Archive of Our Own

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Nights are oddly quiet in the commonwealth. Or rather, any time that wasn’t full sun was pretty quiet. Besides the rare run-shot from miles away, miniscule sounds such as radroaches and night-patrolling raiders were the only thing Jordan could really hear as they made their way through the unidentifiable rubble and underneath what used to be a highway overpass.The small light overhead the Goodneighbour door was an incredible relief for the weary scavenger.

As Jordan got closer to the fence separating the town form the rest of the world, they could hear new, more comforting sounds. Loud footsteps from someone sprinting for whatever reason. 2 drunk men lowly singing together. Someone giggling in response to a conversation. All sounds were muffled, but each one helped Jordan relax just a little bit more.

Jordan’s shoulder habitually twitched hard. Without thinking any further into the possibilities, they crept closer to the door, keeping a close eye on the small group of raiders in the distance.

The minute they slipped in the door, they stood up, the feeling of relief washing over them. Nearly a dozen warm lights still lit the city, creating something close to a twinkle compared to outside. Their eyes met Daisy’s, who was just closing up her store.

“He’s in his office.” She said, before Jordan could even open their mouth. They gave her a cheerful nodd and headed to the building

“Hey Fahrenheit!” They waved to the bodyguard, who was distracted by whatever is on the small stack of paper she was holding. It was a mix of fairly new and yellowing pages. Most of it had some sort of dust or dirt smudged along the edges.

“Hm.” She didn’t even look up to greet them. Instead, she continued to pace around in the hallway, absorbed in whatever was on the page.

“Hey. Where you been?” Hancock shouted from his usual spot on the couch. He already had jet in his hand, and his hat was lying on the table.

“I just finished helping some settlers way down south.” they responded, heading over t sit down next to him, “They practically live in a swamp.”

“Garvey never stops with the assignments, huh?”

“I mean, it’s not his fault. And besides, all I really had to do was help them cler some land. No fighting today.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.” Hancock handed them some jet, which they happily took. Jordan didn’t allow themselves chems too often, so it was always a treat of sorts as well as a little break from reality.

“Lately,” Hancock began, “there’s been a decent amount of new people coming in. After the institute fell, people were able to relax at least a little bit. It means more work, but it’s nice to see this place thrive.”

Jordan nodded as he spoke. They attempted to take a puff of the jet, but realized bending their arm was a lot more difficult than it should have been. It was followed by the kind of pain that doesn’t just go away, either. They silently cringed, and switched the drug to their right hand. “That sounds good.”

“Yeah it ain’t bad.” He paused for a second, debating whether or not he should continue with jet or have some mentats next, “Do anything other than farm lately?”

Jordan thought for a second, “About 3 days ago, I ran into some patrolling super mutants and their stupid dogs, so that was fun.” They took a deep inhale of what was now their second puff of jet at the thought of all the dog bites,”Oh, also I’ve been consistently bitching at the embers of the Brotherhood of Steel. They’re all such condescending dicks. I couldn’t care less about burning bridges at this point.”

“They deserve whatever you throw at em.” Hancock responded, “Just be careful. Nate is trying to keep the war to a minimum after everything that’s happened...”

While Hancock spoke, Jordan forced themself to breathe in another hit. Their left arm was feeling puffy still, but at least the pain was down. They were probably a little to high for their own good, but that wasn’t the main concern.

“You good?”

“Hm?”

“You’re zoning out a little bit over there.” He mentioned.

“Yah well y’know.” They wiggled the jet towards him, “You were saying something about uh… The thing.”

Hancock stared at them for a few good seconds.

“Okay so maybe I have a slight fever.”

The jet was plucked from Jordan’s hands. They whined incoherently as they made a half-hearted attempt at taking it back.

“You shouldn’t use this while you’re sick.” He chuckled under his breath, but didn’t once take their eyes off of them.

“What? I’m not sick.” In the midst of their high, they had forgotten about keeping this thing a secret. Hancock was too easy to talk to, and there was no filter in place anymore.

“Then why the hell-”

Jordan held up their left hand, and pointed at it with their right. It was at that moment that they realized just how discolored and inflamed the infected one looked compared to the healthy one. It was also in that moment that they remembered this wasn’t open information.

“Oh god…” John trailed off, lightly pulling their arm closer to get a better look at it. Their sleeve was warm with the heat of the inflammation, and the wound itself stung at his touch.

“No, don’t do that. There’s better things to talk about…” Their words had a slight slur to them, and not because of the drug. Gravity seemed a little iffy. They tried to pull away, making Hancock’s hand hit the bite at just the right angle. A shot of pain surged through them, nearly causing an instant headache. They fought the urge to allow their body to simply slump over.

“Just stay here. I’ll be back.” Hancock ran off in the direction of Fahrenheit’s room, saying something about stimpaks.

The thought of fleeing flickered through Jordan’s mind. It was their business. And the last thing they needed was some doctors poking and prodding at their embarrassingly gross open wound. Then on the other hand, it just wasn’t nice to Hancock. The pros and cons should have been weighed easily, but before these thoughts could happen, they blacked out on Hancock’s couch.

“For the 5th time, don’t fucking touch me!” Jordan landed a solid punch on Dr. Amari’s poor intern’s face. His name was Elliot, and he couldn’t have been more than 20. He had a light Spanish accent, deep black hair, and a round face. He simply paused to allow the pain to go away and then continued his work of re-inserting their IV. They drew back their fist for another swing, but was held down by Hancock.

“Don’t hurt the kid, he’s just doing his job.”

“You are incredibly well-aware that I don’t like medical tables.” They responded with anger, pulling against his restrain.

“Yeah I know. Just hold still while he does this, alright? Then we’ll talk.”

Jordan just exhaled and allowed Elliot t do his thing. He had been taking care of a lot of the medical care that Dr. Amari was unfamiliar with. He refused to tell where he learned everything, so there was a pretty huge chance that he came from the institute. That didn’t matter, though. Not like there was much to work with anymore, anyways. He was pretty quiet. This didn’t seem to come from shyness, or lack of confidence. He just didn’t seem to feel the need to talk.

After passing out last night, Hancock had revealed the heavy infection. The puncture wounds went deep, and the flesh barely looked normal. The whole lower arm was a mix of purple, yellow and red. There was more cloudy liquid than there was blood. The whole thing was gross and a little shocking. Upon seeing the injury, Hancock carried them straight to Dr. Amari.

“So,” Dr. Amari started, “Why’d you hide this from us?”

“You sound like my parents.”

“Answer the question.”

“...Because, as much as I love you guys, this is my business. And I shouldn’t take up your resources with my mistakes.”

Hancock opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off.

“That’s nonsense.” Dr. Amari said, without missing a beat, “This place exists to help you. No worries.”

An irrational fear was creeping up on Hancock. If Jordan hid something like this, there had to have been other injuries they’ve hidden. He pondered the concern for a minute, then tucked it to the back of his head in order to focus on the here and now.

“Why don’t you sleep a little more, sunshine? Sleep while high on jet doesn’t really qualify as sleep.”

Jordan slowly nodded, although a little anger still showed on their face.

“And you gotta promise not to fuck with your IV again.”

The anger faded, and was replaced with defeat. Hancock chuckled.

“Alright. Fine.” They turned to Elliot, “Please wake me up before sticking things into me.”

“Only if you never phrase it like that again.” He responded.

“Deal.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

That afternoon, after all medical procedures were done, Hancock had set aside a room in the hotel for Jordan, along with some old unused blankets he kept tucked away in a closet somewhere. He also brought up some purified water and a snack. They fell asleep pretty soon after they were tucked in. Clearly the fever and drugs combination had taken a lot out of them. It was barely past 2 PM when they fell asleep.

“You’re very kind to them, Hancock.” Magnolia said. She stopped to talk with the mayor between songs, despite the fairly slow day.

“Eh. I did what i could.”

“Oh no. I mean you don’t have many friends you treat this way.” She gave him a playful smirk, “I can tell they’ve tried to flirt with you more than once.”

“Is that not what friends do? I’m pretty sure they’ve flirted with

you

on multiple occasions.” He took a sip of the drink he was holding, whiskey maybe.

“That’s just it. I’ve noticed people flirt outright with people they find attractive, but try to be genuine and smooth when talking to someone they like.” She adjusted her hair, preparing to head back up on stage in just a few minutes.

Hancock chuckled a little bit and rolled his eyes, but played around with the thought. Not for long, though. After all, it was unlikely, and they weren’t there to give him any examples.

The world still had a morning chill to it. Everything had a low, dark blue to it, and the stars were starting to finish up their show for the day. This was one of the few times where a rare gunshot couldn’t be heard in the far distance. Nothing stirred

Except for Jordan.

Falling asleep in the early afternoon meant getting up at ungodly hours the next morning. They had been up for about an hour, and were listening to whatever radio signal was available. Coincidentally, an exhausted settler was heard asking for help, fearing that the raiders he saw in the distance had them as the target. Jamaica Plain was a great settlement in the sense of taking cover behind walls, but it was horrible for actual maneuvering. The situation made Jordan want to groan and celebrate at the same time. It wasn’t often that they got to do something at this hour, especially during the rare times they were actually awake and energized.

“Where you running off to?”

Jordan spun around, noticeably startled. They could barely make out the outline of KL-E-O standing near the back of her dark shop. Her tiny red light was the only indicator of where she actually was.

“I have an errand to run down by Jamaica Plain.”

“Isn’t there a whole team of people to take care of that?”

“I am part of said team.”

“Why not let them take care of it? I’m sure they won’t mind you staying put for an injury.”

Jordan sighed, but tried not to sound bitchy, “Nobody else is awake.” They paused, “Why are you awake anyways?”

“I don’t sleep.”

“Right…” There was a pause, “I’m gonna go now.” They turned towards the door.

“I’m gonna get Hancock if you do.”

“Let him sleep, KL-E-O.”

The robot chuckled, and checked the time. Barely 5 in the morning. She considered following them, but decided to at least let someone know first.

Jordan was off. The settlement wasn’t actually that close to Goodneighbor, but the Castle sure wasn’t responding. They should bring up the idea of sending some Minutemen down there. Or maybe even to Mirkwater. Then again, that’s a genuinely miserable place to live. Maybe the settlers themselves should go somewhere better.

They came out of their own personal thought cloud and realized they were about halfway there. Not bad. A gunshot came from somewhere. That was their que to speed up.

KL-E-O wasn’t exactly quiet, even when just walking. Kind of ironic, really. She wasn’t even sure if her stealth technology still worked. She found Hancock asleep on his couch, a few mentat containers here and there.

“Mr. Mayor.” She poked his shoulder a few times. He rolled over a little.

“Hancock.”

“Hm?”

“Your lover escaped.”

He slowly sad up and looked at the assaultron for a few seconds. He sighed and stood up.

“Firstly, they aren’t my lover-”

“Sure.”

“And second, I wasn’t forcing them to stay here.”

“Then why are you already heading out to get them without knowing why?”

Hancock turned to her again as he put on his hat. He rubbed his right eye and paused before talking again.

“Fine. Fill me in.”

2 out of 8. 2 out of 8, 2 out of 8, 2 out of 8. That’s what Jordan kept repeating to themselves as their dizzying headache pounded. It took all their energy to aim, and their arm was bleeding. Leaking? Bleeding… Both. They held their breath and aimed once again. 2 out of 8 raiders were dead. They had barely made it in time. Both Jordan and the raiders stepped onto the settlement at the same time. There wasn’t even any chance to talk to the settlers.

This place was filled with mostly children, unfortunately. Jordan thought about the kids who get to wake up to fighting and gunshots. That can’t be good for them. Then again, Jordan grew up that way, and they turned out fine.

Oh wait.

They inhaled and used a tiny burst of energy to aim and shoot a raider that had become uncomfortably close. 3 out of 8. Jordan’s shotgun shredded the raider, causing an unnecessary amount of blood to land on them. That was the last of their concerns, but it still wasn’t very pleasant.

Before they could even lower their gun, another raider tackled them from behind, knocking the air out of their chest. Their face smacked against the pavement and their gun was tossed out of their reach.

Jordan used whatever survival instinct they had left to roll themself onto their back resulting in their bad arm becoming pinned. They tried to go for the eyes with the free arm, a petty, but useful method, but their actions were returned by a hard, skin-breaking punch to the face.

Their vision went back for a short second before turning into mostly stars. Another equally agonizing punch followed immediately after. Then another. During the 3rd one, Jordan felt a crack at the back of their jaw as well as one in the raider’s knuckle.

The possibility of a broken jaw sent even more adrenaline through Jordan’s body. In most cases, they would enjoy getting more it, but by now, they might as well have been unconscious. Adrenaline is a funny thing, though. It remembers things you do not. Subconsciously, they shoved their hand to their pocket.

