’t hard to find the man with cage over the lower half of his face. Spikes that scream Raider with the way they jut through his clothes.
Fifty caps for the “goddamn no-good thief” that wiped out his stall in the night, taking every last bullet and can of cram. Last seen about two days ago, heading north.
Dead or alive, the client doesn’t care.
“Did you see ‘em?” The Ghoul frowns, “What they look like? Give me somethin’ to go off of.”
“Course I did,” The man huffs, “Looks just like me, don’t he? He’s my own damn brother.”
You can’t contain your own sideways look in disbelief, only to see The Ghoul returning it.
He bargains for a hundred, and gets it.
It’s hard not to wonder if he had taken your bounty this way. If your face had been scrawled across a piece of paper. Exchanged in a no-nonsense, disconnected way.
How much had your life been worth?
You never asked him. It’s something you’re not sure you even want to know.
The rest of the afternoon is spent stocking up. Caps exchanged for some more ammo. A couple bottles of watery chems, shoved deep in his bag to join the others.
A way the ease the cough that rattles him every few days. The smallest bottle kept out, wrenched open with a tight fist.
It snags at you - the way he swallows it like ambrosia the second he steps away. Gasping and groaning as if it’s air he needs to breathe.
“I’m good at medicine,” You tell his back - following again. Memories of the Vault pushing their way to the surface, “Could make that for you, if we find the stuff. Wouldn’t have to dilute it.” You almost run into him, with the way he’s gone still. The tilt of his head, a single sharp eye piercing through you under the brim of a hat.
Shifting over your shoulder. Narrowing.
His hand fists in the collar of your jumpsuit instead, hauling you down the nearest alley and into the shadows.
“Hey!” You protest, your back knocked against the wall. He cages you in, knuckles pressing into your jaw with his tight grip.
The vial is pinched between his fingers, dangled in front of your face.
“You can make this?” He confirms.
You’re able to confirm it now, never quite getting a good look before. RadAway. It would be simple, compared to some of the stuff you’d had to cook up.
“Get me to a lab, some supplies,” You nod, “And I will.”
“Huh.” He’s close - you can’t help squirming in his grip, as he considers you, “Ain’t that something.”
A second, before his grip eases - but he doesn’t let go. Your bound fists rest against his chest, but there’s no force behind them to drive him off.
“Could’ve just asked.” You huff, “You don’t have to man-handle me.”
He almost smiles - his voice coming low, with a tilt of his head.
“Don’t I?”
It flusters you, how his body presses against yours. Your heartbeat kicking up a notch, your chest brushing his with each short breath.
His thumb sweeps, ghosting against your skin. Those sunken eyes dropping to your collar, with a frown.
Another glance down the aisle, before they’re dragging over you - voice lowering.
“Need to get you out of this suit.”
His words make stiffen in his arms, a sharp inhale of anticipation.
“Not so smart, are you?” He husks, his gaze dragging from your parted lips, up to your eyes, “Runnin’ around like this. Downright advertising you’re a Vaultie, when someone’s lookin’ for you.”
He’s not wrong. He tracked you down easily enough. You nod is small, a pang of regret as his fingers drop - as he steps away.
“Come on, then. I know a place.”
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The place is an old saloon, the windows blasted out over two centuries ago. The gutted insides filled out with a patched-up bar, the mended tables and scattered chairs filled with patrons. Rooms to rent lining the first - and second floor - if you were brave enough to risk the staircase.
A few stalls set up alongside a wall - a barber ran by a Mister Handy with a looping stutter, the second by another Ghoul. Her few racks are filled with a patchwork of fabric, all in stained and faded patterns.
He gestures, a tilt of his head at the racks, “Pick something out, quick like.”
You’d gape at him, if you weren’t afraid he’d change his mind. Serious about your suit - you’re quick to grab a shirt in your size with only two holes. A pair of trousers, a rip at the knee.
“This ain’t for you.” The Ghoul clarifies darkly in your ear, “This is a trigger-happy town. Don’t need to be wasting my bullets.”
You hum in agreement - undeterred by his tone. The package clutched to your chest as he hands over a couple caps. Stuck over a full two weeks now in the same suit - you’re itching for the soft cotton against the skin.
Turning to leave, but then you’re halting. A couple of the patrons look familiar, hovering just inside the door. Something about that scar-
You’re trying to recall, in the crowd of people you’ve seen today - when a hand clamps down on your shoulder. Wheeling you around as the Ghoul turns to the shop owner.
“You got a room she can borrow?” There’s a change in his tone, almost a sticky-sweet edge to his drawl.
It must work - you’re shown to what used to be an old parlor room. An array of broken chairs, a heavy wooden table. The wallpaper torn and faded, the shades of cream long stained a dull, dirty yellow.
He fills the doorway - an arm propped against the frame, and you hold your wrists out to him dutifully.
You’ve worked at the knots before, to no avail - only to scowl now, as he undoes them easily with one hand.
A moment of silence hanging then, as you give him a pointed look - rubbing at sore wrists.
“You gonna leave so I can change?” You ask, “I’ll just be a second.”
The Ghoul steps forward instead, pulling the door shut behind him. An audible click, as he thumbs at the lock.
“Oh, I don’t think so, darlin’.”
A heat flares to life in your cheeks, “You’re staying?”
“That’s right,” He sinks into an old loveseat, propped up on concrete blocks near the boarded-up window, “Can’t leave you alone in a place like this. Fuckin’ vultures would swoop right in.”
You hesitate, watching him warily as an arm slings across the back, legs stretched out against the floor. If you didn’t know better then you think it was something almost akin to concern in his tone.
Or then again - he might just want to keep your bounty to himself. You had hoped you were past that, but-
“What?” His tongue pokes at his cheek, tone taunting, “Gettin’ shy again?”
The clothes are dropped unceremoniously on the table, your Pip-Boy following. A glare, as you reach for the zipper of your Vault Suit, starting to yank it down.
“Hey, now.” His hand raises, “Slowly. Got it?”
There’s an immediate urge to resist, to test him - but then, you’re catching the look on his face.
It’s hungry, beneath the brim of his hat. You start to feel like you did in the desert, and then the alley - intrigue, and desire, and an ache from his words, all melding together.
So, you take it slow. The zipper slipping from your throat, to breasts, then belly. A roll of your shoulders as you slip your arms from the tight sleeves.
His eyes follow, lingering on each inch of bare skin that’s revealed.
“Turn around.” He growls when you reach your hips, and for him - you do.
Bending at the waist as you unlace your boots and step out of them. Back arched as you wiggle, pushing the suit down past your knees. Down soft legs that part, so you can step out of them.
A glance over your shoulder, then. His head tilts, eyes sweeping from your ankles to fix on the crux of your thighs. They press together on their own, a thrill at being on display for him.
He catches you looking, his hand lazy as it drops to his lap. A lift of his hips as he adjusts, palming himself. The other hand leaving the revolver shotgun that rests on the cushion next to him.
Crooking two fingers at you, silently beckoning you over.
You fit between thighs that inch wider. His hands curl on his lap, before he’s slowly peeling his gloves off. Warm, against your hips, biting into your skin.
“Don’t make ‘em like you above ground anymore,” He idly comments, a flatness to his tone that betrays nothing.
Soft and smooth skin. You wonder if he’s thinking about ruining it - sinking his teeth in and taking a bite. Leaving a mark that you’ll carry.
You think you’d let him.
His grip dents your skin, before his hands are dropping. A heated look thrown your way, as his face tips up to yours.
“Why don’t you show me again,” He husks, “What you’re so good at.”
Your breath catches - eyes flicking warily towards the door, but he’s quick to call you back.
“Hey, now. Eyes over here.” The Ghoul snaps, “You need to worry ‘bout me more than anyone out there.”
It sends a heat rushing through you, knowing that he’s right. You’re locked in a room with the most dangerous man in the city, and it does something to you.
A boldness, in the way you reach behind. His growled out “fuck” when you let bra loosens - joining the blue and yellow suit on the floor.
The wood is rough under your knees. Letting your hands wander, lifting his hips while your work open his belt. Drawing down the rusted zipper.
You grasp at his hips, tugging the faded fabric until he’s free. Fingers tracing over thighs, just as rough and reddened at the rest of him. It’s still not much, but it’s more of him than you’ve ever seen.
Bare beneath the stained pants, cock already thick and full where it curves against his hip. All from just watching you - perhaps a strange thing to be proud of, but fuck, you are.
Your hands curl around his knees, as your head dips. Taking more time than you did before. Lips pressing against the taut base, as a hand twists in your hair again.
“Come on and thank me, sweetheart.” He growls - urging you upward, “Gettin’ those clothes for you. Make it worth my while.”
It’s different this time. A familiarity in the way your tongue presses against the flushed head. The taste of the salt on your tongue, before your lips are part around him.
A soft groan, when he’s filling your mouth again. You’ve thought about it often since last time. Wondering when he would have you on your knees again. If he’d want more, the next.
Your heartbeat thuds between your thighs, with the shift of his hips into your mouth - chasing his pleasure.
An urge to make him feel good. Without thinking - your hand wraps around his shaft, as your head eases back.
“Easy, now.” He grits, though his eyes are fixed on how your fingers curl around him. How it pumps, squeezing him with spit-slick fingers.
Jerking him into a mouth that parts so prettily for him. Your other hand slipping against his thigh, with feather-light brushes. A short inhale before you take him deep again, your fist sliding down to the base.
The next time you pull him from mouth for a breath, drool stringing from his cock to your lips, he hears himself growling out, “Stop.”
You’re being too tender, and he finds that he can’t stand it. Should have kept you bound, like last time.
The Ghoul’s fingers bite into your chin, your mouth glossy from how you swallowed him down.
“I’m taking you this time. Know you’ve been just aching for it.” He husks, his thumb pressing against your lip. Watching your tongue peek out to taste it, “Go on. Get up, and get your ass over to that table.”
Your desire nearly eclipses everything else. Pushing on his thighs for support, crossing the three steps to the side of the table.
“No,” He follows - the gun clattering on the table top, brought over from the couch. His hands at your hips, guiding you until you’re facing the door, “Right here, sweetheart. I’ll be keepin’ watch.”
It has you remembering where you are - that you’re just supposed to be getting changed. Wondering if you should worry that you don’t care - the thought of piping up, having the risk of losing this chance and denying pleasure again has you quickly adapting.
A hand presses at the small of your back insistently, bending you over it. You can feel him against the curve of your ass, sticky against your skin.
“Cross your wrists,” His thighs shift against yours, as you fix your hands that has flattened against the tabletop.
Making it easy for him to grasp at them with one hand - stretching them further, pressing them against the wood as he kicks your thighs further apart.
Leaving you on tip-toe, arched against him.
“Look at you, listening.” He almost coos, with another lazy rock. His cock shifts, fitting between your thighs, nudging against you.
