First Time Questin'
Lucy MacLean was relatively happy-go-lucky, or as Cooper had kindly put it once during their travels, “positivity leaks out yur ass.” While the wastes may have dampened her positivity, it certainly wouldn’t stop it. Lucy was a busy body at best. She was almost constantly doing something in the vault, she worked, she was in clubs, she worked out, she did it all. That was something she was glad for now, she was in decent shape. And now, she wanted to keep moving, not thinking about anything apart from what her hands were doing.
Today there was no time to lay and rest. As soon as the sun was up, they were all getting their weapons prepped. “Lucy, Coop, we should go talk to Marcus, he’ll have work for us most likely,” Sev spoke. She wished that they didn’t have to immediately work, but time was not on their side.
Cooper didn’t respond, but Lucy nodded in agreement, good enough for Sev. Everyone knew that a full day of work laid ahead of them, physical labor was some of the best paying work in the Mojave.
Work always needs to be done in settlements and Jacobstown was no exception. Marcus was happy to tell them of some work he was willing to pay for. Some scattered groups of raiders needed to be taken care of, some plants needed planting and tending, and some pipes needed to be repaired.
Lucy was excited, if she knew anything, it was how to repair pipes. It was always nice when her small skillset was actually useful in the wastes. The three discussed what to do and what jobs to take. Sev and Cooper figured they could handle a couple of raiders, in fact they seemed itching to get to it. Lucy said she’d fix the pipes, and whoever got done first would start gardening.
As soon as Sev and Cooper had left, Lucy pushed them to the back of her mind, heading to the tunnel that Marcus had pointed her to. She let her hands work and her mind shut off, or at least she tried to.
As her mind drifted to Cooper, she told herself to shake it off and keep working. When her mind drifted to Sev, she told herself how she was just confused and brushed those off as well. The thoughts kept coming back, no matter how hard she fought it.
Lucy worked on the pipes for hours, and upon being paid after Marcus checked her work, she started planting more plants in the garden while Dogmeat and Rex laid down and watched her. She was a bit concerned, she knew that both Cooper and Sev were skilled gunmen, so it was odd that they still hadn’t made it back, even as the sun got lower in the sky.
~~~~~
“Hey Coop, you seeing this shit?” Sev asked, wiping her forehead covered in sweat and raider blood.
“What in the good goddamn,” Cooper muttered looking at the horror scene in front of him.
Sev looked at the raider camp, a rickety looking brahmin pin, old patched up flags of a bull, crosses with still living people strung on them, and a group of raiders, dressed in rags kneeling before a Legion flag. “Fuck, that’s a Legion cult,” Sev spoke breathlessly. She had heard rumors of little cults dedicated to Caesar popping up, however she blew it off, figuring that it was just left over remnants of the Legion. She never expected that groups of people were actually worshipping a dumbass like Caesar.
Cooper had heard of the Legion of course, in fact when the NCR and Legion were still big, he made sure he travelled in Legion land since they didn’t bother with tolls. He wasn’t a fool though, he was also well aware that the Legion were also batshit insane with a weird set of beliefs. He’d done a few bounties for them, they paid so he played, but even he turned down a couple of bounties from them just cause they weirded him out. “Well, how ya wanna do this?”
Sev thought for a second, running through what gear they had on them. They had both had their fill of close up fighting, “I’ve got two frag grenades, I say since they're all bunched up, we toss ‘em. Then I pick off who’s running while you get in close. Make them panic,” Sev spoke. Cooper had to admit, the woman had a knack for planning.
Sev pulled out the two grenades from her pack, unwrapping them carefully as she kept them wrapped in scrap cloth to hopefully prevent an accidental explosion. She gently handed one to Cooper, keeping hold of the other. “Alright, three, two, one, pull the pin” Sev spoke, ripping the pin out of the grenade and lobbing it to the cult, Cooper followed in suit.
They landed, kicking up a small dust cloud, and before the cultist could flee, they exploded into a bright orange light with ribbons of gore being thrown around. As soon as the grenades had blown, Sev began to shoot her rifle while Cooper ran in to get in close.
He loved this, the adrenaline, the rush, like a good chem kicking in after withdrawal. Fighting was the one thing that made him feel human after the bombs. He’d rarely fought with people watching his back, but he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed it. His ghoul body could take a lot of wounds, but that didn’t mean that they felt nice.