Bleed-out syringe.

Less than a week back, Nate had found a syringer. Jordan was bored, so they decided to try and make some ammo for it. This was the best thing they could make. Not too bad of a choice, but there was the possibility of it not working in the first place.

They ripped it out of their pocket, almost dropping it with the next punch. They blindly stabbed it into the raider’s side. Or maybe his thigh, they weren’t entirely sure.

4 more punches before he went down. Jordan’s ears rang and their head felt inflated. Inhaling through their nose resulted in choking on blood, and the stars were nearly blinding. They grabbed at the rubble, trying to look for some support to help them roll over.

“What the hell kind of a drug was that?”

Jordan couldn’t look over fast enough, but they knew it was Hancock. They mentally groaned. Mostly because they would have to have a long talk with KL-E-O once this was all over.

Speaking of KL-E-O, the familiar, panic inducing sound of an assaultron weapon systems were sounding off somewhere nearby. There was also a lot more screaming, go figure.

Jordan eventually launched themself to their feet. They staggered a little bit, but still went to pick up their gun.

“Can you give yourself a break?” Hancock said, a little hint of anger in his voice. They ignored him, and picked up their shotgun again.

KL-E-O coming over really helped. She took down 2 raiders just by surprise, and from there, the settlers took care of the remaining two. Jordan let out a huff of an unidentifiable emotion. Embarrassment? Anger? Who knows,

“Thanks for coming, kiddo.” A settler gently patted Jordan on the shoulder, “It means a lot. Why don’t you let us contact Garvey for you? That way you can go and recover without worries.”

Jordan paused nodded slightly, and silently began to head back in the direction of Goodneighbor, too zoned out to actually respond or think about what to do next. Blood was smeared over the entire lower half of their face, and some spots were already heavily bruised. Hancock waved back at the settlers before following close behind.

The majority of the day, Dr. Amari had hidden Jordan away, forcing them to at least remotely get to a functional state. Their jaw was not broken, nor was their nose. Or any teeth, which Jordan thought was incredibly lucky. However, the bleeding in their mouth refused to stop, leaving a throbbing sensation throughout their entire mouth.

They sat at the Third Rail bar drinking flat nuka-cola. That okay. They kinda liked it flat. And this one was cold somehow, so they weren’t complaining.

Hancock finished talking with some guy before sitting himself right next to them. Jordan prepared to either be yelled at or bombarded with questions.
“I’m not angry.” He started. “I know.” Jordan could feel they were super moody.
“But can you give me some sort of explanation?”

There it was. They were too tired to roll their eyes. “I was the only one around.” They paused, “I mean… Imagine what would have happened if i didn’t go?” Certain words physically hurt to say.

“I get where you’re coming from, but next time, get yourself some backup okay?” He quickly scanned their injuries, “It’s almost like you’re trying to get hurt.”

Jordan’s head perked up slightly, but almost immediately went back down. The only emotion they showed was exhaustion.

“After you’re all finished here,” Hancock said, slowly forming an idea, “wanna come back upstairs? We can finish whatever we started.”

“Getting high?”

“.... Yes.”

Jordan chugged down the rest of the soda, the taste clouded with metallic flavor.

“Ready whenever you are.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The state house was quiet. Fahrenheit was hanging out with some people outside, and most of the bodyguards were off doing their own thing. Jordan never understood how that could feel safe when so many people wanted him dead.

“So what’s on your mind, kid?” He sat down on the couch and took out two cigarettes. Jordan took one from him and lit it with a lighter from the table.

“My mind feels like glue.” They plopped down on the couch next to him.

“That’s understandable.” He took a puff off his cigarette, “But I mean, what about everything else?”

“What do you mean?”

“I notice you really like to put yourself in these types of situations. You run off thinking you can take care of it without-”

“I’m aware of my limits, Hancock.”

“So why don’t you follow them?”

There was a silence between the two of them. Jordan had actually paused to let a wave of headache pain slide before speaking again.

“I…” They trailed off, their eyes glazing over only for a moment, “I’ll worry about me, okay?” They gave Hancock an awkward smile despite the ache it caused.

“C’mon. Don’t be like that. Even I have guards y’know.” He glanced towards the door, “Where are they?” He whispered to himself.

Jordan put out their cigarette, not even half finished. They then paused to gather their words. It was times like these where they could come off as incredibly angry if they weren’t careful. And even if they were angry, it would subside in just a few minutes.

“You know how you had to do some drastic stuff to feel better?”

“Uh… I think so.”

“That radiation drug.”

“Oh right. Yeah what about it?”

“You took it knowing what would happen. And you needed it.” Jordan refused to look him in the eye. Anger was fading and anxiety took over. They took what they assumed was their unfinished jet off the table. It was still in the same place.

“What are you getting at?” His voice could have easily been mistaken for anger, but Jordan knew it was concern.

“Imagine for a second that someone forced you to stay human.” They made themself numb in order to actually spit the words out.

“Hey, calm down for a second. We’re just talking.” He softened his voice. Hancock noticed their eyes glazing over, especially as they attempted to meet his. Jordan took a puff of the jet.

“Imagine still seeing John McDonough every time you look in the mirror.”

Hancock leaned forward and grabbed their arm lightly, jolting them from their dazed state. Although still holding a blank expression, life seemed to return to their face. They turned to look him in the eye.

“What’s wrong?” He wasn’t angry, just shocked that they would bring all this up. He struggled to make total sense of what they were implying.

“... Just let me do what I need to do. That’s all I’m saying.”

“But that means you’re putting yourself in danger.”

“I can’t explain right now, okay?”

Hancock sighed and let go of their arm, “You know you can trust me, right?”

Jordan stared at him for a second before nodding slightly.

“Can we uh…” They began, “Can I explain later?”

Hancock fought back the urge to pry, which resulted in a short pause.

“How about you come to Sanctuary with me tomorrow?” Jordan spoke before he could continue, “Maybe I’ll be able to word it properly then.” it was a bullshit excuse, but anything Jordan said was not gonna make sense, nor was it gonna come out nicely.

“Sure. But I just want to let you know that it sounds like you wanna make yourself a ghoul.”

“Yeah I realized that after I said it, but that’s not what I meant.” The two of them started to get high together. Jordan zoned out for a little bit, their mind finally being quiet.

“I’d love to make sense one day.”

“Good work.” Preston came up to Jordan almost as soon as they and Hancock stepped into the settlement, “I’m sorry about the Castle not responding. I’ll need to talk to them about that.”

“It’s fine.” Jordan gave him a smile despite the low swelling that had some up in their face.

“How’s the arm, by the way?” He asked.

“Better. It only moderately aches now.”

“Well that’s good. Let someone know next time, okay? And hello Mr. Mayor.” He waved politely to Hancock.

Jordan had to take a second to actually locate where they slept before making a beeline to it. Hancock followed close behind.

Each person had their own corner of a moderately sturdy shed. The division between the four living spaces was clear, as everyone had their own way of living. The person in the far left corner had various types of empty nuka cola bottles, all of which were missing their caps, as well as some kids toys stached neatly alongside them. The person to the left of the door had a locked metal trunk and a crumpled blanket. Some mentats were stacked against the corner next to bags of vegetable seeds. The bed to the right of the door had a shelf above it with vases filled with dead, brittle flowers. The bed had about 3 blankets neatly made over the mattress. Little things to make everyone feel happy.

Jordan’s corner, the far right, stood out a little. Various ink drawings were stapled to the wall. Some papers were covered in writing, not all of it in english. Some made clear sense of what they were, such as hands or houses. But others were confusing and vague, like the picture of a black, smudgy void with eyes. Hancock ignored the fact that some of the darker pictures used blood in them. He glanced to the floor. Under Jordan’s bed were as many books, notebooks and sketchbooks as they could possibly fit. They were in various states of decay, and most of their labels had been rubbed off. They had 1 straw pillow and a rough looking blanket draped lazily over the bed. A few pieces of clothing were rolled up in the floor.

“I’m kind of a pack rat.” Jordan mumbled, “Sorry.”

“Eh, it’s not that bad.” He couldn’t help but stare at the sketches. Jordan faced the fall alongside him.

“I dunno if you’re that into art or anything like that,” they began, “But it’s what I do to stop my reality from crumbling.”

“I’ve never really given drawing much thought. Don’t know where you get the stuff.”

“That’s the thing. It’s so hard to find the material. I gotta use it wisely.” Their voice was low, but definitely less upset than last night, “I notice you’re staring at the bloody ones.”

“Yeah. Kinda reminds me of Pickma-” He stopped himself.

Jordan ignored him for both their sakes, “My point is I don’t exactly always get to do this. So, in order to relax and feel better-”

“You get yourself hurt to vent.”

“Exactly.”

“And why didn’t you tell me that last night?”

“Seemed dumb without some sort of example.”

“Jordan that’s not dumb.” He turned to them, although they didn’t look over, “What’s dumb is you not telling anybody when you need to take care of something.”

“But now that you know that’s the reason, it looks like I’m just wasting resources.” They sighed, “If my body can’t handle it, then that’s that.”

Hancock touched their shoulder, causing them to actually look at him, but not quite in the eye.

“Don’t neglect my friend like that.” He said, adding in a weak smile to try and lighten the mood a little, “I’ll keep an eye out for some paper.”

“I mean, some good does come from this. I get some pretty weird missions. And I’m not expected to be back right away, so I can fuck around as much as I want.”

Hancock wanted to protest, but they seemed pretty set. It was incredibly difficult to read their emotions. They probably weren’t gonna show anything anyways thanks to all the bruises interfering.

Jordan inhaled deeply , glanced at the drawings, and then back at Hancock. A spike of anxiety zipped through them as a tiny idea bloomed in their head. Hancock could practically feel their energy change. He tried not to show any confusion and just let them take the time to say whatever came next.

“Would…”

They stopped talking again, and leaned over slightly to look through the door at Garvey, talking to some settler about god knows what. Hancock glanced back as well, and Jordan took this small opportunity to not actually have to look him in the eye.

“Wanna come with me for the next one?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It wasn’t that Jordan didn’t want Hancock to come, in fact, they very much did. It had been too long since they’ve gone on an adventure together, and going alone was becoming increasingly risky and lonely. Hancock was secretly thrilled, both because it’s been so long, and he could see just how often Jordan had been allowing themself to get hurt.

“The only thing that I really need done at the moment is kind of… difficult.” Preston looked a little hesitant to tell the pair what the assignment would be, which was odd for him.

“Whatever it is, I’ll be fine with it.”

“Jordan, I would very much prefer you recover a little bit before going into this.”

“Just tell me.” They tried to make their voice lighthearted, but really, they were getting annoyed at being treated like glass.

“No, because then you’ll run off and do it.”

Hancock snickered. Jordan returned with an elbow jab.

“He’s right you know.”

“Yah, but you don’t have to say it.” They turned their attention back on Garvey, “What’s your definition or recovery?”

He thought for a minute. “If you rest here for the night and let someone take a look at you the next day, then we can decide from there.”

“That’s still very vague.”

“Okay. If you stay here and recover enough to at least fight without any past injuries severely hindering you, I’ll tell you what the mission is. I’ll even save it for you unless it becomes urgent.”

Jordan groaned dramatically, but quickly returned to an achy, playful smile.

“Fine. But no more than 3 days, excluding the 3rd night, and even that’s pushing it.”

“That’s fine with me.”

“Oh! And I get to help if Sanctuary gets raided.”

“...... Alright.” Garvey sighed.

The rest of the day was pretty boring. Jordan did a little harvesting and made themselves and Hancock some food. It wasn’t much, just various vegetables heated up in water, but it was still food. Jordan also had a little sewing project going on. They were making pillowcase after pillowcase for anyone who needed it. Hancock went around and helped out with little things, like filling the generators and the like. He didn’t mind. It was always a new experience handing out at settlements during various parts of development. Last time he came to Sanctuary, there were about 10 people max. Now it was thriving pretty nicely. Not to mention Goodneighbor was pretty unique when it came to how a settlement functions.

When it began to get dark out, everyone tended to relax from the work. Some groups sat around cooking stations or on newly-built benches. Others just went to bed to do whatever before sleeping.

Jordan was one of those people.

Hancock was busy talking to various settlers, so Jordan snuck away into their corner. They pulled out a book with a weaved straw cover, set up an oil lamp, curled up on the mattress, and began to try and read it. The pages were marked up to help them translate the words quicker, even though it didn’t help that much. They had been stuck on this book for quite some time.

“What you reading, sunshine?” Hancock stepped inside, trying to somewhat include them in the light festivities going on outside.

“I’m not entirely sure anymore.” They handed him the book as if he would know what it said. The puzzled look on their face was almost comical.

“Yeah well no wonder. What is this, Mandarin?”

“Japanese.”