“I think-” You start, but it’s punctuated by a moan, “Think you just like tying girls up.”
“Now you’re gettin’ it,” He drawls, “Though I don’t discriminate. Theres just something ‘bout havin’ you like this-”
The Ghoul leans over you then, his grip tightening. Pinning you firmly between him and the table, unable to do more than squirm as his free hand slips between your thighs, cupping you.
It’s the first time he’s touched you like this, and your muscles string tight - trying not to buck into his palm. Against fingers that rub against your clit, pressing the sticky fabric to your skin.
“Fuck.” He rasps in your ear. Nails bite into your hips, as he tears the fabric down to your thighs.
Coming back to press against your bare cunt, fingers slipping against your folds. You’re unable to help the soft whimper as he parts you, two fingers teasing at your entrance.
“Please,” You whine, as he pets against you. Smearing your slick up to your clit again, his fingers parting just as he reaches it.
His cock presses against your leg, thick and stiff. A roll of his hips until it’s pressed snug against your cunt - jutting between your thighs just below his hand.
“Your pussy is downright leakin for me, sweetheart,” He growls, “You need it that bad?”
You whine, your head turning to look - watching how he arcs over you. That blown-wide look in his eyes again, as you nod.
There’s a split second as his hand leaves you, before it’s cracking down on the meat of your ass. You gasp in shock as you go still beneath him, the pain unexpected and swirling with your heady need.
“Say it out loud,” He barks out, “Tell me just how much.”
Your skin stings, his fingers twitch before he kneads roughly at the flesh - the burn of it akin to way you ache for him.
“I need it,” You keen, “Need your cock. Want you to fuck me-”
The words cut off - a rough hum of approval before he’s lining himself up, a hand curving to grip your hip. The other flexes around your wrist, before he’s driving himself deep with a single, powerful thrust.
Your cry is loud, this time. Low and rough, pushed from your lungs as your pussy makes room for him.
“Fucking christ, you’re tight,” He grunts, unable to help the shallow buck of his hips, “Better than my goddamn dreams.”
It makes you moan - the gritted-out admission not lost on you.
Even with how wet you are, you still feel like you’re stretched wide. An ache radiating through you, sparking to life as he inches out, only to plunge deep again. The table bites into your hips, back arching as he sets a rough rhythm.
The sharp twinge starting to fade, as you begin to accommodate him. Growing accustomed to the heavy weight of him inside you, the steady stroke against your walls that has you starting to clench down around him.
Your breathing grows shorter, faster. Face turning to bury in the curve of your shoulder, muffling the moans that are pushed from you - until his hand is leaving your hip, twisting in your hair with a sharp tug.
Forcing your head back, his grip anchoring you.
“Don’t think so, darlin’. Know you saw those eyes on you,” He’s lost the steady edge to his voice, words turning rough, “Go on, be loud.”
The Ghoul’s hips pound harder, the rough texture of his cock stroking deep. Each sending a current through you, leaving your fingers and toes flexing, aching for just a little bit more.
“Saw you come in with me. Show ‘em who you belong to.”
“Fuck!” You cry, wishing you had a name to scream. Unable to muffle your ragged breath, the moans he pulls from you.
It fills the room, melding with the slick punch of his cock into your wet and needy cunt. Better than before, because his hands are on you now - leaving your hair, blunt nails dragging down your back. Ghosting across your hip, where your skin presses into the wood.
“Touch me.” You beg, again, “Let me touch myself, I can’t-”
His hand withdraws, and you whine - backpedaling. Afraid that he’s going to pull from you, finish himself across your back or your ass for asking.
“Please. Fuck, please. Don’t, I’m so close-”
He groans at your plea through clenched teeth.
Releasing his grip on you, only for his hand to slide to the base of your throat. His other arm looping beneath you as he hauls you against him, flattening against your ribs.
Palming at a soft breast, as you’re pulled up and pressed flushed to his chest.
“Listen to you, miss manners,” He grins - teeth bared, “That’s more like it, honey.”
The bandolier cuts into your skin, the wood into your thighs. And change in the angle that has your cries growing louder as his cock pounds against a soft spot inside you. Warm breath ghosting against your neck, deep rumbling growls in your ear.
Everything fades, growing hazy. His fingers tighten, but not enough to fully choke the air from you. An implication - your own hands wrapping around his wrist to anchor yourself to him. 
You can hear him inhale you, the scrape of teeth against your skin above the heavy press of his fingers. Salvation in the way the hand splayed beneath your chest drifts lower, his voice smooth in your ear.
“This is for listening,” He husks, “You understand?”
Relentless, when his fingers press against your clit. Slick and circling until you’re grinding into his touch, meeting the hard slap of his hips.
The gasping chant of “fuck, fuckfuckfuck,  please-” turning into mindless whimpers, his rough rhythm growing sloppy.
“Goddamn, you feel good.” It’s a ragged sigh, “Feel your tight little cunt squeezing me. Gonna make a mess, sweetheart?”
It sounds muted, layering with a ringing white noise. Your nails bite into his wrists as the swiftly building tides breaks. Almost missing the sweet growl in your ear.
“Let them hear how a pretty thing like you sounds coming on a cock like mine.”
You do, with the next swirl of his rough fingers - the sound broken as he rips it from you.
Bearing down around the cock that fits so deeply into you, with each blissful pulse of your release. Forgetting about the rest - about the outside world - as your nerves alight with pleasure.
His hand drops from your throat to brace against the table. Bending you flat again as he feels you flutter and gush around his length, crushing you against the top as blunt teeth close against the pulse point of your throat, biting down.
The sounds of his own orgasm muffled - a ragged groan as his cock throbs, as he fucks himself deep into you. Tasting the salt of your skin as you yelp, clenching around him - milking him until your walls are coated with his spend.
He hadn’t meant to - but the urge to pull from you had wavered the moment he buried himself in your cunt. Abandoned completely, after feeling you come so sweetly around him. An instinct lingers even now - to enjoy the soft press of your body against his, your warmth.
You shiver as his lips brush your neck, the closest thing to an apology as you’ll get - before he’s pulling away from you, leaving you clenching and empty.
A ragged hand slips between your thighs as you prop yourself up on your elbows, catching your breath. Pleasure still radiating from your core as fingertips swipe through the come that is just starting to leak from you.
“Fuck, sweetheart,” He laughs - the sound ragged, with a flash of yellowed teeth.
“Guess this means you better start cookin’.”
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The Vault Suit is left beneath the table, a crumpled up reminder that you’re happy to leave behind.
Your cheeks burn as you leave the saloon - the strangers from before cleared out. A definite wobble to your steps - something that The Ghoul certainly notices, the low tilt of his hat hiding the curling pull of his lips.
Outlining the path towards the next bounty as you find your way out, guessing where you might find a lab along the way.
And it’s only as the city starts to fade, that you realize -
He never bound your wrists again, after.
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I have the brainrot for this man for sure! Thank you for stopping by & reading 💖 (and I have also been reading so much about the new chem the Ghoul takes! For plot & smut reasons - I am going with RadAway, haha)
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buryustogether · 7 days
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songbird
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the ghoul x f!reader
summary: you used to be a singer in your vault - that skill comes in handy when you least expect it, and least want to use it. but who are you to say no when cooper tells you to sing for him?
wc: 5.7k
warnings: swearing, talk of murder, blood, alcohol, gun violence, sexual tension, smut, fingering, p in v sex, biting, possessive sex, possessive cooper
You had to admit - if you and your companion didn't find shelter soon, one of you was going to drop and the other wouldn't hesitate to feast on what was left.
The deserts of the Wasteland were harsh - you had known that the moment you stepped out of your vault those months ago and you had been faced with nothing but a searing sun, sand that got stuck places it shouldn't have, and creatures and fellow people alike who would risk it all simply for a quick grab at the pack on your back. But it seemed like this past week, God or Satan or whoever the fuck was controlling this shitshow of a world was in a bad mood. The heat was unbearable, even at night when the chilly winds should have weaseled their way beneath your vault suit and cooled your burning skin. Creatures mutated by the long-settled radiation were feeling the anger of the wasteland, as well, charging without warning or provocation. To top off a less than perfect week, your water supply had run out yesterday, and unless the skies opened up and released a storm of rad-infested hail upon your head, you weren't sure you would find any more before you keeled over and kicked it.
Struggling to plant your feet stable in the mounds of sand beneath you as you made your way between the shells of buildings that had once stood tall and proud, you glanced over your shoulder at your companion. Cooper was better adapted for this kind of environment than you were, what with his hardened skin and the wide brim of his hat shielding his face, but even he looked worse for wear. When he picked up his head, seeming to feel your eyes on him, you quickly averted your gaze and set your attention back on moving one foot in front of the other.
"Fuck're you lookin' at?" he said, his voice raspy as he called out through the dry air.
"Nothing," you snipped back, refusing to give him the satisfaction of facing him again. "Just wondering if I'm going to have to carry you the rest of the way, asshole."
The heat was making you both snappy - you hated it.
Your first meeting with Cooper hadn't gone smoothly. Hell, your second or third hadn't, either. You weren't exactly sure when you had fallen into a more comfortable presence around one another, but it sure as shit hadn't happened overnight. You'd been only half a day fresh from your vault when you'd seen him scavenging madly over a mess of bodies he'd dropped where they stood, searching for a number of vials kept in their pockets that he let drip into his open mouth like a fountain of youth. When you had called out a friendly hello to him, he'd nearly shot your brains out. Cooper had taken in your shocked expression - as you'd clearly never seen a ghoul before - as well as the stark blue of your vault suit and the pack over your shoulders, then promptly told you to scoot your ass back around to wherever the hell you had come from. Of course, you hadn't. You'd followed him from a distance, watching as he'd picked his way across the dusty sands until he'd wrangled you with the lasso at his hip, told you to fuck right off, and left you tied to a number of old pipes in the basement of a nearly collapsed building.
A day later, you'd tracked his footprints in the sand to a little settlement, where you hadn't ducked away quick enough to avoid his gaze. He'd threatened to blow your brains out if he caught you following him again. He'd only half-delivered on that promise when, not ten hours later, he'd planted a fist-sized hole in the skull of a raider attempting to cut your throat for the Pip-Boy affixed to your wrist.
From then on, he'd simply chosen to ignore you as you followed behind him like a lost dog, intent on staying with the biggest, baddest wolf in the yard. After a week, he'd tossed you a part of his rations. A week after that, he'd - not too gently - invited you to sit at the campfire with him when he saw you shivering beneath your thin, vault-issued blanket a good few yards away.
Somewhere along the way you'd started to talk. Started to share - at least, you had. Cooper had simply tucked his hat over his eyes and pretended not to listen while you rattled about this and that until he physically couldn't take it anymore and told you to go the fuck to sleep.
These months later, having accompanied him all this time, you didn't hesitate to call him a friend. Maybe something more, if you let the ache between your legs when you looked at him speak for you, but you knew it was a fantasy and nothing more, so you decided to stick with 'friend.'