“Why are you trying to read a Japanese book?”

“It’s something to do.” They crouched down and fumbled under the mattress, “I also have Russian, Spanish, German, and a book on sign language, but that one is a tutorial book.” With each language listed, various numbers of books were slid out from under the bed.

“How many of the languages do you actually understand?”

“4-ish.”

“Jesus christ.”

“I know, right? It’s one of the few things I’m proud of. However, I don’t know anybody who speaks Japanese or Russian so I could be getting all of it wrong.” They neatly packed the books back into their specific little slots, “Did you come to see me for anything specific?”

“Nah. Just checking up on you.” He waited for Jordan to stand back up before he continued talking, “How’s the arm doing?”

“It feels kinda okay. I’m thinking of taking the dressing off for a few minutes.”

“I bet you probably could. Wouldn’t hurt anything.”

Jordan pulled up their sleeve and began lightly tugging on the gauze. Hancock realized that they might just yank it off and hurt themselves further. He lightly took their hand and started to unwrap it himself. He felt Jordan instinctually pull against him, but only slightly.

“Well it definitely looks better.” They said optimistically.

“Jordan, it’s grey.”

“And purple! But the grey is just dead skin mixed with the various fluids.”

“Why the hell are you smiling?”

“Because it looks cool.” They giggled, “Lemme take this to Codsworth. I’m pretty sure he’s in charge of the medical supplies now.” They passed Hancock and headed down the street towards Nate’s house where Codsworth likes to float around.

Hancock lingered back for no particular reason. He took another look at the wall covered in sketches. This time, he noticed there were staples with nothing but torn bits of paper, the drawing ripped away from its spot.

He also took a look at the blanket. It was woven, and dark, and felt somewhat rough. He picked up a corner and noticed it was really heavy for a blanket. And he was also very sure he felt some woven wires in between the fabric layers.

Kind of odd, but he didn’t think anything of it.

“So what is the mission by the way?” Hancock asked Preston as they sat around, doing nothing in particular.

“A glowing deathclaw has been spotted lingering around Somerville place. By the way they’re explaining it, it sounds like the thing is lingering just past a nearby hill. Ideally, I want it to be a sneak attack. But I also don’t wanna send Jordan into something like that yet.” He paused for a second, “Don’t tell them that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Hancock thought for a minute, trying to make this easier for anyone involved, “Maybe I could take care of it for you. It’s pretty irradiated down there, so I wouldn’t have to worry about that.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I never trust deathclaw identifications until the thing is dead. I wanna send in at least 3 men.” He sighed to himself, “I sent some men down to Mirkwater Construction, so I’m a little understaffed. That’s why I gotta wait for Jordan to heal.”

“Hmm. Well, I can still go if needed. They actually asked if I wanted to go with them.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“That would really help us take care of this, thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“All patched up for the night, miss.”

“Thanks Codsworth.” Jordan smiled as they lightly ran their fingers over the new, clean gauze. It felt so protective despite only being fabric, “Perfect as always.”

“Does Mr. Hancock need a place to sleep?”

“Uhhhh I actually don’t know what his plan was. He’s out near the main building if you wanna ask him.”

“I assumed you two were going to find a place to sleep next to one another.”

Jordan stared at one of his 3 eyes.

“Sir?”

“Why would we do that?”

“Well, that’s what Mr. Nate and Ms. Nora used to do before all this.”

“They were married.”

“... Are you and the mayor not married?”

“Let’s ask him where he would like to sleep.”

“Sounds lovely.”

Hancock decided to take a guest bed, despite Codsworth giving him the same round of questions. Although he loved the idea of something as simple as sharing a mattress, there were other things to think of first, as well as the possibility of the whole thing being incredibly awkward. And, the more time Hancock spent with Jordan, the more he realized just how little they actually touch people, even platonically. Anything higher than the shoulder or lower than just above the elbow and they shied away. Consciously or subconsciously, it wasn’t clear.

Jordan read various books as much as they could before their eyes began to strain from the dark. It was a little past 10 when the old lady who slept in the bed with all the vases slowly sat up.

“Are you going to sleep?” She asked. The woman had a deep, heavy lisp and barely spoke in a whisper out of embarrassment.

Jordan signed for what they assumed was “I can stay up.” The lady’s name was Genie. She was in her late 70’s and had almost completely white hair. Her hearing was nearly completely gone thanks to a combination of age and tinnitus.

She reached under her bed and pulled out one of Jordan’s sketches. She got up and walked over to hand it to them.

“I didn’t know if you wanted him to see it.” The sketch was a profile of Hancock, something Jordan had doodled out of infatuation. There were tiny, barely visible hearts sprinkled across the page wherever a tiny blank space allowed. Quite embarrassing, really. Jordan thought it might have been hidden enough, but Genie was just trying to look out for them.

Jordan made the sign for thanks with a quick tap to the chin. In response, Genie asked for a quick good-night hug. Of course, they said yes.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The next morning, Jordan was found petting the brahmin what they had secretly named Smelly. They were waiting for Preston to be finished with his daily rounds of assignments. They didn’t have to wait that long before he came over and gave their injuries a good scan.

“Now before you say anything,” Jordan started, “You know for a fact that bruises get worse before they get better. So Just because my face looks yellow and purple doesn’t mean that it’s gotten worse!”

“I’m aware of that. I’m more looking at your arm than anything.”

“I can make it do stuff.”

“That is definitely a prerequisite for most things.” He smiled a little bit, “Can I see it without the bandages?”

According to Preston, things looked pretty good. Although, he did really try to keep Jordan there another day, but of course they were already planning for whatever mission they were going on. Both Hancock and Preston stared at them pack for something completely unknown.

“Don’t you wanna know what the mission is, Sunshine?”

“....Right.”

“We have reason to believe a glowing deathclaw is nesting near Somerville place.” Preston said, not even having to look at his to-do list, “It’s just beyond the hill in the back part of the property.”

“Wait, then shouldn’t we go at night?” Jordan asked.

“I don’t really trust deathclaw identification until you can study it up close. I’d rather you have daylight to back you up.”

“Okay cool.” They started towards where the majority of the weapons were kept, but stopped short, “Who’s coming with us, by the way?”

Preston had assigned a young boy, about 18, named Josh to come along. He was short and thin and had kind of a depressed energy about him. He mostly worked on the farming and feeding the few animals the settlement had, but he also understood everyone had to fight at some point. He always had his brown, shoulder-length hair pulled back, but that didn't stop tons of little strands from falling into his face. Jordan had never worked with him before, but he’d never been meant to them, so it wasn’t an issue.

Jordan had no idea how many stimpaks they should bring. Maybe 2 or 3 per person? But maybe that was pushing it. The idea of not bringing any for themself, and only for the others, flickered across their mind. Eventually, they stood there long enough debating the number that Hancock came over.

“Bring six just in case okay? Two for each of us.” He lightly put his hand over their shoulder for reassurance. The truth was, he knew exactly what thought had crossed their mind, and he wanted to make sure there was enough.

“Hey I have a dumb question.” Josh asked as they chose their weapons.

“Go for it.” Hancock said, only focusing on the shotgun he already had.

“Can I snipe for you guys?”

“Of course!” Jordan said, cheerfully. The terrain was mostly hills, so sniping would be a good plan.

“Okay. I’m sorry if that seems lazy.”

“Not really,” Hancock chimed in, “You don’t look like you’re the kind to enjoy fighting.”

“I don’t.”

“Welp, we can finish this quickly, then.” Jordan was taking a close look at an automatic weapon. They always went about killing deathclaws by simply filling them with bullets, “Ooh you know what I just remembered? Maybe I’ll have enough material to finish that deathclaw armor. Everyone make sure not to shoot it’s upper back. Oh! Idea! Horn helmet!”

“Jordan calm down.” Hancock couldn’t hide his smile.

“No.”

Somerville Place had a pretty good amount of radiation storms, and of course, just to make this more difficult, a pretty bad one rolled in from the glowing sea. Josh has a gas mask on as soon as he saw the cloud in the distance, but Hancock practically had to force one onto Jordan’s head. And although they didn’t take it off afterwards, they certainly weren’t happy about it. Hancock was kinda glad that he could at least make them do something as simple as that.

“I’m gonna set up here if that’s okay.”Josh stopped at the top of a hill overlooking the front of Somerville Place. He looked at his two fighting partners for approval.

“This seems good.” Jordan took a good look around, “I’ll come back up and let you know what our situation is.”

Josh nodded and began to set up his rifle, getting a pretty good view of the other hills in the distance.

“He’s behind the hill in the back.” The woman spoke softly through her own gas mask. She always shut the doors tight behind her, muffling the sounds of thunder.

“We see it pop up every once in a while when we’re out gardening.” Her husband said, also speaking relatively low, “We always have to freeze and stay right where we are until we’re sure it isn’t moving anymore.”

“We can’t keep living like this.” She chimed in.

“Consider it taken care of.” Hancock said, trying to comfort them with his confidence, “You’re sure it’s a glowing deathclaw?”

“I mean, it’s a bright greenish-blue in most areas.” The husband said.

Jordan nodded in response. They were already raring to go and watch another huge beast fall.

The two of them walked back outside, the wind still blowing loudly. Jordan waved to get Josh’s attention. When they did, they pointed directly to the hill the couple had pointed out. He gave a thumbs-up in response.

“Please be careful, okay?” Hancock said to Jordan before they got too close to the hill, “Many of these injuries you’ve had lately; they’ve allowed you to pause for a second to collect yourself. But these things don’t stop once they start.”

“Hancock, I’m aware. This isn’t my first deathclaw.”

“Don’t get defensive.”

“I’m not. I’m just telling you I’m not stupid.”

“Hey.” Hancock stopped and turned to Jordan, “I know you know what you’re doing. But I also know you well enough to understand that this urge to let yourself get hurt wasn’t very big when you killed the last one. You were more careful.”

Jordan shrugged. Hancock couldn’t see their expression under the gas mask. After a short pause, they let out a long sigh.

“You are aware that I don’t just stand there and let it happen, right? I just have some extreme methods sometimes.”

“And you know very well what those methods result in.”

“It’s a win win.”

“Jordan, enough. You’re gonna end up killing yourself-”

“Can you just shut your fucking mouth and help me kill it?!”

The two of them stared at each other for a short while. Hancock’s face was blank with shock. He didn’t show it, but he also felt a little hurt. Normally, he knew how to choose his words to keep things calm. Meanwhile, Jordan couldn’t tell if they were hot or cold with anger. They practically ripped off their cas mask and hung it by a strap on one of their belt hooks. They gave hancock an icy, unforgiving glare before pulling out a grenade and yanking out the pin with their teeth, despite the ache on their jaw. The entire time, they didn’t break eye contact with Hancock.

They gave it a strong toss, just barely making it over the height of the hill. The heat of the explosion was barely detectable from where the two of them were standing.

Something big and heavy stirred.

Jordan’s seething expression faltered slightly when they realized it was time to fight. They held their rifle just a little tighter, and began to slowly circle around the edge of the hill.

They barely saw it at first, nuzzled up against the side of the nearly barren hill. They looked around for the glowing aspect, and were a little puzzled when nothing significantly green made itself known.

“Oh great.” Hancock muttered.

The deathclaw shifted to stand, and a rainbow of neon green, orange, reds, and light blues flowed across it’s rough skin. It begane to make sense why the settlers thought it was a glowing deathclaw.

Out of all the colors, this chameleon deathclaw showed mostly green.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The first gunshot rang through the air, landing squarely on the monster’s jaw. Josh made the first hit, providing a distraction.

Jordan didn’t hesitate to immediately empty their gun into the deathclaw’s soft, exposed belly. Hancock followed up with a molotov.

Josh’s second powerful shot zipped through the air, this time shattering the thing’s left horn.

“Aw fuck.” Jordan’s plan of making something out of the horns drifted away. They didn’t waste too much time before aiming at the stomach again, but the thing was slouched over, eyeing Jordan and Hancock as the last of the molotov burnt away.

The world seemed to pause for a while, just Jordan and Hancock, staring the deathclaw in it’s deep, endless black eyes.

Suddenly, the thing launched itself at the two of them, nearly leaping in order to get to its prey as fast as possible.

It barely took a single leap before looming over Hancock, but he was already lining up a clear shot at its stomach. The shot didn’t do much, but there was clearly blood, so it was some sort of progress. Jordan could only spot a few bullet holes in some of the less armored parts of it.

It was then that Jordan got a very stupid idea.

They lightly tossed their gun aside, trusting it would be there when they got back. They took out a teeny little dagger and took advantage of its slouched position. Hancock was frantically reloading and backing away from the thing, which was getting ready to pounce again. However, this deathclaw was just the perfect height for Jordan’s idea.

They ran as fast as they could, jumped , and grabbed on the monster’s one remaining horn to gain leverage, and jam the blade into its eye.

They dropped down, leaving the dagger, and immediately sprinted back to their gun. The deathclaw shrieked so loud it nearly knocked them over. Hancock had trouble not covering his ears.

Another clap of thunder rang through the atmosphere, bringing more smog in with it. Just because injuries were happening did not mean they were winning.

The thing shook its head around for a good minute before another sniper shot sliced through its jaw, destroying a large section of it.

The slight feeling of victory was destroyed when the thing turned towards where these bullets were coming from. Before Hancock or Jordan could land a shot, the deathclaw zipped across the settlement, straight towards Josh’s position.

The two of them sprinted towards it, their main priority to stop the thing from hurting the person who least wanted to be in this exact situation.

One more shot came from the sniper rifle, and less than a second passed before Josh began screaming. The deathclaw had now stopped, grabbed the poor kid, and flung him into the side of the house.

“Go check him. I got this. “Hancock said as he continued running. Jordan nodded and immediately switched directions.

“Stupid fuckin’ lizard.” Hancock aimed his gun again, directly towards its good eye.

Josh was gripping at anything he could find. He didn’t try to roll over or sit up. His head was tilted back slightly, and every other breath sounded like a struggle.

“Deep breaths, dude. What hurts?” Jordan put aside their gun and brushed back his hair. They recognized this kind of breathing as the kind where you were in so much pain that not moving was your only idea on how to make it stop.

After realizing he could barely talk, they simply began to go through the basic steps they had been taught. Their hands went to unbuttoning his old flanel to scan for injuries and lessen restriction. They got about halfway down before their hand bumped something hard. Josh violently tensed up, and grabbed Jordan’s sleeve, his eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritted.

They moved the fabric, and fairly large puddle of blood rolled down along with the fabric, only just now beginning to soak in. A huge, jagged piece of old chopped wood had jammed itself straight through Josh’s torso on impact. The wood wasn’t as sharp as it could have been, so the skin around it was stretched, white and a sickly purple all at once. The wound bled heavily and consistently.

“Deep breaths. Try not to panic anymore.” They kept their voice soft and held the kid’s hand as he desperately tried to steady his breathing, and not think about his situation.

Meanwhile, Hancock had somehow gained the upper ground over the deathclaw, who was slowing down, and showing less and less color. Jordan taking out an eye really helped the situation. Hancock was able to take out the other eye in a few gunshots, and now it was all in the timing. Eventually it became some sort of game for him. Fights were always way more fun once he knew how to go about it.

One last molotov finally did it. The thing fell and didn’t get back up again, or even stir for that matter. He let out a happy sigh of relief as the adrenaline of the fight continued to run its course.

It was then that he noticed Jordan stand and point a bright orange handgun in the air. He realized that something very, very horrible must have happened. Jordan never used those unless it was something they couldn’t handle.

He skidded down the steep hill and ran over to see just how bad their situation was.

He had a hard time not staring at Josh, who’s entire torso was now covered in a thick layer of sticky blood. Strands of his hair had begun to stick to his face from all the sweat. His eyes were glazed over, and he continued to try and grip onto anything that he could find.

Hancock pulled out one of his stimpaks, but Jordan stopped him.

“I already gave him 3. It doesn’t do anything with the wood still in there.” They continued to brush his hair back, “I don’t know if it hit anything, so we shouldn’t touch him.” They had a blank, but solemn expression.

Turns out the flare actually signalled the Brotherhood of Steel instead of the Minutemen. It was probably for the best. The Brotherhood could perform more surgery in cleaner environments. Not that the Minutemen were dirty, but rather they didn’t have as many resources.

By the time they took Josh away for medical care, he was out cold. He was a sickly pale and looked horrible, but at least he wasn’t impaled on wood anymore.

The Brotherhood members gave hancock a constant stream of nasty looks, some followed by the occasional comment.

“We kill things like you by the hundreds.”

“Then how come I’m still here?” He spat at the initiate. He paused to light a cigarette.

The two of them were sitting on a bench in the old Boston airport. Kind of far, but they had the best doctors here. Jordan was in a slight dissociative state, staring intently at the floor with no sign of movement.

“You okay, sunshine?” His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

“Hm?”

“How you holding up?”

They shrugged, “I feel like I failed.”

“Nah. We weren’t mentally prepared.” He thought for a second, “Nobody could have expected that deathclaw to go after him like that.”

“It was so fast…”

“I know.” Hancock gave it some thought, and followed it with lots of hesitation. He slowly and gently put his arm around them. A slight flinch almost made him pull away , but they quickly relaxed, and he brought them in for a tiny hug. Nothing too restricting, nothing too forceful.

“I’m sorry for yelling.”

“Don’t be.”

“I just… Don’t really like that phrase.”

“Which one?”

“The one about killing myself.”

John didn’t press further. He just sat there for a few minutes, taking the time to relax. They were both tired. And Jordan was a little annoyed that they forgot their perfectly good gas mask in Somerville Place. It was petty to think about right now, but it was better than thinking about the guilt.

“Hey, I’m gonna go look for a radio to tell Garvey what happened.” Jordan said, standing up. Hancock nodded.

Even after they had disappeared into the main building, Hancock thought about the small hug. It meant so much to him in the sense that they didn’t pull away, but he was also deeply concerned about the possibility of them just staying silent and not doing anything about it for whatever reason.

Jordan looked for the radio room in a heavy haze. Their skin still had the impressions of where he hugged them for just a short few minutes. Their skin almost burned, but not really in a bad way. They denied it all the time, but they were touch starved. Touch starvation and fear of touch don’t exactly play nice with each other. Now they get to feel all the aching heart strings that activate from just a simple hug. Every arm touch, every hug from Genie, every… well, that’s all they really knew. Maybe it was because it was a new person, but this sting felt oddly different.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“So yeah it turns out my belt loop is broken.” Jordan sighed, “I specifically told myself not to leave anything.”

“Don’t worry we can go get it one of these days.” Hancock took a drag of his cigarette.

The two barely had a chance to continue the conversation before a husky voiced called out for Jordan. Maxson was steadily approaching, his no-fun-allowed expression plastered on his face as always.

“Ayy Maxson! Kill any children on this fine evening? Puppies? Or maybe you set someone on fire for being too sensitive-”

“That’s quite enough.”

Jordan snickered, arms crossed, ready to keep the insults flowing.

“I only came to tell you that I reported to Garvey about the entire situation.”

“Well now it looks like I wanted to signal you guys over them. Trying to burn my bridges for me?”

“Ms. Allena, are you even listening to me?”

“I sure am now, you fucking cunt.” Jordan hissed.

Hancock threw his cigarette aside and stood up as fast as possible, “Okay that’s enough. Maxson, we get it. You told Garvey everything. Just let us sit here and wait for the Vertibird. We don’t need your company.” He kept his voice pretty steady, but his anger levels had skyrocketed pretty quickly, and his face was beginning to show it. Jordan didn’t take their eyes off of Maxson.

“I don’t have to listen to an abomination.”

Jordan noticed Hancock reach for his knife.

“Vertibird’s here.” Jordan grabbed into the hand that was reaching for the weapon and pulled him towards the landing pads, leaving Maxson to stand on his own.

As soon as they sat down, a Med-X vial came out and Jordan jammed it into their thigh to make it look like a stimpak. After a deep, reluctant breath, they visibly forced themself into a happy expression and posture.

“Anyways, sorry the mission didn’t go as planned,”

“Eh. No need to apologize. Animals are animals. They don’t make sense.”
He thought for a minute, “I’m really happy you didn’t get hurt.”

They turned to him for one last little smile of “thanks”, But slowly, this emotion faded, and they turned towards the windy opening of the Vertiberd. A small delusion was planted in the very front of Jordan’s brain. I was a fleeting thought at the beginning, but it would come back. Those kind of thought s always came back.

The pilot said they weren’t really allowed to drop them off at goodnightboor, but he would do it anyways. I didn’t really make sense to drag them all the way back if they weren’t planning on staying at sanctuary. Neither Jordan or Hancock argued against it. Garvey was informed, Josh would be returned to Sanctuary tomorrow morning, and unless something urgent came up on the radio, there was nothing to worry about. By the time they arrived, it was pretty dark out.

Jordan had a little shoulder twitch going on that they didn’t bother to calm. It wasn’t as intense as their normal twitches, so they just let their muscles do their thing. The town was quick to welcome them back, and Dr. Amari quickly made sure to give them both a once-over. Thanks to all the Med-X, Jordan felt like a heavy piece of fabric. Hancock gave them the look that meant he was tired too, and they eventually were able to politely make their way into the State House.

“How’d everything go?” Fahrenheit asked. She too sounded a little tired.

“It went pretty good.” Hancock said with sincerity. He mostly believed it went okay because Jordan didn’t get hurt again.

“The kid we were working with got impaled on wood, but other than that, it’s all good.” Jordan’s voice had a hint of sarcasm. Fahrenheit gave a slightly puzzled look, but nodded anyways.

Jordan huffed and flopped on the couch. Hancock sat down next to them, giving them a caring look.

“Wanna go to sleep, sunshine?” He wanted to reach out and pull them close, but decided against it, and brushed the thought aside.

“Eh.” They played around with their hands, “I’m not really in the mood to sleep.”

“Don’t worry, okay? Josh is gonna be fine, and Maxon doesn’t deserve the time of day.” He made an active effort to not sound aggressive, to make sure Jordan knew they were at the front of his mind instead of the other problems.

They gripped at the exposed collar of the thin shirt underneath their armor. “I don’t feel good.”

“... Wanna take that off? It can’t be comfortable.”

Jordan looked down at the light armor strapped around them. Without replying, they began to undo the various belts and velcro.

“So what’s wrong?”

“I uh… I have a very paranoid thought.” They slid the straps off their arms, carefully avoiding the healing dog bite.

“And what’s that?”

“What if I jinx everyone else by not getting hurt?” They knew it sounded stupid, but that’s how these things were processed.

“Is that your way of saying you think it’s your fault?”

“Good guess.”

“Well, trust me. That was a fast deathclaw. It shocked me too. And we both tried to run there in time. Honestly, I just think it was horrible luck. And keep in mind, we were prepared for a glowing deathclaw, not a chameleon.”

“...You got me there.” They fiddled with a strap on their armor, “I might go and see him tomorrow.”

“Seems like a good idea.” Hancock paused, “You know what else is a good idea?”

“You’re going to say dru-”

“Yes, I was going to say drugs. I’m not sure how that Med-X is doing, but you might want some to at least chill out.”

“I think I’m all set.”

“Okay.” He sounded a little disappointed, not because they didn’t wanna get high, but rather they seemed sad and distracted, and there was really nothing he could do.

Jordan shuffled, and laid themselves against the arm of the couch.

“You’re allowed to lay down y’know.” He said in a soft voice. Without responding, they laid down completely, letting their head get comfy on the arm rest. It didn’t look completely comfortable, but it was perfect for now.

Hancock found himself in the awkward situation of wondering whether or not to try and comfort them. He barely moved his hand to do so, but realized that their eyes were already closed. He decided there were better times for this kinda stuff.

“That song is was too fast. Plus it’s a duet. I need someone to help me sing it!”

“Jordan, I don’t know Japanese.” Magnolia was genuine, but she couldn’t help but smile through this whole ordeal. Jordan kept insisting on the two of them singing a duet together.

“C’mon. It’ll be fun. The song’s about sex.”

“No thank you.”

“Fun fact, did you know there were like… a ton of names for brothels before the war?”

Mongolia put a hand on her head, clearly holding back a laugh, “Didn’t you have to go somewhere today?”

“Oh true. I gotta see Josh.” They scanned the Third Rail to see if he had wandered down there without notice, “Any idea where Hancock is?”

“I think he’s doing some trading.” She gave Jordan a mischievous look, a smile still plastered on her face, “So when are you two getting together?”

“Why are you like this?”

“Don’t deny it.”

Jordan sighed, glanced at the floor to thing a second, and then looked back up at Magnolia, “How old is he, by the way?”

“Oh I highly doubt he’s over 40.”

“Not sure if that makes me feel better.”

“Well it doesn’t really matter. He’s a ghoul.” She scanned Jordan, “And you can drink comfortably, so I’m assuming you’re over 20.”

“.... How… How old do I look?”
“Not gonna lie, between your sense of humor and your baby face, when we first met, I thought you were 14.” “Okay I’m leaving.” They turned towards the exit.
“Wait, how old are you?”

“20!”

“I was right!”

“No!”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

They were only able to give Hancock a short wave. He seemed to be trading with people that looked like they could burn your house down if you sneezed too loud. But of course, he had it under control.

Turns out they had fallen asleep on his couch. They woke up with a blanket over them as well as some water on the coffee table.