Back in the present, you swallowed and winced when your throat barked with a bout of pain in response. You didn't think you'd make it another mile, let alone five, which was how far Cooper claimed the nearest town was. Despite the months you'd spent adapting out here to the wastelands, you were still attempting to cope with the hardships that came with it. Vault life wasn't anything like this; there was always water to drink, beds to sleep in. Cool air to bask in when it got just the slightest bit too hot. Of course, you didn't voice these complains to your companion. If you did, you had no doubt he'd tell you to shut the fuck up and deal with it.
Just as you were about to ask if you could take a short break and get away from the harsh sun beating on your back like repeated blows from a red-hot hammer, a gloved hand wrapped around your arm and held you in place. You jerked to a stop, nearly falling back on your ass as Cooper held you where you stood. You prepared a strongly-worded question as to just what he was doing before you followed his gaze downward, to where a small handful of pairs of footprints traveled perpendicular to yours. Together, you tilted your heads to the left where the foreign prints were headed, and it was there you found a small slope leading downward into what may have once been a shopping mall. From where you stood, you were able to see that the glass dome around the center of the mall had been shattered, letting out the gentle sound of music and human hollers.
You exchanged a look with Cooper, each of you sunken from the iron-fisted heat weighing you down, then slid down the sandy slope after him when he took off toward the shopping mall.
If there was one thing you had learned about Cooper since planting yourself at his side and refusing to leave, it was that he valued silence above almost everything else. You, on the other hand, had come from a talkative vault, where gossip reached every end of every chamber only an hour - at max - after anything noteworthy had happened. Your companion had once called you the biggest yap he'd ever heard, and you would have taken it for a compliment had he not told you to shove it a moment after. The two of you had been silent nearly the entire day now, save for a few venomous barks at each other, and you cleared your scratchy throat in an attempt to lighten your shitty moods.
"I used to read about shopping malls in the magazines," you said, leaning your weight backwards as the sandy slope shifted downward. "They had all kinds of stores inside."
"Thanks for the reminder," Cooper bit back, quickening his stride. "Would have fuckin' forgot without you here."
You let your eyes roll into the back of your head as you struggled to catch up to him, your boots digging into the uneven earth beneath you. "When I was a kid, a few of my friends and I would draw pictures of clothes - because, you know, we only had our suits - and then spread them across one of our rooms and pretend to shop. It was stupid, but it we made entertainment where we could."
"Now, was this before you started pretending to be Billie Holliday?"
You gave him a sideways glance. "Who's that?"
Cooper shook his head and took off ahead of you. "Jesus fuckin' Christ."
During one of your, as your companion called them, yap sessions, you had confided in him that your vault valued the arts above anything else. Since you were a child, they had encouraged you to find something you enjoyed, as long as you were able to call yourself an artist. Painting hadn't worked out too well. Writing had been a bust. But then you'd discovered singing - a way in which you were able to express yourself without actually saying how you felt. You could drape the tunes in metaphors and similes, bump the second verse from the first, and when you were done, everyone would get to their feet to applaud as if your songs were the best things they'd ever heard. Cooper hadn't expressed much interest in this, instead taking to calling you a songbird with her wings clipped when he deemed you were at your lowest and needed to be kicked while you were down.
Of course, you hadn't shown him - you would have to be long dead for that - but over the course of the few months you'd known him, you had confided in your notebook carried in your pack all the little things you'd come up with that complimented his persona. How the gold at his heels called for you with each step he took. The way his hands, encased behind leather that creaked, held a smoke so delicately you could have imagined it was you. The rasping curl of his words when he smiled while he spoke and how each word cast a spell that made you want to follow him until the sun exploded and the earth was gone.
Cooper was an enigma you couldn't help but wonder after, and every scrap of himself he tossed to you led you on like a dog on a leash.
The music and echoing sound of laughter from deep inside the shopping mall became louder as the pair of you approached, eyes scanning for snipers on the roof or guards posted at the busted-out windows. There wasn't a person in sight, only mannequins stripped of their clothing hanging out the openings and long-shredded posters clinging to broken glass. Cooper led the way inside, picking a path across the wreckage and rubble stacked haphazardly against the entrance. You felt your pulse tick up when he produced his gun from the worn holster at his side, tapping his trigger finger against the side of the firearm in time with the music winding its way down the wide corridors.
As you followed your companion through the shopping mall, you couldn't help but ogle at the numerous attractions you passed. Shops had been boarded up and torn open again, giving you a glimpse of tattered clothes still on hangers, books tipped over on shelves, pre-war machines behind display cases that were covered in two hundred years' worth of dirt and grime. Gang signs and dirty catchphrases had been spraypainted along the walls and windows in a rainbow of colors. In the center of the long aisle you were wandering, a carousel meant for children sat neglected, still fitted with cartoonish horses who had seen better days than these.
"Did you used to come to these often?" you asked as you stepped across a mannequin missing its head.
"Shut the fuck up for a minute." Cooper raised a hand to pair with his little spat, silencing you from asking any further questions. His tongue darted out between his cracked lips as he placed his steps carefully around shattered glass and wind-up toys that would declare your position to the entire mall. He led you around a few wide corners before coming to a stop behind an old escalator, motioning for you to take cover. You crouched to peer around the other side, pulling your bag strap tighter over your shoulder. You were met with a sight that made your lips part in wonder.
Made up in the center of the mall's large atrium, directly beneath where the glass dome had been broken out, a small encampment of people had established what looked like a tiny town. Tents rested just inside nearby shop windows and winking Christmas lights had been strung above their heads. Lanterns cast shadows along the faces of the camp's locals as they milled back and forth, sharing dinners, reading from books - and dancing. Booming from a solar-powered stereo was a symphony of fiddles and guitars, harmonies of trumpets and clapping in time with the beat. A woman's tinny voice came through the speakers and she reminisced about an old lover who had gotten away. As you watched the people dance and stamp their feet along with the music, you found yourself drumming your fingers along, as well.
You were so engrossed in the music that you nearly missed what Cooper had his watchful eye on; the fridge-sized container with several spigots on its sides marked with a large piece of paper that read 'Clean Water.'
You and Cooper ducked back behind the escalator.
"Bunch of fuckin' idiots," said Cooper as he pulled a red-capped round from his bandolier and loaded it into his gun's chamber. "That shit'll attract every goddamn raider and feral within the mile."
"They're just having fun," you said, unsure of why you felt so defensive of these people you didn't even know. Maybe it was because they reminded you of your fellow vault dwellers back home. There had been a dance or performance like this nearly every night.
Cooper scoffed. "Fun like this gets you killed, little lady."
Your eyes widened as you watched him pull back the hammer of his firearm. "You're not going to just go up there and start shooting, are you?" You knew for a fact that he would. You'd seen him do it before - draw his pistol and start spinning the trigger because a raider or flock of ferals had what he wanted. But this - this was something different. Before he could do anything more, you reached out and grabbed his upper arm in a grasp so tight your knuckles paled. He flashed you a dark, dangerous look from beneath the brim of his hat, but you refused to let go. "Cooper, these people are innocent. They haven't done anything to us."
"Listen here, dollface, and listen well," he said, quickly spinning you around so that your back was pressed against the escalator. He caged you in, his gun hand still in your grasp and his other arm propped against the wall beside your head. You tried your damndest to not flush when you felt his breath on you, when his hips came just inches from pressing up against yours. "If we're goin' to be carryin' on this little arrangement, you need to learn to keep that pretty mouth of yours shut when I tell you to shut it. Now, I know you vaulties think everyone and their mama is goin' to repay that silly kindness of yours, but do not be mistaken. Keep yappin' and I will drink my fill of that there water while I make you watch, and then I'll tip the rest of it onto the floor. You hear me?"
You were at a loss for words, your tongue dry and your knees beginning to feel wobbly from the lack of water and proper rest. Just when you were about to let your eyes fall back down and accept that he was going to clear out the settlement for their water, footsteps echoed past where the two of you stood. Cooper snapped around and raised his pistol, his other arm still caging you in, and aimed down the barrel at a few young men approaching the rest of the locals beneath the glass dome. Instead of yelling, instead of dropping their belongings and begging for their lives while they pissed their pants in the presence of a ghoul, the men waved and smiled friendly grins.
"No need to hide," one said, gesturing the pair of you toward the others. "Y'all are welcome to come and make yourselves cozy. The more the merrier!"
They continued on, greeted by the other locals with shouts of welcome backs and fond hugs, paying no mind to the wide eyes and parted lips of you and your companion. Breaking away from Cooper's little cage he had created with himself and the wall - as much as it pained you to - you peeked back around the escalator. The young men pointed your way, and a number of people waved in kind and beckoned you forward. You found yourself taking a few steps toward the inviting sight of fresh water and the smell of food being cooked over one of the fires when Cooper snagged you by the back of your suit's collar and pulled you back into cover.
"Where on this good green earth you think you're goin'?" he said in a hushed tone, bringing your face close to his with a commanding grip on your jaw. Another flutter of excitement, of blood rush, bubbled to life in the pit of your stomach and began to travel south, but you suppressed the urge to lean into his touch. You didn't pull away, either.
"They invited us," you said, your eyes wandering back over to the light flickering from the lanterns and fires. "It's rude to turn down an invitation."
Cooper harrumphed and released you a little harsher than necessary. "What you've got is a one-way ticket to bein' on tomorrow's menu, sweetheart," he said, tilting his head to follow your gaze and keep eye contact when you looked away. "If you've about had your fill of the real world up here topside, then be my guest. Go and let'em fatten you up. I'll pour one out for 'ya tonight."
Deciding not to wonder if he would actually pour one out for you, if you really meant that much, you scoffed and shook your head. "You know it's okay to let your guard down every once in a while. Smile, maybe? Wave back? No wonder you're so damn bitter, old man."
Cooper stared down at you, and you wondered briefly if he was considering slamming your head into the side of the escalator. Would he drag you away with him, you thought? Or would he leave you for the strangers just around the corner. After what seemed an eternity, he hummed a short little note and nodded his head toward the camp. "You want to play friends, little lady? Go ahead. See how far that gets you before I've got to turn around and put one between the eyes of a man who's not lookin' just for the sake of lookin'."
With the faintest hint of a smile, you blinked up at him. "You'd turn around for me?" you asked in a murmur.
He matched your heated gaze, dark eyes intense and flaring a torch in your belly. "I suppose you'll just have to find out one of these days."
Swallowing thick, you took a breath, then turned and led him toward the little encampment of people. Heads turned as the pair of you approached, and you found that most of them smiled. You waved to those who offered little shakes of their hands, trailed by a ghoul stalking in his own shadow and resting the crook of his palm on his pistol. You were met by a kind-faced woman near the large tank of water, and she was forced to speak loudly to be heard over the sound of the thumping music.