When they got to Sanctuary, Jordan was given the usual interrogation by Preston to make sure they hadn’t received any injuries during the trip. Surprisingly, the whole way back was smooth sailing. This was mostly due to the very limited ammo they had with them, but who’s keeping track?

Apparently, Josh had slowly made his way to the garden behind the house he was put in. He found an old rickety chair and did his best to set up and fill a watering can. This all took about 2 hours total.

Jordan found him with his head tilted back slightly, eyes closed, to take in the light sun. He still looked pale.

“Oh, hi.” He said, seeing them turn the corner.

“Hey you. How you feeling?”

“I am in constant, moderate pain.”

“Yeah that’ll happen.” They leaned against the side of the house, “Any reason you aren’t sleeping?”

“The whole Prydwen was so dark.” He made an uncomfortable face at the thought, “There’s no light at all unless you’re on that terrifying deck.”

“Yah it’s not the best place to be.”

“Did you stay at Goodneighbor last night?” While saying this, he leaned over slightly to turn off the water.

“Yep.”

“So how are you two?”

“Hm?”

“You and Hancock.”

“Apparently, this is new information to everyone, but we are not together.” They giggled, “Codsworth actually thought we were married.”

Josh reached for the water can and put his hand on the handle before realizing the situation he set himself up for.

“I got it. You rest.” Jordan picked up the heavy watering can and began to give each row a nice soak.

“I’m surprised. You guys mesh well enough, I thought by now you’d both flirt enough to get somewhere.”

Jordan just shrugged in response.

“I think you gotta go after him.”

“I’ve been trying.”

“Lies.”

“Shut up, Josh.” Jordan couldn’t help but smile.

Josh smiled back, “And, one queer to another, he’s so cute.”

“I know!” Jordan perked up, glad that they weren’t the only person to say it out loud.

“I wonder what he looked like before.”

“I think he mentioned he was blonde but that’s all I’ve ever heard.”

Josh snickered, “I bet if we take a look at his brother we can get an idea of-”

Jordan stood straight up, failing to push back a laugh, “I refuse to believe Hancock used to look like that ugly lump!”

Josh had to force himself to not laugh if he wanted his stitches to stay intact.

After dealing with the trading, Hancock spent the rest of the day going around and talking to the townspeople, trying to keep a good friendship with all of them. He ended up in the Third Rail, as usual, talking with whoever was up for a conversation.

“And I swear to god, if they give that poor kid another assignment like that,” He said, referring to Josh, “Then I might just try to round up some willing people her, because that just wasn’t fair.”

“I mean, everyone has to fight at some point.” The tough-looking guy to the left of him said.

“No, I get that, I just think there was an easier way to plan that. And what if I hadn’t offered to go? They probably would have shoved another inexperienced person in there.” Hancock took a sip of whatever livier-killing drink was in his glass.

“I’m surprised Jordan didn’t get hurt again.” A woman near the back of the bar doing her own thing said.

“Yah me too.” He responded.

“At least when that kid dies, we’ll know they died having fun.”

Hancock’s train of thought halted. The phrase got a few giggles. Nobody else pondered the thought. Nobody else considered anyone other than themselves having something deep and hidden. Nobody thought. He set down his nearly empty drink and headed out.

“I hate to ask this of you so soon.” Garvey scanned his crumpled list, scattered with notes, both crossed out and open.

“No worries.” Jordan stood there, arms crossed, but not upset. It was getting late and Jordan was already in pajamas. Luckily, this was for tomorrow.

“I need you to clear out this little corner. We’re thinking of making it into a smaller settlement.”

“Sounds good. What’s living there right now?”

“Ghouls.”

“Okay cool that’s easy.”

“I’ll mark it on your map for tomorrow.” He paused to mess around with Jordan’s smashed-up pip-boy. Dealing with that thing was always way more effort than it was worth.

“So this is simple enough that it’ll be just me?”

“Yeah, if that’s okay with you.” He handed back the pip-boy.

“Yup that’s okay.”

“I’m gonna check you for injuries, you know.” He gave them a caring look, trying to show more concern than threat.

“Sure.” They replied with a sigh. They began to turn towards their house when Garvey lightly grabbed their arm. They did their best to hide the flinch that rattled through their body.

“Please tell someone. If not me, maybe Hancock?”

Jordan didn’t say anything. Their mood had turned a bit sour, but more of the sad kind than the angry kind.

“Y’know,” He let go of their arm, “I think I kind of understand what’s happening. You don’t have to explain anything, okay? No invasive questions. But you have to be honest with the things that are gonna threaten your safety.”

Jordan gave him a weak, but genuine smile. They nodded slightly, and slowly headed to their bed.

As they walked into the small building, they felt a small tap on their hand. Genie slowly sat up.

“Do you have any books?” She whispered, almost to the point where Jordan couldn’t hear. They signed, “of course” and went to go get a variety of choices from under the bed. And although the light kept them (as well as the other two roommates) up, it at least took their mind of reality’s thoughts. Each minute that ticked by, each page that flipped, Jordan couldn’t help but smile a little.

Hoarding books had a few perks.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Of course it was pouring out. Everyone with an open window was abruptly forced into consciousness thanks to the cold rain. That’s when they decided they might as well head out now.

Jordan felt waterlogged even before they left Sanctuary. The river overflowed only slightly, and the unstable parts of the bridge gave way just a little more than usual. A fog had settled, making their entire mission just a little more difficult.

They decided to bring more grenades than usual. It’s always incredibly entertaining to blow up packs of sleeping ferals.

Jordan had to move out east the next morning towards a tiny, barely intact cabin. Luckily, there wasn’t much else surrounding the place, so it would just be the ghouls.

The overgrown grass clung to Jordan’s old boots, and the dirt squished with every step. They had a slight concern over the ferals hearing them before they could kill the majority, but that was quickly subsided when they spotted the first one tucked underneath the porch. This was then followed by them noticing two more in the cabin itself.

They took out a grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the cabin. A second and a half passed before the explosion rang through the silent landscape. The warmth from the explosion was a nice little break from the freezing rain.

Jordan instantly regret this decision, but when it comes down to it, there really wasn’t any other way to go about this.In fact, a grenade was probably the smartest idea.

The thing glowed light a beacon through the fog. The slow, twitchy movements caused a panic all its own. Once it was alert and aware, it shrieked, nearly blasting Jordan back. They covered their ears, but didn’t take their eyes off of the ferals that rose back off the floor, despite just being blown up.

17 in total.

“Didn’t expect you to be up yet.” Fahrenheit was putting various supplies into their various sections down in storage. Hancock had wondered in behind her.

“I didn’t expect you to be up either, but here we are.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” She motioned to her lack of armor, which was replaced with fairly comfortable clothing.

“Me either.” He scanned the warehouse, unsure of why he actually came down in the first place. He had woken up to the loud sound of rain. Somehow, he was wide awake in an instant, and the thought of going back to sleep wasn’t even considered.

“... You look a little uneasy.” She said. She set down the tiny pile of supplies.

“Only a little.”

“It was that stupid bitch at the bar, wasn’t it?”

“Which one?”

Fahrenheit snickered, “The one that put the kid’s death in you head. Don’t think I didn’t notice how you reacted to that.”

“You were down with us?”

“Yeah. I was checking the bar stock.” She said, reminding herself about the work she was doing.

“You’ve been working a lot lately. Why don’t you chill out for the day?” He said, feeling a little guilty that he hadn’t noticed or offered to help, “I’ll finish this for you.”

“I like organizing it.” She said in an attempt to reassure him. This was fairly genuine, “Now answer my question.”

“Well, why wouldn’t it bother me?”

“Actually, things like that normally don’t. What’s happening that that’s a genuine concern for you?”

“I’m pretty sure they don’t want me to go around telling everyone.” He smirked.

“So you are a thing.”

“No.”

“Then why would you care?”

“Again, I’m not just gonna spill that.”

“You suck.” She joked. She picked up her pile and got back to sorting, “There’s two more crates if you wanna help.”

The last grenade. Jordan had used 20 of them in total along with all 3 stimpaks they had brought. The glowing one was squirming in the mud, gathering up the strength to scream again.

They were breathing hard, wiping water and sweat away from their eyes every few seconds. Various scratches littered their body, and they were becoming more and more disorganized in fighting as the fatigue took over.

There were 17, but Jordan had killed almost 50. All their ammo was gone, and this was all they had left besides a knife they weren’t familiar with using.

The final explosion went off, the heat radiating dangerously close to them. The glowing one was done, but there was 9 more to deal with. These ferals were fast, but only when they wanted to be, so although they could be brushed off, it wasn’t always without problems.

They readied their knife and waited for one to charge. Each time, they would use their own momentum to drive the blade into the creature’s neck. This worked 4 times before some began to creep behind Jordan.

They spun around just in time to see another one charge, they swung their knife, barely missing its neck. It’s hand caught on their lower stomach, ripping open a small section of their shirt, as well as some flesh. Another swing from Jordan, and the thing went down.

They decided to stop waiting. They inhaled sharply and used every single ounce of energy left in their body to just get this thing over with. Each movement ached and water flooded their eyes, but eventually, the partially-blind swinging had every feral dead. Some twitched, others floated along in the muddy puddles forming.

Jordan stood straight up and sighed deeply. They lightly kicked a ghoul’s head as one final ‘fuck you’. Various parts of them stung, but mostly the divet in their abdomen. They paid no attention to the steady bleeding that fought to soak their shirt even further. They thought it was relatively small, just a bad scratch in the current grand scheme of injuries.

They flopped down on the stairs leading to the porch, and took a minute to just sit there and breathe. Their next step was to set up a small, temporary radio signal, but they needed some sort of a break beforehand. The green glow of the feral’s dead body caught their eye, and they realized that there was no RadAway in their bag.

Preston could tell something was wrong when Jordan’s mission was taking a little over two hours. Normally, he didn’t think anything of it. But it was pouring out and Jordan would typically come straight back to change. He began to gather some medical supplies to set aside for their arrival when he heard Sturges shout in celebration.

“The settlement is up!” He pointed to the blurry terminal screen. A new, unnamed slot had appeared at the top of the list.

“When did that show up?”

“I’m not sure. But it means Jordan ain’t dead.”

Preston stood back a little, somewhat relieved. He still wanted to get some supplies set aside, but now he at least know they weren’t taken over.

“Wait, you’re just noticing that?” Jordan poked their head into the doorway. They had already grabbed the crude ice pack Preston had set aside on a table and placed it to one of the more bruised scratches.

“Oh hey.” Sturges waved. Preston began to approach them to make sure they were okay, but they put up their hand to stop them.

“I’m a little scratched up, but I’m okay this time. I promise.” They paused and glanced down at their feet, “I’m gonna go see Hancock in a bit, okay?”

“... Um… Sure. Make sure you check in with Codsworth. I left you some supplies.”

“Oh. Thanks.” They perked up a little, “Is there any RadAway?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The cold of the evening was starting to set by the time Jordan nearly kicked open the door to the state house. This alerted the guards, resulting in multiple assault weapons being pointed in their general direction.

“Hello boys.” They said, trying to lighten the mood. They walked past the guards and up the stairs to Hancock’s office.

Fahrenheit was nowhere to be seen, but Hancock was in his usual space on one of the couches. He immediately seemed to perk up at the sight of them. Jordan gave him a soft smile in return as they headed into the room.

During the walk over, Jordan’s mind had become a little cloudy as it sometimes did. This normally resulted in a sour mood, but they couldn’t really find a reason to be bitter at the moment.

Hancock had his overcoat and hat off. Seeing him in mostly white was always a little shocking, but Jordan couldn’t complain. Of course, he had mentats in his hand. Nothing unusual.

In their zoned-out state, they sat down next to Hancock. Not just against the armrest of the small couch, but actually next to him. They didn’t lay down or anything, they just sat there, allowing themself to slouch.

“So what’s been up with you?” He asked, clearly seeing something was off, but deciding to see if they would bring it up themself first.

“I fought some ferals today.”

“Wasn’t it pouring out?”

“Yep.”

“That sounds fantastic.” he replied sarcastically.

“Oh it gets better.” Jordan said flatly, “Apparently there was a glowing one somewhere in there. So technically I killed all of them maybe four times.”

“Oh jesus.” He couldn’t help but chuckle, but then quickly moved on, “Did you get hurt at all? And be honest.”

They shook their head, “Nothing severe. Just the usual stuff.”

He gave them a doubtful look, but decided to leave it at that. They clearly weren’t in the mood to be interrogated, even if it was coming from a caring place.

“What about you?”

“Nothing much. I messed around with inventory, found out how hard Fahrenheit’s been working. That kind of stuff.”

Jordan turned to face him and brought their knees up to their chest to form a ball, then folded their arms. They scanned his face for a brief second.

“Did you used to look like your brother?”

Hancock was a little startled by such a random question, but quickly collected himself, “No, not really. We got a lot of comments about that as kids.”

“Me and Josh were talking about what you looked like. I said I refused to believe you looked like that ugly tato.” They smirked. Hancock laughed, relieved that there was something positive floating in that head of theirs.

After a few seconds, he noticed Jordan’s eyes glaze over, staring off into the distance once again. There was a pause.

“Are you doing okay today, sunshine?” his smile had left and was now replaced with caring concern. Jordan slowly nodded, clearly not processing the question.

He gave some thought on what to do next. A hug was too much, but doing nothing might be just as bad. He did the next thing that came to mind. His hand slowly moved towards the side of Jordan’s head, slow enough that even in their dissociative state, they were able to know what was happening. However, they didn’t really react.

His hand lightly brushed their left cheek, then moved to sweeping their shaggy hair out of their face, despite knowing it would be right back in its original place.

They let him continue without interfering. The familiar burning of touch came back, and Jordan had to fight it a little bit as to not slap his hand away. Their brain went over all the emotions that such a little action could convey. They could cry, get mad, shut down further… Anything.

He began to put his hand back down, but Jordan, still out of it, grabbed his hand, tightly at first, but then gently. They brought it back to their face. And they held it there.

Hancock wasn’t sure if he was even shocked. He didn’t pull away, didn’t ask questions, didn’t do anything. He just let them do what they needed to. And that was a lot better than him assuming the wrong thing.

They held him there for a minute, allowing the original burn of touch to fade away. They let their eyes close. The dissociative state seemed to melt. It was replaced with something similar to relief or relaxation. He was warm. A little rough but warm.

Jordan held his hand there for almost five entire minutes before letting it slip away, they opened their eyes again, and began to stand up.

“I’m gonna go check out a room for the night.” They muttered quietly, a mix of embarrassment and returning dissociation.

“Do you wanna just sleep here?” He asked, unsure of what answer he was looking for exactly. He didn’t want them to feel like they weren’t welcome just because they showed a little vulnerability, but he also was afraid of smothering them. This was so out of character for them, and he could only imagine what was actually going on in their head.

It took Jordan a good few seconds to actually process what Hancock was asking.

“Uh…” They couldn’t help but glance away. Their face became a little hot.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” He became a little worried that he’d scare them off.

“That… Might be nice.” They tried to string together a sentence.

“Okay.” He stood up slowly, “Come here.” He led them to a small room on the next floor down. It was pretty tucked away. In fact, Jordan had barely noticed it despite being in the building an uncountable amount of times. A little red flag went off in the back of their head, since this was normally the kind of thing that lead to a horrible situation.

But it was fine. Just a small bed in the corner with a little table in the corner, papers scattered across it. It was incredibly dim, no windows, and a teeny lamp illuminating about 40% of the room. Surprisingly, the bed was made.

“This your room?” They asked, starting to come back to reality a little bit.

“Yeah. But I got some stuff to do pretty late tonight, so you can sleep here.” He lightly rubbed their shoulder, forgetting for a second about how careful he needed to be about touch. But Jordan didn’t seem to mind at all.

“What’s happening tonight?”

“A small group of people who work for me are coming back to let me know if anything’s come up.” He said, “They just keep an eye out for nearby trouble.”

“Hm.” They thought about asking if they could join him, but they had been awake for a bit longer than they wanted to be, and exhaustion tugged at every muscle.

“You gonna be okay here?” He asked, a little hesitant to leave. Jordan gave a tiny nod in response.

“Thank you.” They said quietly. They turned to look at Hancock and tried to give a convincing smile. Not to say they weren’t happy, but it was hard to show emotion at the moment.

“No problem, sunshine. I’m gonna let you relax. Come get me if you need anything. If I’m gone, Fahr can help you. She hasn’t been sleeping much anyways.”

“Okay.” They watched awkwardly as Hancock left the room, gently shutting the door behind him.

Jordan took off their armor, organized themself, and turned off the light before crawling onto the creaky bed. They had a feeling he barely actually spent time in here. They let themself melt into the pillow, and grabbed two fistfulls of the blanket. Just something to hold close. It was a habit of theirs.

They were too tired to think, and before even ten minutes had passed, they were asleep.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Jordan had absolutely no idea when they woke up. Not like it really mattered. They remembered where they were, as well as snippets of the dissociative episode last night. They started to get back into their armor and gather their stuff together, trying to leave the room as if they had never been their in the first place.

The guards were still there, pacing around as usual. Hancock wasn’t in his usual spot,and fahrenheit wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Even when they went outside, Hancock wasn’t walking around talking to whoever wanted to.

Daisy was inspecting some new materials, questioning whether or not to actually try and sell it. Jordan approached her counter, allowing her to come out of her deep focus.

“Hey there.” She walked up to the counter, half in business mode.

“Hi.” Jordan rubbed their eye a bit before continuing, “Have you seen the mayor?”

“He’s getting some stuff for crops. Said it was a really good deal if he could negotiate it.” She paused, a small smirk growing, “How old are you?”

They gave her a question look, “20.”

“Okay. I thought you were younger.”

“Yeah I get that a lot. Why do you ask?”

“I thought it was a little disturbing for Hancock to go after someone so young, but if that’s your real age, then it’s fine.”

They rolled their eyes, trying not to show any attitude towards an innocent concern, “I don’t think he actually wants anything to do with me. Calm down.” They turned and headed towards the exit.

“Oh I bet he does. The way he talks about you…” She trailed off, still smirking, “And where are you going by the way?”

“I’m a little bored, so I’m gonna do some old fashioned scavenging. It’s been a while.”

She considered trying to stop them, but instead glanced over at her supplies, “Need anything?”

It was a quiet day back at Sanctuary. Everything was running smoothly, so people took the chance to relax. Some decided to go exploring, some did whatever they enjoyed at the time, others just kept working since there was nothing else to do.

Genie took this time to try and tidy up the little house her and her roommates shared. She swept, replaced her vase’s flowers, and even washed some sheets.

After all that, there was nothing left to do. She turned to Jordan’s overflowing book pile. The two of them had a pretty mutual trust when it came to each other’s things, but there were some things Jordan really didn’t like people handling. Whether the book pile was one of those things, Genie had no idea.

She hesitantly walked over and kneeled down, beginning to sort through the books that were already poking out of under the bed. She had already read most of these, so she dug into the ones further underneath. She saw a fairly small blue book titled

Hoot

. That would do fine. Genie reached further underneath the bed and slid the book out from its pile, allowing papers to fall and crumple under each other.

She groaned. That was probably a super delicate book barely holding itself together. And now it was scattered across the floor.

Genie began to gather the papers together. To her relief, she realized they weren’t one big book, but rather more of Jordan’s drawings along with their “drawing tools”.

The bloodiest drawings yet.

Jordan decided to walk towards the Northeast. They were comfy with the area close to Swan’s place ever since the raiders were cleared out. Unfortunately, Swan himself was still there, so being quiet was a must.

They headed a little further towards the north, following a small trail of waste bins. Most of them contained pretty good stuff. They were finding ore caps than usual, as well as some soap. Always useful.

They came across a sleek, circular building painted in bluish-greys. No meat bags, no ugly, obvious fences, their best guess was leftover synths. But they couldn’t quite put their finger on what exactly this building was.

Jordan thought back to earlier. Hancock and Jordan being an item seemed like a distant fantasy to them, but Daisy was someone Hancock talked to quite a bit. Either he mentioned something and Daisy was serious, or Hancock liked to poke fun at the idea. The second option made them sigh a little bit, and they forgot to take caution when closing another empty waste bin.

The familiar mechanical beeps came from a decent distance away. Their heart stopped and their body took over, diving for behind a pile of rubble.

Jordan heard it before they actually felt it. The familiar

thp thp

of turret bullets hitting flesh. The pain hit them before they hit the ground, and all they could do was curled up in a ball behind the bin, waiting for the pain to go away. Their breathing stopped, and inhaling was out of the question. Certain muscles spasmed, trying to cope with the impact.

The turret continued to go through its rounds, eventually reaching the second set of beeps, then shutting itself off.

They tried to keep their breathing low in case anybody came to investigate. They tightly shut their eyes and tried to focus on listening for other dangers. Sure enough, various voices began yelling not to far away.

Gunners.

“Yeah, fuck that.” Hancock tossed his shotgun down, splatters of fresh blood on it. Daisy gave him an odd look, but didn’t really bother to ask. He didn’t come back with anything, so clearly whatever deal was being made went wrong.

“So how’d everything go here?” He asked, leaning against the wall of the shop.

“Kinda quiet.”

“Did you run into Jordan on the way back?” KL-E-O teased from next door, fully expecting a yes.

“... No. Why? Where’s Jordan?”

Daisy inhaled, “Out scavenging.” She questioned whether or not telling him was a good idea.

Hancock took a minute before responding, “After yesterday?”

“What happened yesterday?”

“Forget it. I’ll be back. Which way did they go?”

“Hancock, stop.” Daisy held back the urge to roll her eyes, “They’re an adult… apparently. And they don’t need you following them everywhere. Don’t you think that might get a little annoying?”

“I don’t think you understand.” He responded, his voice low, “There’s a lot going on that you haven’t seen. Just trust me on this one. Which direction did they go in?”

Daisy visibly rolled her eyes now, not bothering to hide her anger, “Towards Swan.”

It took a solid 30 seconds for Jordan to get the strength back to pick themself up off the ground. All the while, the voices of Gunners grew closer and closer. Jordan pressed the gunshot wounds on the lower left side of their torso. 2 shots, through and through. They silently prayed nothing important was hit. They were pretty close the the edge, so they tried to let the worrying thought go by.

Jordan tried staying crouched, but that hurt too much. Instead, they made a break for a crumbling brick wall. As they ran, they heard no turret beeps, no extra shouting, no other enemies.

Behind the wall, they took a look in their bag. No stimpaks, but there was gauze, water, and a jacket, along with various other things. That would have to do. They drank half the water, used the other half to rinse the blood away from the wounds, and, as tight as possible, wrapped the gauze over it. The tightness was incredibly uncomfortable, almost painful in itself, but it would have to do. They also put the jacket on to hide any stains. Jordan always thought that it was best to look uninjured, so people wouldn’t try to take advantage.

They peeked over the top of the wall, saw nothing was moving, and slowly, carefully, headed back towards Goodneighbor. That was enough exploring for a while.

Hancock could see Swan’s pond a short distance in front of him. In his experience, Swan stayed put as long as nothing landed in the water.

He headed out into the open space with caution, keeping a sharp eye out for Jordan. He developed a bad feeling about the entire thing on the short walk over. They were having trouble hiding things lately which, although not a bad thing, told him that maybe things have been going downhill for quite some time.

He sighed deeply at the various scenarios this could lead to. The thought of them dead made him sick and dizzy. He wondered if him being honest with them, about loving them, then maybe they would be just a little more careful. Or they might just never come back entirely.

Hancock was too lost in thought to notice someone from behind a building corner. They barely waited before ramming themself into him in an intense surprise attack. His shotgun flew out of his hand.

He barely had any time to react before the other person’s gun hit him hard over his head. Next thing he knew, he was straddled, pinned, and had the gun pointed between his eyes.

“Oh fuck sorry.” Jordan said casually, as if literally nothing had happened and they weren’t still looming over him. They hiked their gun over their shoulder and inspected the blow to the head they had given him moments earlier. This position allowed Hancock a good view of the dark, shiny blood stain soaking their jacket.

They got off of him and dusted their knees off. Then they patiently waited for Hancock to get up as well, before flinging themself into a hug.

“Woah. Okay.” He kept his balance and returned the hug as best as possible, not used to Jordan being so eager about physical contact. But he didn’t complain. He mostly wanted to move to questions.

“What happened, sunshine?” He asked as they broke away from the hug.

“I went to look around.” They glanced back at their bag, “I got some soap.”

“No I mean what happened?” He gestured to the blood-soaked jacket.

“...Oh fuck.” They froze like a deer in headlights. Not only because they couldn’t hide this one, but because the gauze clearly did nothing. They fiddled with the zipper and zipped up the jacket.

“You can’t really hide something like that.” Hancock said, trying to keep his voice soft.

“Don’t tell anyone. I can deal with this one!” They took a step back, unsure of what they were afraid of.

“Hey, calm down. Can I just take a look?” He had a sudden fear that they would just run off if he did anything.

“I don’t need you to.” This was a blatant lie.

“Jordan, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you bleed that bad. And that’s saying something.”

“Oh trust me. There’s been worse.” They tried not to fumble with their words. Their heart began to race at the thought of being poked and prodded and held down again. Not to mention that there wasn’t any point in them healing whatsoever.

“Please?” He took a few slow steps towards them. Thankfully, Jordan didn’t show any signs of running off.