"You folks just get in?" she said, already fixing two bowls of stew from a large pot simmering over a fire.
You broke yourself from the staring match you were having with the pot, the same one Cooper was still stuck in. Although, he may have been watching the chickens that roamed inside a little pen nearby as he licked his lips. "Yes, ma'am," you said over the trill of the woman's singing. You so desperately wished you knew the words so you could sing along. "I hope we're not imposing."
"Not at all!" A bowl of stew was pushed into your hands, and you forced yourself to be polite and not spoon it down your throat immediately. At your side, your companion gave the rim of the bowl a lick with the tip of his tongue before tipping it to slurp up. "We pride ourselves in being an open community. We might be small, but that just means there's more to share." The tin cups of water she handed over didn't last but five seconds before she was refilling them. "Make yourselves comfortable and stay however long you like. All we ask is that you keep your weapons holstered and don't disturb the music."
You and Cooper took seats at a dining table that had been dragged over from the cafeteria, neither of you speaking much as you both wolfed down what was in the bowls in front of you. Both of your spoons went untouched, each electing instead to drink up the strangely-colored meat floating around inside. Cooper finished much faster than you, and shucked off his gloves so that he could dip his scarred finger in to collect what juices were left. When he was finished, the bowl looked as though it hadn't even been used.
Watching him with a small smile, you let up from your own bowl and said, "I'm waiting."
"For what, exactly, little lady?"
"Your apology." You lapped up the rest of your stew before politely setting your bowl inside of his. "You wanted to -" You hesitated and glanced over your shoulder to make sure no one was too close to hear you. "You know." Then you settled a rather self-satisfied smirk over your features. "And look where we are now. So I'd like my apology now."
Cooper sucked on his finger, ensuring he was getting every last morsel of the stew that he could, and your attention was pulled down to where his lips wrapped around his digit. A part of you began to imagine it was yours. He noticed you staring and grinned wide. "And you know what I'm waitin' for, darlin'?"
"What?"
"For you to walk yourself over there and get me seconds."
You rolled your eyes, but nevertheless grabbed your stacked bowls and began to make your way over to where the woman was tending to the pot. "You'd better be thinking about your apology," you called over your shoulder. When you turned back around you nearly collided into someone retreating back to their spot with their own dinner. You jerked to the side, attempting to get out of their way first, and in doing so rammed yourself into the stereo set on a table in the center of the little camp. You watched in horror, bowls clasped to your chest, as the stereo tumbled over the edge of its pedestal and fell to the floor, where it shattered into what must have been hundreds of pieces. The camp became shrouded in a tense, shocked silence as every eye in the mall turned to face you and look upon your sin.
"I..." Your voice carried through the atrium and down the corridors of the shopping mall, sounding like an isolated cry for help. "I'm so sorry. I - I didn't mean to, I really didn't. Here, I might be able to fix it." You bent down to try and gather the pieces with your free hand, and the moment you did, a number of the camp locals drew weapons to aim in your direction.
"Now," came that familiar drawl behind you as you heard a hammer lock into place. "Are we really goin' to be killin' each other over some silly radio?" asked Cooper, and you felt some of your nerves ease slightly when you felt his chest press against your back.
A man to your right hissed. "You killed him!"
You shook your head viciously. "No, no! I - I didn't kill anyone. I'm sorry, I really am."
"You killed Sterry!" a woman accused.
"Sterry?" You looked down at the broken stereo and began to scoop up the bigger pieces you could find. "I - I can fix Sterry, I swear -"
"There's no fixing Sterry," moaned the woman who had served you stew as she sunk into the closest bench, looking as though she were about to faint. "He's dead. And you've killed us all."
You glanced back at Cooper, who wielded both his pistols now, each pointed in a different direction toward locals who had drawn their weapons. He offered a shrouded look that screamed, 'Now, didn't I tell you so, sweetheart?' You took a shuddering breath and faced the woman who had served you. "What do you mean?" you asked.
The woman placed her head in her hand as if she'd already accepted her fate. It was a daunting sight, the face of a woman so cheery and joyful such a short time ago, now deflated as though someone had let out all her air. "This place," she said, gesturing vaguely to the mall around you. "It's infested." The word was so heavy you felt as though you nearly choked on it. "Infested with creatures that will tear us limb from limb now that you've ruined everything. The music! The music was what kept them away, and now that it's gone..."
As if on cue, from the darkness of one of the long-winding corridors straight ahead, there came the bone-rattling sound of a feral hissing and snapping its weathered jaw. A few of the locals scrambled back as the creature emerged from the inky blackness, arms twisted and eyes sunken so far back into its skull they looked like they were forever pointed toward the sky. It took a rushed few steps forward before Cooper's arm rotated and he put a hole between its eyes. The feral dropped to the floor, leaking dark blood that stained the tile floor.
"Stop being so dramatic, Uma," said an older gentleman who stooped at your feet to begin gathering the pieces of Sterry. You immediately dropped to your knees to help. "We've fixed Sterry before, and we'll fix him again. It won't take long. But while we do, we'll need something to drive those creatures off..."
Your stomach dropped when, as you stood to hand over the pieces of the stereo, you felt Cooper's hands - still fitted with his pistols - rest heavily on your shoulders. "Well, then, y'all folks are in luck," he drawled, and you could practically hear the smirk playing his lips as he spoke. "I've got my very own songbird right here. I'd be happy to lend her to 'ya if, say... you filled our flasks from that there tank when the time comes for us to leave."
"Cooper," you hissed through your teeth as you spun around to face him. Singing for your vault was one thing, but singing for a bunch of strangers in the middle of an infested mall while ferals stumbled from the darkness all around you? He may as well have tossed you back out into the wastes. "You are not going to fucking trade me -"
"Done," said the old man as he sat down and began to sort Sterry's pieces. "Have your girl start singing - anything her heart desires. Just long enough for me to fix old Sterry here."
Giving the man a mock salute that didn't quite raise to his brow, Cooper shoved you onto a bench so that you stood over the rest of the camp. From this angle, they were all able to see your petrified expression and your hands shaking at your sides. "You heard the man," your companion said and smacked the back of your knee. "Get to it, songbird."
"Cooper, I can't -"
Before you were able to finish, Cooper turned, his ears pricking at something yours did not pick up, and dropped another feral that had been silently stalking the camp from the other side. A few of the locals yelped in terror, fleeing into shopfronts and tents.
"Sing for me, sweetheart," Cooper said. He sent you a wink, tipped his hat, then unleashed another round of lead into the darkness which only his eyes could penetrate.
You felt as if you were going to vomit. Sweat began to form on the back of your neck as you fisted your hands and swayed slightly where you stood on the bench. Turning your head, you met the eyes of a few camp locals watching you from their hideouts, their expressions filled with fear, anger, anticipation. They were waiting. Expecting. Needing. Attempting to push down the swelling that was beginning to form in your throat, you looked down at Cooper as he emptied his pistols of empty shells before reloading in order to fend off the ferals attacking the camp - the very camp he'd wanted to take out not half an hour ago.
He'd told you to sing for him. So you'd sing. For him, and only him.
Clearing your mouth and opening your lips, you took a breath and forced yourself to sing. "Death will come from where the earth meets the sky." Your voice wobbled slightly, rusty from having not singing since you left your vault. That, along with the fear and dehydration sitting on your tongue. "The sand is scorched beneath his step, the future decided by his eye." As you sang, the miniature explosions banging from the barrels of Cooper's pistols created a short, quick beat you unconsciously began to tap your foot along to. "He'll come for you all in the end, you'll never be free... he'll come for you all, but never for me."
Ferals shrieked in response to the gunfire, to the song torn right from your notebook in your pack, and one by one, like stage performers who had practiced this dance a hundred times, they dropped at the feet of the camp.
"Death's got a girl who croons his songs, which is why he never stays for long. He's got to run back to his lady, just as harsh as he, he's coming for you, but he's running back to me." As you sang you realized your voice was getting louder, louder, swelling until it filled the mall's atrium and every corridor far beyond. You tapped your heel along with the rhythm you'd created, closing your eyes and imagining an audience of one; a ghoul with his arms slung out across the chairs beside him and a knowing smirk playing his thin lips. It pulled you forward, pulled forth a song you hadn't realized was already in you. "He might sound mean, but I swear, he's kind. He's just got to peer into these eyes of mine. I'll ride with him, and he'll follow me, leaving behind a trail of blood far as the eye can see. Oh, my baby's got teeth to bite and a gun to blow, see his smoke and soon you'll know. Death ain't my man, he's my right hand. He'll come for you all in the end, you'll never be free... he'll come for you all, but never for me."
You had just been nearing a second verse when, from where it rested before the old man on the table, the stereo jumped back to life and filled the atrium with thrumming, pulsing folk music. It drowned out your voice, silenced you like a gunshot, and the ferals teetering on the edge of the darkness leading to the rest of the mall stumbled back into their hiding places. The camp locals slowly emerged from their hiding places, chattering excitedly about Sterry and his newfound love of life. Feeling a little stupid still standing on the bench, you climbed down and shuffled away toward where you had been originally sitting.
Taking a seat, you rested your forehead on your arms and exhaled a shaky breath. What had you been thinking? Singing a song for the man you'd become hopelessly fascinated with while he was just a few feet away, battling ferals who were intent on tearing out your throat and taking your voice with it? You were such a fucking idiot. You wouldn't be surprised if he told you to never open your mouth again.
Just as promised, your flasks were filled to the brims with fresh water before you went on your way, leaving the mall atrium and the singing, dancing camp locals behind as you picked your way back outside. Neither you nor Cooper said much as you continued your trek to nowhere, leaving a pair of footprints like echoes in your wake. Your cheeks remained flushed long after the mall had disappeared into the horizon, and long after you picked out an abandoned building to set up camp for the night. For once, it wasn't from the heat.
You sat across the lantern and what light it cast from Cooper, who stared into the little beacon as if he were watching the most fascinating flick within its glass. You held your notebook in your lap, thumb marking your place as your tried to write, but nothing would come to mind save for the things you'd sung about today. Mortification stirred like a serpent in your belly, and you briefly considered excusing yourself to get up and throw up outside.
"Let me see that book you've got there."
Your head lifted at Cooper's request - more of a demand - and unconsciously tightened your grip around your notebook. Your notebook - full of songs, melodies, lyrics. The most recent half of which you had written about the ghoul staring at you. "This?" you said, your trembling voice giving way to your nerves. You forced out a chuckle and smacked it shut. "It's nothing worth looking at."
"Why not?" he said, voice rasping lower than the baritone he usually held it at. You swore his gaze was hotter than the sun during the day and the fires at night. "You got more songs 'bout little old me in there?"
Fuck, he knew. Fuck all, he knew. You felt your flush deepen as you pointedly tucked your notebook into the bottom of your pack and flipped the top shut. "I... I don't know what you're talking about," you said, avoiding his eyes. Instead you focused on the fraying tip of your boot. "I wrote that a long time ago. Back in my vault."