“No. Let me handle this.” Their voice quivered, and they habitually shook their head.

“You need to learn to let me help you.” He was now close enough to touch them. He slowly, gently tried to touch the side of their arm, but it was smacked away.

“Stop.” Their voice cracked, and they felt the burning sensation that usually accompanied tears, “Stop…”

Hancock couldn’t resist holding back another hug at the heartbreaking sound. He pulled them in quickly and held them close. It was then Jordan actually began to cry into his shoulder.

“You gotta come back with me and get this taken care of, okay?” He said quietly. They pulled back, and nodded without looking him in the eye.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“You need to stop doing that.” Elliot said in a manner that was probably way more calm than Jordan deserved. They continually kept smacking the painkiller syringe out of his hand. They were pretty calm up until actually getting to Goodneighbor. From then on, the reality of revealing their newest injury dawned on them, and they fought hard to not have to do it.

“Then don’t touch me.” They hissed, “It’s that simple.” They gripped at Hancock’s coat and hand, almost without realizing. He brushed their hair back and noticed they were sweating. Sweating was usually a telltale sign of genuine pain and distress.

“Hey, you’re lucky this didn’t hit anything.” Doctor Amari made the mistake of attempting to unbutton Jordan’s flannel, which resulted in a vicious attempt to bite her hand. Everyone except Elliot seemed surprised.

“Alright. Relax.” He muttered, lightly pinning their arm and injecting them through the flannel, all in one swift motion.

“Get fucked.”

“Love you too, man.”

Instead of allowing the possibility of a broken needle, Jordan sat still, letting themself be defeated just this one time.

“I won’t unbutton anything, but I do have to lift your shirt up a little. I can’t sew you up through your shirt rips.” Amari said, making sure they knew her next move. They didn’t say anything, just made slight eye contact, allowing her to continue. She pulled their flannel up, a little higher than Jordan expected, but a mere twitch was their only response. The drug had already began to take effect.

Hancock noticed an obvious, shockingly large scar starting just above their belly button. The scar tissue went almost an inch across, and was still fairly discolored. Hancock met Doctor Amari’s eyes, but she just shook her head as a signal to not say anything. It wasn’t the right time. Hancock kept his mouth shut, and instead brushed their hair back again as Amari picked up her hooked needle.

“Guys wanna know a fun fact?” Jordan said in a loud, drunk voice, laying back on a couch in the Third Rail, “Nate told me that back before the war, you couldn’t drink before twenty-one.” Someone in the room chuckled.

“Like… I was pretty sure it was eighteen.” They continued, slurring their words, “Why could you go to war at eighteen, but not drink?”

“Yeah I always got pretty annoyed at that myself.” Daisy said from a bar stool at the end of the counter, “It made sense back then, though.”

Hancock couldn’t help but scoff at the thought. He drank at… 13? 14? Didn’t really matter. He had been helping Fahrenheit, as well as keeping an eye on the heavily intoxicated Jordan. The two of them were now finished, though.

“Mmm… Violence.” Jordan muttered to themself with a grin, almost as if they were talking about food.

“You know what I don’t get?” A guy standing behind the couch said, “I don’t get how this nuclear war happened, causing tons of people to fight, but only a few turned into ghouls.”

Everyone turned back to Daisy, who was now giving it some genuine thought. After a while, she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “Well, fuck.” resulting in lots of laughter.

“Hey can I get one more drink to go for when I wake up in the middle of the night wanting to die?” Jordan said, beginning to stand up. Charlie responded by grabbing a bottle from a shelf.

“You want help?” Hancock asked, already heading over.

“Nah. You saw me walk perfectly fine earlier on.” They responded, just as they stumbled over the corner of the coffee table. He didn’t wait for any other protest, wrapping an arm around their shoulders, grabbing their drink, and heading out.

“I like this room the best because it’s kinda cold and I can just put lots of layers on and relax.” Jordan said as they entered the hotel room.

“I think most of them are pretty cold.” Hancock responded.

“Perfect.” They replied with a smile. They went over to the bed and gently flopped down.

“Hey can I ask you something before you go to sleep?” He asked as he set the bottle n the bedside table.

“Sure.”

“What was that really big scar I saw earlier today?”

Jordan just flat out laughed, “We don’t talk about that one.”

Hancock sighed, mostly to himself. He wondered if a sober Jordan would be better to ask.

“You sound defeated.” They said with a grin still stuck on their face.

“I just wanna get to know you. That’s all.”

“That’s fair. You only know maybe 50% about me. I think.” There was a short pause, ”Eh. Here.” They stood up slowly and slipped off their t-shirt, revealing a worn tank top underneath. Hancock noticed 2 more scars, the same width as the first one, this time angled towards their chest.

They continued, pulling up their tank top enough to reveal that all 3 scars were connected. One huge Y shape that went from their collarbones to their lower stomach, most of the lower part covered in fresh bandages. No other scar came even remotely close to this one.

Jordan stayed that way for a few minutes before letting their shirt drop, “It’s on my back, too.” They turned around and pulled the fabric up to show an almost identical scar on their back as well.

“I read that people call them ‘autopsy scars’ and that you’re only supposed to be cut like that when you’re dead.” They turned back to him, not sure what to expect for a response.

“...I have no fucking idea what to say to that.” Hancock searched for the words, “I’m assuming you weren’t dead when you got those.”

Jordan burst out laughing again, shaking their head, “Nope.”

“So… why do you have them?” He was careful with this question, realizing that this would be venturing into a whole new territory.

“Let’s just say…” They thought for a second, “it takes a village to ‘raise’ a child.” They put the word ‘raise’ in air quotes. Then they headed back over to bed, getting comfy in the first spot they laid on.

“Yeah, I’m gonna need more than that.” He said, trying not to seem aggressive or demanding.

“Aaaaa.” They groaned in a silly way, “Scars happen when injuries happen. .”

“I… Yeah I know.”

“And injuries happen when you aren’t wanted, but still kept.” Their words were becoming more slurred and increasingly quieter.

Hancock sighed, realizing this is as far as he was getting. He walked over to the drowsy Jordan, and brushed their hair back one more time.

“Come lay with me.”

“Hm?”

“Lay with me.” They lazily patted the space next to them.

“I gotta take care of some things, sunshine.”

“You can’t call me sunshine and then not lay here with me. That’s just mean.” They said between giggles.

“And you can’t just show me those scars and give me little to no information.”

“... That’s fair. But I still think you should.”

He paused, “For a few minutes okay?”

“Sounds good.” Jordan said, nuzzling deeper into their pillow with a smile on their face. Hancock laid down next to them, noticing how close to sleep they already were. Even though it was clearly the alcohol, for the first time today, Hancock noticed they had color in their face rather than a sickly pale complection.

He couldn’t help but wonder if this curiosity was normal curiosity, or if it was because he cared. Probably a lot of both. Either way, he’d be able to find answers to all the questions his head had formed today. It might take some asking around. It would definitely take some patience.

But to him, it was all worth it.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Hey Daisy?”“Yes?”“What that pre-war song that goes, ‘Feet, loose feet. Dance on your fuckin feet.’ ”“I can guarantee you that is not how it goes.”Jordan’s head was still foggy with heavy pain meds. They had been sitting in Daisy’s shop since the morning, unable to actually coherently do anything. Their eyes were glazed over, and they could barely hold a conversation.Fahrenheit came over and put down a couple of caps, “Can I see what shirts you have?”“Yeah no problem.” Daisy went to the back and started scanning the various shelves and drawers.“Hey… Have you seen John?” Jordan asked, coming awkwardly close to slurring their words.“He went to Sanctuary.” Fahrenheit responded.“What? Why?”“I’m not sure. Maybe to check up on Josh? That’s my best guess.”
***
“You sure this doesn’t qualify as snooping?” Garvey asked.“I try not to think of it like that. Especially with good intentions.” Hancock muttered, realizing that, yes, this is indeed snooping. He realized that stressing Jordan out with questions was just as bad as pulling information out of them while intoxicated. This was all he could think to do.Garvey sighed, “Alright, but only because I agree with you. They shouldn’t keep it all bottled up.” He sat himself down on the concrete outside of the main house. Hancock joined him.“Sturges found them digging through the trash a little over 4 years ago. Maybe 4 and a half. They were hostile on sight, but didn’t actually try to attack. Later we learned it was because they were too weak. One of our medics mentioned a fever as well.” He paused to choose his words, trying to avoid skipping over any details, “Their scars were still fairly open, but not enough to give an indication of what really happened. It seemed pretty infected, too. Even then, there were times where the poor thing would cough up blood, and we often had to sedate them in some way to treat them, even if it was just a stimpak.” He thought for another moment, “I should probably mentioned they didn’t talk for over a month. And even afterwards, we couldn’t find out anything past what we had experienced.”Hancock let the info sink in for a second. This only added more questions to the growing list in his head. It was a little frustrating, but fascinating at the same time.“Well, thanks. I didn’t know any of that stuff if I’m being honest.” John said.“No problem. Glad I could help.” Garvey glanced around, “I’d go try Josh next. I know sometimes there are things you only tell close friends.”Josh was in his usual spot, staring at the plants. This seemed to be his area for resting. Maybe he liked to protect them. After all, he never really let anybody else touch this area. Sure, he helped out with the other plots and shared the food from his won, but the caring process was all him. Right now, he accepted help. But he was always there to monitor it.Around his eyes were a little darker than usual, but he still seemed fairly stable.“Hey.” He said softly, his face going from blank to happy.“Hey. How you feeling?“Better.” He nodded, “What did you and Jordan come down for?”“It’s just me. But speaking of Jordan, I actually got some questions.”“Oh okay. Cool. Take a seat.” He gestured to a lawn chair in one of the corners of the garden, “What do you wanna know?”Hancock gave the wording some thought, “Have they ever told you what happened before they lived hear?”“Uhhh…” Josh thought for a second, allowing himself to gaze off into the distance, “I remember we had to explain to them what a stimpak was, but they knew about RadAway. I found that pretty weird.”“...Okay.”“Oh. I also gave them their first book. Something involving a local family.” He snickered, “Did you know they used to call parts of Boston “southie”?”“Is that when they started hoarding them?” Hancock asked, kind of just making conversation at this point.“Yah. They told me that books weren’t allowed in their old house, but when I asked them why, they said they didn’t really know either.”John paused, “Where would they not allow books?”After almost a minute of silence, and Josh thinking hard, his eyes widened.“What?”“They say that about a lot of things. Aid wasn’t allowed, painkillers weren’t allowed, sometimes they used to say that talking wasn’t allowed at times.”“What the hell? This can’t just be self hatred.” Hancock said, trying to make something click, but failing to do so.“Well, it’s definitely part of that. But…”Genie poked her head around the corner, not exactly knowing how to introduce herself. She had only seen him in passing. She sheepishly held up a stack of crumbly paper that looked like it had been wet, and dried naturally. They were inky, splotchy drawings from underneath Jordan’s bed.“Here.” She whispered, handing the drawings over to Hancock. The drawings, created with a mix of various media and blood, consisted of vulgar, gorey portraits, mostly of girls. Many were missing clothes. Some had phrases crudely scrawled alongside the subjects, such as, ‘Where are my eyes?’ and ‘Made with bloatflies.’ There were a few pictures that made Hancock sick to his stomach. Those were the ones with children. However, it was always the same child, always the same girl, always the same subject.He tried to speak, but no words actually formed. He tore his eyes away from the gore fest in his hands and turned back to Genie. He began to talk, but she held up her hand and took out her own blank piece of paper and pencil.The conversation that followed involved Genie writing about how Jordan used to pray often and then cry afterwards. Before they talked, they would sit outside in radiation storms without protection and look guilty, as if they were about to up an leave to finish some responsibility they had long left behind. Unfortunately, this was before they and Genie could communicate. Before anybody could communicate with Jordan at all. Eventually the praying stopped. The storm watching stopped. But the guilt still seemed to linger.
***
Jordan let out yet another hitched breath, feeling nothing but the pulsing wave of pain wash over their body without warning. They were way passed due for another dose of pain meds, but a combo of forgetting the time and not allowing themself relief resulted in them not being able to get up and actually get it. So now, they just layed on Hancock’s couch, letting themself ache.They heard the door open downstairs. Their mood immediately lightened as they realized Hancock had come back, but it was yanked back down through another surge of pain.“Hey sunshine. You look terrible.” He said as he walked through the threshold, genuine concern in his voice.“Hehe. Thanks.”“I mean it. You’re bleeding. And sweating.” He said, scanning Jordan’s shaking body.“I am?” They glanced down to see a deep red stain had begun to creep its way across their shirt. They sighed, “Yeah.”“Can I take a look?”“Rather you didn’t.”“C’mon. Just for a second. I’ll help you up.” He moved to where their head was and began to slowly help them sit up. Splitting, hot pain shot through Jordan and into their skull, but they forced themself to get up nonetheless.“So I went to Sanctuary today.” Hancock started, beginning to unravel the bloody bandages.“So I’ve heard.”“I talked with some people who care about you…”The wording of that sentence made Jordan’s fight or flight response go off, although they couldn’t pinpoint why, “The hell does that mean?”“I mean Garvey, Josh, Genie-- who is incredibly nice, by the way. I should learn to talk to her.”“...Yeah it’s worth it. But what do you mean? Where is this going?”Hancock had now gotten to the actual gauze, “I asked around. I was trying to find answers, but I think I’m just gonna have to ask you these things.”“John, what did you do?” Jordan pushed his hand away, allowing the gauze to fall and the wounds exposed to open air.“What happened to you?”“Excuse me?”“Were those you in those drawings?”“Stop it!” For the first time in the entirety they have known each other, Jordan swung at Hancock. He pulled back a bit, knowing they were too weak to do any damage at the moment. He gently held their wrist.“You need to explain something. Not a lot freaks me out anymore, but the children you drew…”“Where did you get those?” Their voice cracked.“Genie.”“I’m gonna fucking kill her. I’m personally going to kill-”“Sunshine. Calm down.” He said, brushing their hair out of their face and doing his best to calm them down before adrenaline gave them more power, “It’s just us, okay? We’re just talking.”They exhaled and refused to make eye contact with him. They shut their eyes, knowing that an explanation would have to happen, even though the words were disgusting to actually say.Hancock tried a gentler question, “Any reason you draw yourself so girly?”“That’s all they saw me as.”He would have to come back to that issue later, “Did all of that actually happen, Jordan?” They became visibly more distressed at that question, so he quickly moved on.“What about the praying? I didn’t know you were religious.”“I’m not. Don’t say that.”“Then why’d you do it?”“I thought it was what everyone did. I thought everyone braved out rads and I thought everyone who didn’t do these things were nasty and gross and dangerous.” They still refused to look at him.“Sunshine, what happened?”They inhaled slowly, and subtly nuzzled against Hancock’s hand, which had moved to lightly hold their cheek.“I’m assuming you know about the Children of Atom.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Jordan allowed themself to take long, drawn-out pauses as they explained the situation. They only really did this to avoid crying. The entire time, they fidgeted with their nails and didn’t look up from the ground. “I was born into the cult, but it was never made clear who my actual biological parents were. It was more of a communal parenting thing. Apparently, it was kinda… against the rules to have children. You either convert members or kidnap them, but you don’t create them. So because of this, I was considered dirty and unwelcome.” They zoned out for a bit, pausing the fidgeting and staring at the wooden floor. Hancock chose his words, “So they tortured you? Just for existing?” “Uh… sorta. But there’s a bit more to it than that.” they spent a good few minutes collecting themself in silence, “The idea was that I was just a little behind in my enlightenment, so the elders looked for ways to speed up my process.” Their voice cracked at the thoughts that came with that phrase. Hancock questioned whether or not to stop them there and let them relax, but Jordan was already starting to explain more. “One of my elders found uh… a medical journal. At least that’s what I think it was. There was no real cover or title or copyright information, nothing that real books have. So I think it was someone’s notes.” they paused and inhaled sharply, “That’s where they found this kind of incision. It’s where they learned to uh…”
“You don’t have to say it.” “That’s the thing, though. It’s a little more than just… what you see.” They gripped at their shirt, not really sure whether they were grabbing at their wound or their scars, “We referred to radiation as ‘His glow’ and it was ideal to pray next to a source of radiation.” Hancock noticed Jordan’s voice cracking more often, and the way they began to shake. “Why don’t you get a stimpak, sunshine? Take a breather.” “If I don’t tell you while I’m at it, I’ll probably never tell you.” He decided to back off. As long as they weren’t bleeding out, he wasn’t gonna push them to stop. “So… Because being exposed to rads was the supposed closest thing to Atom, in order to speed up my enlightenment… they wanted to expose as much of me as possible at one time.” they did their best to try and zone out while talking about this, “So they would strip me down, tie me to something, usually a wall or a fence or whatever was closest to the missile, and... open me up. Then they would pin the skin back… and have me sit there for a while.” Hancock’s heart dropped. It was the kind of drop that drained a person’s face of color and took hours to go away. His thoughts raced. He tried to imagine the sight of a young kid, tied down next to a main source of radiation for hours at a time, suffering. Jordan started again, able to relax a little now that the big part was out of the way, “This happened maybe… once every two months? I’m not completely sure. I just knew it was never enough to fully heal. They would usually only open the skin layers, but I remembered a few times where they opened my muscles, too. … They would crudely stitch that layer back up so nothing would fall out…”
“... Is that why you can take so much pain now?” “Yeah I think so.” Hancock stood up and quickly headed to the closet in Farenheight’s office where the painkillers were kept. Jordan couldn’t help but feel relieved. They had been ignoring the pain as best as possible. “And I mean… They would do other stuff, but the rest wasn’t done to just me.” Hancock decided to try and direct it past the most gruesome part. He tossed them the stimpak and sat down, “Did you live at the crater?” “Yeah.” “That seems like a rough place to live.” “It was. The ground was always really hot. The puddles burned people a lot and the air was always thick. I didn’t realize that until I ventured out into the commonwealth, though.” Their voice had become calmer and monotone. The stimpak was definitely helping them relax. “How’d you escape?” He asked. There was a long pause. Jordan’s expression became confused, “I don’t really know, honestly. I just remember I found better clothes on the way up to Sanctuary and eventually the Minutemen found me.” “... A kid shouldn’t have to go through that.” Hancock said in a somber tone. He couldn’t get the image out of his head. To his surprised, Jordan just shrugged. “I dunno.”

15 minutes later, the pair was high out of their mind. Both out of boredom and because it helped calm Jordan’s pain and anxiety. Anxiety was replaced with a low, dull sadness. Hancock noticed tears constantly fall from their eyes. Their crying was silent. The two of them didn’t say a word to each other. In the fog of intoxication, it suddenly dawned on Jordan what they actually said. This was no longer a secret. It was out. Someone knew. Hancock knew and he had seen their scars. This realization made their chest tighten, made them gag out of panic, made their eyes go wide with the regret of being vulnerable. They lurched forward and grabbed at their shirt collar for comfort. Breathing wasn’t easy. “Whoa, hey, talk to me!” Hancock gently grabbed their shoulders and brought them back to sitting up. Jordan looked him dead in the eyes. “You can’t tell anybody about this! Anybody!” They violently grabbed his shirt to pull him closer, “I shouldn’t have told you. Nobody else can know!” They released his shirt, stood up, stumbled, and practically ran out. All Hancock could do was sit there in confusion and disbelief.Jordan burst out into the fresh, cool air. They stumbled out of disorientation and decided to head to a room in the hotel. They needed to be alone. They needed to try and shower. Or eat. Something. The whole routine was filled with fits of crying and hyperventilating. The shower hurt the wounds and they were too exhausted to go to get some food. To make things worse, they had left their bag back in Hancock’s office. Jordan wasn’t mad at Hancock. They felt incredibly stupid, admitting to being vulnerable in such a horrendous way. Those thoughts weren’t supposed to come back. They were supposed to die with the kid they left back in the Glowing Sea. Now these things were at the forefront. They were no longer being ignored. They pulled up their shirt to see the few spots that were still red and healing. There weren’t many of them, and they didn’t hurt. They brushed lightly over them. The skin felt unnaturally smooth. The healed scars felt soft. For once, Goodneighbor seemed silent.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Jordan’s plan was just to up and leave before most of the settlement woke up. They didn’t feel like talking or explaining why they were leaving so suddenly. Being seen storming out would probably result in people assuming they and John had fought for whatever reason. While making the bed, they groaned loudly to themself. Their bag was up in Hancock’s office. “What’s up?” Fahrenheit asked groggily. Jordan couldn’t help but be a bit startled. She had been completely silent until now. “My bag is in the state house.” They huffed. “Then go grab it.” “No thanks.” “Really? Why? Did Hancock do something stupid?” She leaned against the door frame, her face blank. “No. I just…” They looked around as if something in the room could save them from that question, “I told him… some things. And now he knows said things so I can never show my face around here again.” They exaggerated a shrug to try and tone down any and all seriousness to the statement. “That’s dumb.” Fahrenheit said bluntly. “Yeah but it’s not, though.” Fahrenheit inhaled slowly, “I heard what you said.” Jordan could feel their face grow hot and almost felt tears welling up, “But-” “That’s not something to be ashamed of, dude.” She glanced away for a second to choose her thoughts, “What are you worried about?” “He- and everybody, really- thinks I’m already unstable as it is! The last thing I need is to be treated like I’m made of glass.” They turned their sadness around and made it into anger. “Well maybe if you cared for yourself more, people wouldn’t worry as much.” She replied with a sarcastic tone. “Ugh! Let me handle myself!” They knew Fahrenheit was right, but it wasn’t something they wanted to think about. They made their way to the hallway, but she blocked them with her arm. Jordan didn’t even fight back. It would be a pointless attempt with their injuries. “You’ve been keeping that in for a while.” she said in a monotone voice while trying to meet Jordan’s dodgy eye contact, “Does anyone else know?” “I mean… Nate kinda knows.” “Yeah I figured.” She paused and gave her next words some thought, “Can you stop at the doctor’s before you go? I think Hancock would appreciate that.” Jordan scoffed, but knew that it would be good to check over themself and maybe even stock up on medical supplies. They and Fahrenheit silently made their way to Dr. Amari.***Hancock sleepily set aside Jordan’s bag, even sneaking in some mentats for later. He didn’t plan on seeking them out. He was worried about stressing them out even further. He thought about the night before. Everything seemed fine for a while after Jordan had explained everything. Without warning, he noticed them begin to hyperventilate. The random aggression that followed threw him off even further. After they ran out, he had sat there contemplating what to do, or if he should even do anything. In the end, he decided to stay where he was.Fahrenheit appeared in the doorway, in her day clothes and armor now. She gave Hancock a silent questioning with looks alone. He shrugged in response.“I don’t know what happened. Did you see ‘em?” “Yeah. They’re angry at themself, I think.”“Welp, I’m assuming their gonna try to run off-”“They’re at Amari’s right now.”He was somewhat shocked at that. He stood up and grabbed Jordan’s bag, “You think it’s a good time to see them?”“Not the best time, no, but they’re gonna leave after the check-up is done.” She left the doorway, heading back to her own room. *** “Make sure to eat more often, okay?” Eliot said as he searched for disinfectant. Jordan nodded.“I’ve also noticed you got a sunburn on the back of your neck.” Dr. Amari gave the spot a light rub, “Wear a hood. It’s been sunny lately.”Jordan was the first to notice Hancock coming down the hallway with their bag. Much to Hancock’s relief, they couldn’t help but smile. “How you feeling, sunshine?” He asked, setting their bag down on the table they were sitting on.“Oh, y’know.” They paused for a beat, “I think I’m gonna head home for a bit.”Hancock sharply inhaled, “... Sanctuary?”“I… I don’t know yet actually. I’m sure I’ll stop there first, but I don’t know if that’s my end destination.” They avoided his eye contact, voice somewhat monotone. “... Any reason why?”Jordan just shrugged. They looked to the floor as Eliot began to apply the cold disinfectant, “I think about it a lot. A lot of my frustration comes from the lack of closure. I don’t even know what I want closure on, but I know I need to do something.” Their chest tightened up at the thought of returning, as well as the reality of that possibility.“I’m sorry I made you talk about it.” “Don’t be worry. I probably should have said something earlier. I’m sorry for yelling at you.” Their voice got quieter over the course of the sentence. In all honesty, they felt like crying again, but all their tears and energy had been used the night before. Hancock lightly grasped Jordan’s hand, “It’s okay. We all have things that hurt to talk about.”Eliot finished his tasks and Dr. Amari allowed Jordan to leave.Hancock followed them close behind as they made their way to the settlement’s entrance. They stopped and turned around to face him with a blank expression. They looked tired and their eyes were still a little puffy from a night of crying.“I know you’re capable of doing things on your own. I know you want me to relax around you. I also know that me asking to tag along makes it look like I don’t trust you. But I’m gonna be completely honest: I enjoy your company and I wanna go on this adventure with you.” Jordan’s face went from blank, to surprised, to teary-eyed. They snatched his hand and yanked him into a tight hug. They gripped his coat tightly as they forced back burning tears of joy. “Are you sure?” They asked, almost in a whisper.“Of course I’m sure.”They pulled away and happily headed towards the door with a little extra skip in their step.Hancock was somewhat confused, but more than happy to see Jordan excited and smiling.