"Uh huh." Cooper stared you down for so long you thought that perhaps time had frozen. Then he took a barely-there breath. "Come over here, songbird. Let me get a good look at you."
For a long, long moment, you remained still as you ever had been. What was he saying? Normally the only time he let you close to him was when he invaded your personal space to deliver a shove or to smack your knee or thigh to tell you to get a move on. Your breath hitched when you finally lifted your head and found his gaze boring into yours, heavier than a ton and white hot like a branding iron.
"I ain't goin' to tell you again, pretty girl."
As if he had you on a fucking leash - because you swore he did - you found yourself pitching forward, crawling on your hands and knees toward him. He spread his legs slightly, enough to give you room to fit between them, and hesitantly, so very carefully, you rested yourself against his front. His rough, scarred hands, free of his gloves, came up to rest on the swell of your hips as if they were made to be there, fitting like puzzle pieces against your skin beneath your vault suit. You stared up at him, backlit by the lantern light, and let his thumb drag down your bottom lip until it slipped from his touch.
"Didn't think my songbird had such desire in her," Cooper chuckled, his warm breath fanning across your face.
You relished in the goosebumps that crawled over the planes of your skin. "I... I don't..."
"Oh, you'd be dead wrong if you said that little ditty you sang today wasn't all about desire." He settled back deeper where he sat, giving you more room to settle against him between the columns of his thighs. Your lower belly rested against his crotch, where you felt the hard outline of his cock straining against his trousers. Your heart skipped a beat or three. "If you wanted to ride with death, sweetheart, all you needed to do was ask."
Cooper sealed his lips to yours without word or warning, pulling a surprised little noise from the back of your throat that he swallowed up with fervor. As the initial shock faded, you found your eyes slipping shut and your mouth moving against his, lips opening without fight when his tongue demanded to explore your own. Bracing yourself with one hand against his thigh, you reached up with your other and cradled the back of his head, knocking off his hat in the process.
Swift to get a move on, to feel you against him and swallow up more of your sounds, Cooper easily flipped you around so that you were now lying flat on your back and he was hovering over your prone form. Both tingling excitement and nauseating nerves pulled groans from your lips as he moved to pressing harsh kisses and nips to the column of your neck, licking up red spots that would surely bruise come morning time. He shucked off his duster and abandoned it somewhere behind him, at the same time, by some skill you had no idea anyone possessed, also grasping at the zipper of your vault suit to pull it down as far as it would go.
It didn't take long for you to shimmy out of the suit, leaving you in just your underwear, the seams of which he traced with his calloused finger. It sent a chill running up your spine despite the heat prodding at your skin.
"My songbird sounds real pretty when she's singin'," Cooper muttered as he sucked a bruise into the swell of one breast over the cup of your bra. "I bet she sounds even better screamin' for me."
His hand plunged beneath the waistband of your panties and began to explore your folds, pulling a long, whining moan from your lips. He ate you and your whimpers up, devouring your lips like he wanted to eat you whole - maybe he did - while his middle finger ran up and down your cunt a few times before deftly finding your clit and applying a bit of pressure to the sensitive bud. You cried out. It had been far too long since you'd seen any real action. It didn't take long before your folds were soaked, and he was able to gingerly nudge his finger past the entrance of your pussy. It felt foreign to have another person thrusting their finger in and out of you, building you up to a kind of high you hadn't known since far before you left your vault. In less than a few minutes - something he would surely tease you about later - you felt that familiar coil snap in your stomach and you soaked his hand with a loud, throat-rattling wail that escaped your lips and flew right past his.
Cooper pulled back with a self-satisfied smirk and pulled his hand from your panties, lifting his spread hand to show you to slick you'd coated his digits with. You were only able to huff for breath and watch with hooded eyes as he brought his fingers to his mouth and used his skillful tongue to lick off your cum. You briefly wondered what else that tongue of his could do, what it would feel like to have him lap up your pussy like it was the only thing to guarantee him his daily hit of medicine.
"Sweet as honey, baby," he cooed, bracing himself with one hand while the other worked on the buckle of his belt. "Well. Maybe Tennessee honey. You ever had a taste of that?" He knew you hadn't. But that didn't stop his smirk from growing in size when you numbly shook your head. "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it, baby. We'll get you a lick one day. 'Til then..."
Your limbs dancing with pins and needles, you lifted your hips to help him tug off your panties. "I'll just have to settle for what I've got," you exhaled with a hazy smile.
Cooper grinned wide, a smile that bordered on the edge of dark, as he tugged down his trousers just enough for his cock to spring free. He was thick - larger than you'd expected - and his member was rough and scarred like the rest of him. It made you want to feel him all the more. "I'll promise you somethin', darlin," he said as he positioned himself at your entrance and you locked your legs around his waist, heels digging into the edge of his gun belt. "I'm better than anything else you'll taste these days." With that he slid into you, filling you at once to the brim like he just couldn't wait to feel you from the inside. A loud, sharp yelp escaped your lips as your back arched instinctively, curling yourself up into him. He only waited a few moments for you to adjust before he started moving, pulling himself out to the tip before thrusting back inside your welcoming cunt. You were able to feel each and every ridge of him, every scar, and you swore you were getting drunk from just the feeling.
"Fuckin' shit, girl," he groaned, moving to press the flat of his hand to the base of your neck so that he could keep you in place while he fucked you. "Better than I could've fuckin' dreamed."
Cooper's thrusts began to increase in speed, your moans and whimpers accompanied by his low, almost growling snarls he panted against the shell of your ear. You couldn't believe this was happening. You were being fucked by the ghoul you'd been following all these months, the ghoul you'd been watching and studying and falling hopelessly for. And it felt good. It felt so fucking good, a part of you wasn't entirely convinced this entire scenario wasn't a dream concocted by the recesses of your mind.
"God, Coop," you heard yourself moan as your nails dug crescent moons into the fabric of his shirt. "Feels so fucking good..."
"Atta girl," he muttered, moving his head down so that he could suck at the junction where your neck met your shoulder. "Such a sweet little songbird." His grip on your hips tightened as his movements increased even further. "Might just have to fuck you good every night so I can hear you sing for me."
You panted deep as you felt your second orgasm of the night approaching at an alarming rate. Your hips bucked up to meet his with each thrust, the sound of skin on skin filling the abandoned building in which you had taken shelter. "Don't have to - ah! - even ask. I'll sing for you any time, Coop."
Cooper's breaths came shorter, sharper, and it wasn't long before he came with a harsh bite against your shoulder, one that spilled blood into his awaiting mouth and pulled your own orgasm from deep within your depths. You shuddered and cried for him, tugging him close and holding him there for several minutes after your highs had faded and your breaths evened.
Finally, he pulled himself off of you. A short whine escaped you when he slipped from your heat, and he chuckled low before tossing you your panties to slip back on. When you were both covered again, you sat up and crossed your legs as you basked in the afterglow of what had just taken place. Cooper dug around in his saddlebag for a moment before producing his inhaler and drinking up a shot of his medicine, shaking his head against the sudden buzz that came with it as he sat back on his elbows and stared at the lantern light.
"I..." You struggled to find the words so desperately clawing at your chest. "I hope you don't..."
Cooper reached up and pulled your wrist out from under you, causing you to fall back on the ground beside him with an 'umph.' He let his arm cushion your fall before sweeping a few strands of hair from your face and giving you that crooked smirk which made your legs fall numb all over again. "Oh, don't you worry yourself, songbird," he said. "I ain't lettin' you fly away from me any time soon."
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bisexualiteaa · 7 days
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actually dying for a cooper howard x vaultie!reader smut where they have some slow burn longing steaminess, but coop thinks she’s too good for him UNTIL she comes in contact with a sex pollen-esque chem and he finally gives in to save her 🥵 please work your magic and elaborate however you want
A Flame in Your Heart
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Cooper Howard x Fem Reader (SMUT!!)
CW: NSFW like absolutely filthy y’all, you’ve been warned. 💀 unprotected sex, irradiated cream pie, p in v, p0rn w/ plot, slow burn, flirting, cursing, perverted thoughts, dub-con (because of chem usage though consent is asked and given!) rough sex, dirty talk, choking, praise kink, degradation, squirting, mention of fingering, FEELINGS!! Slight deviation from TV series, possible grammar/spelling mistakes, cooper starts off mean but slowly warms up to reader
AN: I absolutely LOVED this request! I was up all night writing down all my ideas and spent all this morning perfecting it, and this has to be my longest one yet! I thank you for your patience anon and my lovely readers as I finally post this! Hope you enjoy and that I have done your ask justice! ❤️
Life outside of the vault was difficult to say the least. You felt hunger and dehydration in ways you’d never experienced before, going out of your way to do desperate things you would normally never do in order to get said food and water. The heat was unbearable, every stretch of land you walked across had a danger lurking around every corner, and worst of all, you’d never felt so alone. You weren’t sure what it was about you, maybe it was because you were new to the surface, maybe it was your nearly perfect skin, but everyone seemed to stare or glare at you when you would walk through. It wasn’t until you’d passed through Filly, meeting Ma June that you realized people didn’t take kindly to people like you. “Vaulties” she called them, an audible disdain in her tone, making you look down to remember you were in your blue and gold Vault-Tec suit. “I’ll be going then, have a nice day!” You said skiddishly, offering her a kind smile before turning and exiting the shop. You just wanted to make friends, why was that so hard up here? So when your eyes set on a man clad in classic Wild West cowboy clothes, watching smoke settle after a stand off, you weren’t sure why but you knew that was who you needed on your side in this world. Before you knew it, your feet were already moving and mouth speaking to him, grabbing his attention.
“I ain’t no charity case sweetheart, I don’t take on strays” The ghoul spoke, his southern drawl making him even more memorable than the marred texture of his skin. You looked to the dog that trailed not far behind him as he walked, changing its pace to keep up with the man. “The dog there with you tells me otherwise” you quipped. “Ain’t my dog” he responded harshly as he continued walking. “I can make it worth your while!” You yelled, making him stop in his tracks for a moment, a scary sight at first before you worked up the nerve to come closer once he turned back to you. “And how you suppose you’d do that?” He asked, and at first you didn’t know what to say, the words leaving your mouth before you could really think of a good enough reason. Did nobody like company anymore these days? “Well…I can be your scavenger! Pretty good at collecting stuff” you offered, shaking your bag and making things rattle around inside to prove it, making him give a huff of a chuckle. “‘f I wanted a pack mule I’d‘ve found a brahman” he shot you down. “Okay, then I can be good company to talk to!” You offered. “They make radios for when I want to listen to someone yack” he shut down once again. “I’m a good cook! Even with shitty supplies, I can make a stew that’d put a smile even on the meanest son of a gun’s face” you said, hopeful that he’d at least take you for something, but you had a feeling he’d probably turn you down again. “Iguana on a stick’s just fine” he said, though he had to admit the stew sounded good. Reminded him of home before all this wasteland bullshit. “Oh, umm…” you said awkwardly, your tone growing quiet and my how it put a sad look in your eyes. The evil part of him liked it, seeing your sweet innocent face all downturned but the part that was still human deep down, the part that hardly ever saw the light of day anymore, had half a mind to let you.
“Got a lotta nerve walkin’ up t’ me, girly. If you somehow been lucky enough that you ain’t met dangerous yet, you’re lookin’ at someone who could put you down before you’d even mutter your last words” he threatened, motioning to the double barreled shotgun in his hands. “I know, I saw it first hand. You hold yourself well, I envy that. I’m new to all of this and just really want someone who can help me hold my own the same way” you explained. “Look, I know I don’t look like much but please just give me a chance” you begged, looking up at him with a fighting spirit in your eyes that he had to admit, he was pretty impressed in seeing in a vaultie. “You help me, I help you, however that ends up being” you offered, standing strong on this and damn if he didn’t see a little bit of himself in you at that. He gave a sigh, tilting his head down before shaking it, not believing himself for the words he was about to say. “Alright, but the minute you start draggin’ you’re out, got me?” He said, and he hated the way his cold heart seemed to pump a little faster upon seeing your eyes light up with joy and a smile stretch to your face. “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!” You said, opening your arms up to hug him but being met with the barrel of his gun poking your stomach to keep space between you. “I don’t do hugs” he spoke gruffly, making you back up enough to where he’d drop the gun back to his side. “R-Right…sorry” you apologized, embarrassment washing over you but still glad to finally have someone in your company. “C’mon, I ain’t got all day now” he said, motioning you to start walking, so you joined him.
Your travels with him certainly weren’t at all what you were expecting them to be. From being used as bait, to being tied up with rope most of the time you’d traveled together, or being sent in as his scavenger, you weren’t prepared for a lot of the reality you faced with being up on the surface. Most nights made you question why you’d ever left the comfort of the vault, why you’d abandoned a trusty food supply, regulated temperatures, a safe place to sleep that wasn’t riddled with radroaches or had the likely hood of waking up to a raider with a knife at your throat for no reason. Then you would remember the experiment in your vault, why you left that awful place for arguably a worse reality on the surface but at least you had freedom. Out here you were free to say what you want, do what you want, consume what you want so long as you could defend yourself incase that supply wasn’t unclaimed. You’d gotten pretty handy with a gun in the most recent weeks. Cooper, you learned one night was his name, using empty glass bottles as targets to help teach you accuracy and how to hit things from a longer range. In exchange, you came a little more useful than he had first thought. You had some useful stuff on you for trade like chems, ammo and food, were a good extra bag to hold stuff in, and you were a better cook than you’d talked about. Sure you had a tendency to talk too much, and you weren’t great with a gun, but you were getting there.
“Might I suggest takin’ them clothes instead of wearin’ that suit?” He said, making you look at him weird for suggesting you strip a dead raider of their clothes. “Why would I do that…?” You asked, genuinely confused and not sure what he was implying either, he was a hard man to predict. “Because, people see that shit and get real mad. People up here don’t like vaulties or the ones that run ‘em” he said and it made sense, it helped you understand why you kept getting evil glares each time someone would look at you or talk to you. You figured he knew best, so you took the shirt and pants from one of the female raiders, tucking them into your bag to change into at a better time. He gave a chuckle watching you do so, apologizing to the dead body profusely as you took their clothes and whatever valuables they had on them for the betterment of your own survival. You were still so naive, part of him was hoping he could slowly start to break and corrupt your way of thinking, but that was a thought for another time.
Before you knew it, night finally began to fall. The sun setting across the horizon gave the air less of a hot, harsh bite as the temperature began to cool rapidly across the sands of the Mojave. All you managed to grab was a pair of beat up, old jeans and a tank top, so as soon as the sun set, the chill set in. As you both set up camp for the night just outside of an abandoned rest stop, you started a fire to cook some of that stew you talked about being good at. He had to admit, it was pretty damn good, likely the best thing he’s had since before the bombs went off. Though even the kindling fire couldn’t manage to chase the chill away, watching you run your hands up and down your arms to try and warm up some by it. He felt a slight pang in his heart, watching you shiver like that, how your eyes lit up by the blaze of the fire and your hair seemed to be tousled just right. You were pretty, too pretty to be trekking this wasteland, and certainly too pretty to be trekking it with him of all people as your company. Even he had a heart still, as cold as it was, so out of kindness he shrugged his duster from his shoulders, draping it around you. You looked at the fabric pooled around you, pulling it over you better before looking to him as he sat down across from you again. “Ain’t no use if the cold gets ya” he said, making you smile appreciatively at him as you realized what he did. “Thank you” you replied, a slight blush fanning to your cheeks as the chattering of your teeth finally died down and you grew warmer. It smelled like him, sure it had splatters of old dried blood and was rather worn, but it had that gunpowder and smoke smell to it that you associated with him. “Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya” he replied, trying to sound cold but it didn’t come off that way, making you chuckle. “What do I owe you?” You asked, making him fall silent for a moment as he pondered the answer to your question. He looked you over for a second before tipping his hat down to cover his face a bit, the signal that he was about to try and get some sleep. “Just keep watch for a bit, I’ll be up in a few hours” he responded, and while it wasn’t what you were expecting, you’d take it.
He was startled awake a couple hours later when he heard a commotion, you yelling at someone telling them to back off that this place had been claimed. The raider you were up against didn’t seem to like that very much, claiming that wasn’t how it worked up here. The altercation took a turn for the worst when the man reached for his gun but you were quick to fire and kill him before he could let out a shot. A shaky feeling set in your hands and a horrified expression across your face at the realization that you just killed someone. Cooper, who was certainly wide awake now, was rather impressed by your quick timing and precision, coming up behind you to lay a gloved hand to your shoulder. “Well would ya look at that, looks like them lessons been payin’ off after all. How’s it feel?” He asked, looking down at you as you stared at the gun in your hands. “He was yelling at me but…he was aiming at you. I don’t really know what came over me, I didn’t like that he was going to shoot you so I just…I killed him” you said, recounting the encounter to him as if he hadn’t seen it himself. He didn’t really know what to think in that moment as you explained how your mind worked, he was proud for sure at your show of improvement with a gun, yet also touched at the same time. No one ever really looked out for him since he started his bounty hunting, he was a well hated man by many but you defended him without really any reason to. You’d just learned his name not but two weeks ago, and before that he was dragging you around with rope yet you still defended him, had you two really gotten closer in the time that’s passed since? He wasn’t sure, but it was something he could mull over while you were sleeping. “Get some rest vaultie, sun’ll be up soon” he said, knowing you likely wouldn’t get much sleep with the adrenaline still coursing through you, but it was at least worth a try, you two had a long day ahead of you.
When you woke up that next morning, things felt a little different between you two. You weren’t some annoying little dog following him anymore, you were an equal. He no longer looked at you and treated you like you were lower than him as you both set out across the wastelands, he had respect for you. Hell, he even started talking with you now when you were out traveling which was almost unbelievable. You learned through those conversations that he used to be an actor in Wild West themed films, explaining his outfit, and that he was married before the bombs dropped. You of course told him bits and pieces about yourself in exchange, after all it only felt fair but it was also nice to just finally talk to someone after all this time.
When night time fell again you two sat enjoying a meal by the fire together, only rather than across from each other, he sat next to you, making a blush come to your face as you’d smiled sweetly at him. “Glad to know I don’t have germs anymore” you said jokingly, making him chuckle. “Give an old man some credit. It ain’t exactly all peaches and marmalade out here darlin’, even cute can be deadly” he said, the nickname and him calling you cute sending a deeper blush to your cheeks despite knowing it’s just how he spoke. Whether it was the lack of contact with other people for so long, or just his charm you couldn’t quite tell, but it always seemed to have an effect on you. “Just teasin’ you, I get it. I’d tie me up and use me for bait too if I’d been doing this as long as you have. It’s a shit hole out here” you said, making him look at you as you dropped the first curse word he’s ever heard from you. “Well I’ll be damned, either I’m a bad influence or you’re finally growin’ outta that naive shell there, vaultie” Cooper replied, making you laugh as you saw a smirk stretch to his thin, marred lips, the first one you’d seen in a while that wasn’t brought on by drugs, chems or that first sip of a good bottle of alcohol. “Probably both” you quipped, making him chuckle. “Yeah, probably. Been told I ain’t easy to stomach” he said, making you hum. “You’re alright in my book, Coop” you replied with a sweet, genuine smile that matched your tone and was that butterflies you felt in your stomach? Did you just call him Coop? No ones called him that in ages, why did it make his heart start to flutter a bit? “You ain’t so bad yourself, vaultie” he responded, still affording you that small smile before turning back to his food. “Keep making food this good and I just might have to keep you around” he joked, making you giggle and break the slightly tense silence. “It’s not much but I certainly try. I’ll definitely make sure to stay good at it, I like traveling with you” you said, unintentionally coming off flirtatious and fuck there it goes again, that feeling in his chest and his stomach like he needed to hit his inhaler but he felt great. What were you doing to him?
“Hey, if it isn’t too much can I ask you a sort of…personal question?” You asked, holding the beat up bowl in your hands as you looked over at him. This was normally the part where he would say no, absolutely not, he wasn’t here to be questioned on his personal matters. Yet, with you, it was different. Ever since last night he hasn’t been so on edge with you, it was like he’d warmed up to you. “Depends on what you’re askin’ there, sweetheart” he said, the nickname once again making you blush. “Do you…miss them? Your wife and daughter?” You asked, not sure if it was a good subject or good question to ask but after finding out, you were genuinely curious. He looked down at his bowl again, thinking of the proper response to your question. The old him would have been defensive, told you it was none of your business, but now? He wasn’t sure. “Ain’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about ‘em. About the way I ran out on ‘em when them bombs dropped” he answered, making you give him a sad look as genuine guilt filled his tone. This was the most honest and open he’s been with you this whole time. “I feel guilty. Not sure if I feel guilty for runnin’ out and leavin’ ‘em behind or guilty for the way I ran out, been tryin’ t’ figure that out for quite a while now and I still ain’t sure” he added, and you sympathized with that. Everyone has regrets, things they’ve done in the past that they aren’t proud of, people up here were no different in that aspect. “Well, in the short time I’ve gotten to know you, I’ve come to understand that everything you do has a valid reason behind it. So even if you feel it was a shitty thing to do, you obviously had a reason for doing so. No one can blame you for trusting your gut, and I don’t think you should blame yourself for doing so” you responded, your hand falling to his as a comforting gesture, your words ringing in his head almost as if you’d opened something in his mind, something he’d never really gave himself to think about before. He looked down at your hand that rested on his, noticing the way you didn’t flinch away from him like others did, the way you were brave enough to walk up to him, talk to him, *trust* him when he made it very clear that you shouldn’t. It was smaller than his, softer for sure, but warm all the same, then he looked up to see that caring look in your eyes and smile on your face that told him that you cared. “Guess you’re right, still wonder sometimes if it was the right choice to make” he replied. “I understand. Everyone has regrets, we all look at the past and hold at least something that we’ve done before in regret, it’s what makes us human” you said, making him give a huff as a chuckle. “You got anybody?” He asked, making you look down as you moved your feet along the dirt. “An ex-husband, but not anyone I really care about, no. My parents passed a few years before the bombings and he and I split up when I caught him cheating on me with some other woman in the vault..” you explained, not sure why it hurt you to tell the tale still, but you felt it was only fair considering what you’d asked of him to share. “Sorry t’ hear that” Cooper said, making you chuckle weakly, a somber look coming to your face that made his heart wrench. “I haven’t exactly been in love since, and considering he and I split up just a little over ten years ago, really says something I guess, huh?” You asked, trying to laugh to bring up the mood, knowing you sounded pathetic. “He was the fool, not you darlin’. He was the one skippin’ out on one hell of a woman” Cooper said, making you look to him and blush a bit as you gave a chuckle at his response.
“Thanks” you replied appreciatively and with a smile before casting your gaze down to see your hands were still connected and it left you blushing harder with embarrassment, you’d been holding his hand this entire time without realizing it. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable if I have I-“ “relax vaultie” he cut you off, pushing your hand back down onto his to assure you that he was far from uncomfortable. “It’s…rather nice actually” he admitted, making you feel relieved but your heart fluttered in your chest from it. A thick tension soon began to set in between you both after that night, something of an unspoken, kindling romance beginning to develop. “Then there it can stay” you said, making him smile softly at you, tipping his hat at you as a silent thank you.
Months passed on like this, where you’d spend the days scavenging, picking the land for its resources you could find and hunting bounties by day, then spending your nights by a fire growing closer and closer with every passing day. Through your shared meals, jokes, deep conversations, and plenty of near death experiences, you started to notice your fondness of the ghoul you traveled with. The way you’d hang onto his words with that southern accent that seemed to pull at your heart strings, or the way you’d go out of your way to stand between him and a stray bullet. You’d helped him on more than one occasion in getting out of a sticky spot, or getting him the stuff he needed to keep from turning feral. In return, he started to notice he was feeling the same towards you. There was this sudden need to keep you safe, to do nicer things for you, to speak better towards you, even flirt with you at times. Some nights there’d be so much tension in the air, it’s a miracle you haven’t jumped each other yet. Though in his eyes, as much as his heart yearned for you, he knew you were too good for him. You’d been hurt before, and he had a reputation for hurting people, feeling undeserving of even just the sweet smiles and company you afford him even now. You didn’t need someone like him, you needed a good man, someone who didn’t kill for a living, someone who could treat you right, someone who didn’t look the way he did. You were soft and warm, he was rough and cold, though he supposed that’s where the term “opposites attract” came from. So even when he was a whole bottle deep, he was sure to hold his tongue to a certain point.
Some of those nights around the fire were spent sober, others not so much, and this night happened to be one of those nights spent under the influence. You two had stumbled across a mini-mart, doing your best to out run the radstorm that had been trailing you guys for hours, coming in just to find whatever supplies you could to make it through the next week and possibly hunker down for the night. So imagine your surprise when you seemed to have found the largest chem stache you’d both ever laid eyes on. “Coop! Come here, you gotta see this” you said, making him run towards you to make sure you weren’t hurt or in trouble. His nerves were eased once he saw you, fully intact. “Tell me I’m not seeing shit” you said, pointing to all of the supplies sitting in a box on the table, joined by other supplies around it. You both looked at each other in complete and utter disbelief, this would keep you stocked for months, maybe even a whole year if you conserved it well. “Well ain’t that just the prettiest fuckin’ sight” he said. There was no way a horde of chems this large and this valuable was just completely unprotected you reasoned, so you routed around the place, scoping out for any raiders, straggling traders or ferals who happened to still be around. It was as if heaven was shining down on you both as you found no one around, seemed like no one had been here for days. So you did the most logical thing anyone would do in this situation. Stuff each of your bags to the brim of drugs of all varieties! Seeing as you had food, chems and even some clean water and alcohol lying around, Cooper locked and barricaded the door shut, proposing it could be a good spot to sleep for the night. With a radstorm approaching, it was best to have a roof over your heads to keep out the rain and potential radiation sickness that came with it. “This is the closest fuckin’ thing to a slice of heaven I’ve seen in ages” he said, aside from you is what played in his mind but he couldn’t speak that out loud, no matter how much he wanted to. “You said it!” you replied, and it’s even better with you here you thought, but thought it best to keep it to yourself. He plopped down on the couch, kicking his feet up to rest on the small table that seemed to be in shambles, enjoying a tape that was playing on the TV that he was surprised to still see functioning. “Holy shit, this thing still works?” You asked, amazed to see working technology out in the wastelands, sitting next to him as you watched it with him. He gave a smirk at your reaction, thinking it was cute the way your eyes would light up when you got all excited over something. Deep down it made him want to give you everything you laid eyes on like that just to see it pointed towards him. “Guess so” he replied, enjoying your excitement only to see you turn and look his way, which was his signal to stop staring holes into you before he gets caught. “I dunno about you baby doll, but I ain’t about to spend tonight sober with this stache sittin’ here ‘n front of us” he said, making you laugh as he routed through all the different drugs and chems til he found what he was looking for.
In the process of searching through it all, a small metal box fell to the floor at your feet. It looked like a box of mentats only the design was different, instead of the characteristic green and white box was a red one covered with hearts labeled DN-Chem. You supposed the worst that could happen was turn into the man sitting next to you, which you figured wasn’t the worst fate to succumb to all things considered, so you went against all better judgement and said fuck it, popping two of the mentat like chems and chasing it with the vodka he’d found to wait for it to take effect. “The hell is DN?” He asked, looking at the box, wondering what it was you took. “Don’t know, guess we’ll find out here soon because I took two” you said, taking another sip from the bottle of vodka he passed your way, and he gave a chuckle as you handed it back to him. “You come a mighty long way, little lady” he commented before setting the metal pill box down. He took the bottle from you, taking a swig, then placing one of the small viles into his inhaler before taking a hit of it then lying back, breathing a sigh of relief as it and the alcohol entered his system like the perfect remedy to any ailment. As about a half an hour rolled by, you waited for the high to set in but it never came, instead you were just getting hot, like really hot. There weren’t any windows open, and it was night time so you shouldn’t be this uncomfortably hot for how it was but you felt like you were on fire. “Shit, it’s hot as hell in here…” you complained, shaking off your jacket that you’d picked off of some raider a few weeks back, making him look to you curiously. “Lightweight” he quipped, making you chuckle. “Accept I don’t feel anything, I just feel hot” you said, making him hum with intrigue before turning back to the TV. “Give it some time, you’re new to all this. ‘m sure your body is wonderin’ what the hell you just put in it” he said, and he had a good point, maybe it was just a side effect of not doing them so often compared to his every day use.
As time went on, you began to notice the way your eyes couldn’t help but be glued to him, more specifically glued to the way his legs were now spread as he sat back. You wondered to yourself what he looked like beneath all that cowboy get up, what his reaction would be like to see you getting on your knees for him and slotting yourself between his spread legs. You shook your head to try and rid yourself of such inappropriate thoughts, but what you couldn’t stop no matter how hard you tried was the feeling of arousal beginning to pool in your panties. Sure he flirted with you every now and again, but you doubt he felt towards you the same way you did for him. To him you were sure you were likely more akin to a pet than a friend, useful and nice to have around, but not anything further. At least so you thought. You’d rather hoped you were wrong in assuming so, that maybe he saw you the same way you saw him. You bit your lip as you tried bouncing your leg to relieve the ache between your thighs, a light pink dusting your face and neck even up to the tips of your ears, but nothing worked. Even as you closed your eyes, all you could picture was you laid out on the couch beneath him, or bent over it with him behind you, or you riding him on it. “Been awful quiet. You doin’ alright over there, sweetheart?” Cooper asked you, and the audible whimper you let out from the nickname left you completely embarrassed. You clasped a hand over your mouth, god you were horrified but he gave a grin and a chuckle in response. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into me all the sudden. I feel so…weird?” you said, unsure if that was really the proper word to explain it but it was the only way you could really word it off the top of your head with how much your brain felt as if it was turning to mush. “Ya took some chems, it’s gonna feel a bit fuzzy” he said, trying to assure you that feeling a little funny was normal, but this? This didn’t feel normal, not even for a chem high. You tried your best to swallow harshly, doing everything you could to try and relieve the dry ache you felt in your throat at the moment upon looking at him. You grabbed the bottle of vodka, taking a few sips but even that couldn’t grant you bliss from it. The throbbing in your core was driving you absolutely insane. You swore up and down that it was like you could feel your heartbeat in your chest, stomach, and in your cunt all at the same time. “No, this is different…I don’t think what I took was a normal chem, Coop…” you said, trying not to panic at the effects that were setting in but god you felt like you were absolutely feral. He turned to look at you, watching as you clamped your thighs together and the red that fell over your face. “I feel like an animal in heat” you said bluntly, making him go into a near coughing fit as you took him off guard. However that piqued his interest enough to pick up the little metal box again to see what it was you took. “I ain’t ever heard of a chem that does that, was that DN shit the only stuff you took?” He asked, growing slightly concerned for you and whether he had a possible horde of laced chems, or just an extremely horny woman on his hands. Speaking of hands, you were lost in thought staring at them, at the way they gripped the couch like you wanted him to grip your thighs, at the way they looked in those leather gloves he always wore. You wondered how it would feel wrapped around your throat, or how it would feel if his fingers were buried deep inside of you. Shit. This was getting out of control.
“Hey, ya with me still?” He asked, snapping to try and get your attention back on the matter at hand, making you shake your head yes as you broke from your perverted thoughts. “Is that DN shit the only thing you took?” He asked again, making you shake your head yes once more, because you knew damn well your voice was going to betray you the moment you tried to speak. That had to be it, it was the only thing that was different out of it all and the only thing he’d never heard of before. He knew it wasn’t the vodka either because he was drinking it with you, so if it was affecting you, it would have affected him and it hadn’t.
It took him a minute to put two and two together before he finally realized the abbreviations stood for Date Night, reading the instructions and effects on the inside of the tin’s lid. “Shit..” he said as he read it, realizing this was a hand made thing thrown into the bunch by whoever was running this place. “Did you read the lid before you popped them pills?” He asked, making you go wide eyed. As if this couldn’t get any fucking worse, this shit show could have been avoided had you just read the inside of the lid. “There was instructions?? Oh my god…what the fuck did I take?” You asked, concerned for yourself and the tone he had while reading it. “Somethin’ that the creator of it called Date Night. Looks like it’s a…well looks like it’s a handmade sex chem” he said, making you cover your face with your hands out of sheer embarrassment, you’d never wanted to die out in a radstorm more than you did right now. “Please tell me you’re fucking joking, cooper…” you whined, watching him read it more. “How much of it did you take?” He asked, almost scared to know and you were scared to know why. “Two?” You replied, making him whistle at that as he read it. “Fuckin’ hell sugar..” he said through a chuckle, and that nickname made a shiver run through you, sending electric bolts straight to your throbbing cunt. You did your best to bite back the whimper. “You’re only s’possed take one, and with you bein’ new t’ all this, I wouldn’t have taken more than half” he said, making you just wish you could just dig a hole and die in it already. “Fuck me…wait, shit! N-Not literally fuck me I- well I mean I’d like if you did but…FUCK! Forgive me Cooper, I’m so sorry, I can hardly think straight” you said, making him chuckle. “Well sweetheart, I think you and I both know there’s only one good fix for this situation” he said, making you whimper pathetically at the thought, your thighs squeezing together even more as you tried to fight to stay sane. Your eyes cast downwards to his lap once more, seeing the tent forming in his pants, clearly you weren’t the only one all worked up here. “I don’t want to make you feel like you have to, Coop. I can run off and take care of myself if it makes you uncomfort-“ you rambled but before you could finish, his hand cupped the side of your face, pulling you in for a long awaited kiss. You moaned into it without meaning to, feeling the way your body immediately relaxed upon wrapping your arms around him with no hesitation as the sweet innocent kiss turned passionate and dirty rather quickly.
“I won’t lie t’ you, doin’ this with you has passed my mind more times than I’d care to admit, but I don’t wanna cross that line unless you really want this” he said, looking into your eyes and making sure that this was truly what you wanted, that you felt the same way he did. “Coop, I know I’m under the influence of whatever the fuck this drug is, but trust me when I say, I’d be just as good with it sober. Been thinking about it for probably just as long as you have, if I’m honest with you. I want this, I want you and right now I want you so fucking bad that I might lose my mind if you don’t fuck me” you answered bluntly, taking him by surprise at just the sheer amount of absolute filth that left your otherwise innocent mouth, making him chuckle at your use of curse words and how desperate you were for him. “That so sugar?” He asked with a grin, enjoying teasing you at your neediest moments, including now. “God yes, Cooper please..” you begged, nearly moaning in reply and he’d spent time mulling over it before, denying himself the chance but just as the chem stache was a pot of gold, he took this as one of the best opportunities being placed in his lap by whatever higher power existed out there, making him waste no time in kissing you once more. “Good, because I don’t think I’d be able to hold myself back once we’ve started” he said, and the idea made you moan. “Don’t want you to hold back, want all of you” you said, and your wish was his command.
By the time your brain could finally catch up with you again, your clothes were strewn out all around you, your tank top hanging over the back of the couch, your jeans thrown haphazardly on the arm rest behind you, his pants on the floor, his hat on the table and shirt and duster having fallen somewhere behind the couch. By now, you’d already cum on his fingers twice, and on his cock once, this was your fourth round and this shit still had you on fire. “Yes!! Oh fuck, Cooper!” you moaned as your legs wrapped around his hips, keeping him as close to you as you could get, your fingers digging crescent shapes and puffy red lines into his back that unfortunately he knew wouldn’t stay long thanks to his ability to heal stupidly fast. “Doin’ so good for me, baby doll. Look so pretty like this for me, all splayed out like a needy little whore” he praised and degraded through his groans, making you moan and roll your eyes into the back of your head at the praise mixed with degradation as his cock was drilling deep inside you like tonight was all you guys had. “Yeah, you like that, huh sweet thing? Like it when I tell you how good it feels and call you names?” He asked, making you nod your head yes because there wasn’t a single thought in that brain of yours other than his name, which you spoke like a mantra. “Never knew such a sweet lil’ thing like you would be such a dirty little minx. Fuck…enough to make a man like me go feral, ya know that?” he said, making you giggle as you moved his free hand up to your throat, urging him to choke you, and he groaned at the sight. Your kiss swollen lips all puffy and shining with spit, your cheeks dusted a constant pink that grew darker anytime his cock brushed that spot deep inside that made you cling to him, your eyes half lidded, looking up at him like he was your savior. It made him absolutely rock hard knowing you’d pick him over anyone else in this god forsaken wasteland. “My, you are just a little freak, ain’t you? Oh we are gonna have fun together, you and me honey” he promised, squeezing your throat tight enough to restrict your airflow but not enough to hurt or cause any damage. Just enough to get that puddle of a brain of yours all fuzzy as you got closer to your fourth orgasm of the night. “Cooper…’m so close, so close please!!” You begged, feeling the heavy drag of his cock as he pounded into you, leaving you damn near screaming as it nudged your cervix and that spongy little bundle of nerves deep inside. “Go on honey, I gotchya. Let go for me, wanna see those pretty faces and hear those pretty noises you make” he said, angling his hips just right to hit that spot over and over again. “Oh fuck, oh fuck I’m gonna cum again, I-“ you warned before your moans rose in pitch as your walls clamped around him, gushing on his cock as your orgasm hit you like a freight train. Your body arched off the couch, stars filling your vision for a moment as you felt your release gush out and coat your inner thighs, screaming his name like it was your only chance at salvation. “Well ain’t I just the damn luckiest man in the wastelands right now, got me a pretty little vaultie and she’s a gusher” he said, making you whimper at his teasing but judging by the way he emptied himself inside you for the second time, you took it as a sign that he liked that about you. “Holy shit, I-I didn’t know I could do that” you said, thoroughly shocked with what your brain and body were doing as they almost seemed to almost be working against each other. “Do it again for me” he said, grabbing you and moving you both to where you were straddling him this time. His hands rested on your hips, helping guide you as you speared yourself on his dick with ease from how absolutely soaked you were, making you both throw your head back and moan. “Now that’s a damn good sight” he said, making you lean in to kiss him once more as his hands helped you start and keep a steady rhythm with your hips. It was definitely going to be a long night, but one you two have been needing for months, maybe even longer.
It’s a good thing ghouls have remarkable recovery time, because in order to finally get you sated and back to normal, you both had to spend all night going at it. Granted, it was aided by the mix of pent up sexual tension and pent up sexual frustration, but it was dawn before you both had gotten to a point where you could even *try* and fall sleep. First few times was on the couch between missionary, doggy and you riding him, next was you bent over it, with your pretty legs spread and ass in the air for him. Then, you used the arm rest of the couch as a pillow beneath your hips as he stood up while you laid out on the couch. He liked that one a lot for the way your tits would bounce with each and every forceful thrust into you, jolting your body. After that, it was done standing up with your back pressed against a wall, your legs and arms wrapped around him to keep him deep inside of you and fill you til he had nothing left to give you. From that point on, the rest of the night was all a hormone-hazed blur, but you knew well that he took care of you. You woke up unbelievably sore, your joints aching in places that you had no idea could even ache, a swollen, angry throb between your legs for the harsh, almost punishing treatment to your pussy followed by bruises, bite marks, scratch marks, hand prints etc. littered your skin as you woke up curled into Cooper’s side. You gave a gravelly groan as the sun shone in your eyes through the windows, making him chuckle at the way you were such a ray of sunshine except in the morning. Coming to learn that you absolutely *hated* mornings. Though you suppose you started to enjoy them more since traveling with him. “Mornin’ sunshine” he said coyly, making you groan disapprovingly at the way the sun was in your eyes, making you hold your hand up to cast a shadow on your face and grant you some relief. “Morning” you answered, your voice hoarse and half gone from sleep and all your activities that transpired the previous night. “Ain’t that a pretty sight” he said, turning and seeing you curled up to him, naked, your hair all messy from sleep and the hickeys and bite marks littering your skin, making you chuckle. “Last night was definitely something, can’t believe you’ve been holding all *that* out on me” you joked, making him give a dry laugh. “Could say the same thing about you, sugar. Had no idea that mind a yours could be so filthy. You’re a wild thing to party with, lil’ lady” he teased, sliding his arm around you to keep you close, making you hum as you lay soft, appreciative kisses to his collarbone and chest. “You’re fun too, and thank you for taking care of me last night. I’m sorry that it ended up happening the way that it did, I wanted to work up the courage and tell you some other way, I really did, but I guess life had other plans” you said making him chuckle as he saw you blush when he kissed your head. “Drunk words are sober thoughts they say, so I’d say I made out pretty good. But don’t sweat it, not sure how I deserved someone as good as you, but it’s good to know I ain’t as hard to stomach as most people say” he said, pulling you in for a soft, heartfelt kiss. “I think you are just perfect, Cooper” you said, your hand resting on his scarred chest as you looked at him with that gaze he swore he’d do anything to see pointed his way.
“You really wanna be my girl?” He asked softly, sounding shocked and with some self doubt still lacing his tone, but he had to be sure this was what you wanted outside of the drug’s effects. He cared for you deeply, in a way that he hasn’t felt in a very long time, but maybe you were just the right person for him to finally open his heart up to. His question made you giggle as your heart fluttered in your chest with excitement. “I absolutely do, I meant it when I said it last night, I mean it just as much now. I think we’ve danced around it for long enough, don’t you?” you replied, making him smile the most genuinely happy smile you’ve seen him wear since you’d met. “Just checkin’” he said, before laying a sweet kiss to your lips, wishing every morning could be like this one. Maybe it could, now that you were here with him.
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lacontroller1991 · 2 days
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A Little Teaser
So I am no better than anybody else with a sudden interest in the Fallout fandom and I wanted to share my two cents on the matter. So, I am putting in a little snippet of a Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x F!Reader fic I am working on amongst my other WIPS. I am looking to gauge interest, so please give any sort of feedback you guys can :) whether it be good or bad or ugly (ha see what I did there?)
“Please, sir, I’m begging you.” Shuffling slightly, you peer your head past the concrete wall, spotting two figures, one in a blue/yellow vault-tec suit and the other in a cowboy hat with a lasso around the girl. 
“Well I’d be damned,” it’s hushed and to yourself, afraid of him hearing and spotting you.
“I done told you vaultie, ain’t gonna happen. Are you deaf or sum?” His drawl sends chills down your spine as he nudges her forward with the tip of his gun. “Now hur-” his words are cut off by a coughing fit but his grip on the lasso remains. After regaining his breath, he wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “Hurry up. I ain’t got all day.” You watch in silence as the pair walks past your hideout, unaware of your existence. Grabbing your things, you rush off after them, making sure to stay in the shadows as your brain goes through different scenarios of what could happen. Would you and Cooper make up? Would he try to kill you? Would you try to kill him? Does he even care? The closer they get to the supermart, the more you hang back, hand slightly hovering over your gun. 
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