While he was caught up in his thoughts, he heard the distant sound of Sev’s rifle and a splattering of warmth against the back of his neck. He turned to see the body of a cultist with a machete laying near their hand, and now he definitely liked having someone competent watching his back.
~~~~~
Sev’s plan worked, not a single cultist managed to escape. Sev was now carefully removing the people on crosses while Cooper started picking over what the cultist had. Many of them had died or were too weak to handle the process of being uncrucified, but about three were good to go. “How do we repay you?” one of the men spoke. The man looked tired, underfed, and like he was one molerat bite away from death.
“Focus on getting home, but if any caravans and gamblers come through your home, point them to gamble in Primm. I’ve heard that House is shorting people.” Sev spoke, the lie rolling off her tongue like brahmin cream, smooth, soft, and a bit acidic.
The man and others agreed, they had seen what Cooper and Sev just did to those cultists and they did not want to join the large body count if they could avoid it. The three people headed out, towards the direction of a lot of settlements, a good choice on her part.
Cooper was still searching, pulling out anything with value since they could strap it to the mangey brahmin the camp had. He figured that would be enough caps to move on to the next step. The sooner the better, because he was ready to get his daughter, no matter what it took.
Sev and Cooper took what they could, not speaking. Tents were disassembled and packed away along with everything else that wasn’t worthless or too heavy. Jacobstown would buy it, they always needed things to trade and use. From the earlier raider camps, both Cooper and Sev’s packs were bogged down, but with the three brahmin, this trip would be well worth it.
Cooper wrangled them together, herding them along the path with everything they scavenged, ready for the long walk back to Jacobstown.
~~~~~
The pair didn’t reach Jacobstown until the sun was beginning to set. Lucy felt relieved as she had finished up all the work she needed to do and had been left with her own thoughts for a bit too long. She stood from where she was sitting and jogged over with the dogs in front of them.
As Lucy caught up, a nightkin in overalls was tightly hugging Sev. “My grandbaby came to visit! She even brought her boyfriend, and her girlfriend. My, how scandalous,” the nightkin spoke, her voice having a distinctive growl.
Cooper wanted to laugh, he had never seen Sev this flustered. “Hi grandma Lily, just got to turn in this quest to Marcus and get cleaned up,” Sev spoke, hugging Lily back.
Lily let go of Sev, putting her hand on Sev’s head. “Just say bye to me before you head out sweetie,” Lily said, sauntering away.
Cooper and Sev got their caps and sold most of what they scavenged, only keeping the group of brahmin, Sunset Sarsaparilla bottles, Nevada agave fruit, and xander root; along with any ammo that fit their guns.
~~~~~
They went back into the rented room, ready to leave tomorrow. They sat together and tallied the caps they had received. Lucy got 150 for fixing the pipes and 50 for gardening. Cooper and Sev had gotten 300 from Marcus, 243 from scavenging, and 1,021 from selling everything. Meaning they now had almost 2,000 caps, and with what they had brought with them, they had that amount if not more. Along with those caps, they had found nine more star bottle caps, meaning they were only one short, but who’s to say this Festus is that serious about the exact amount of caps?
They separated the caps, putting only some of them in each pack, that way if something happens to one bag or person, they aren’t totally fucked. This trip would be a bit easier, having multiple brahmins that can carry everything so they don’t have to was a blessing.
Once everything was counted, they all took turns cleaning themselves up a bit. Lucy would kill for some Vault-Tec issued soap, and she wasn’t sure if she was exaggerating about how she would kill for it. She missed her timed Vault showers, where she could have hot water for five minutes before switching to cold, she missed shampoo and soap and just being clean. At first, she didn’t understand why so many people looked so unkempt, but she got it now. She was almost certain that she looked like they did.
Lucy ran her other hand over her missing finger, the most notable scar she had received on the trip. The finger had less feeling than the rest of her hand, oftentimes getting uncomfortable pins and needles.
Lucy was so caught in her thoughts that she didn’t notice Sev looking at her, only really noticing when Sev grabbed her hand to look at the discolored digit. “How’d you get this? Vault bullshit?” Sev asked, running her hand along the finger.
“Oh, Cooper sold me to organ harvesters,” Lucy said, like it was a normal thing.
“Huh that makes sense, Cooper met me as an adult when he took a bounty on me, but he recognized Six and that killing me would cause a hell of a lot of issues for me,” Sev responded, also speaking like this was just a normal everyday thing.
Cooper looked at the two women, both of them bonding over Cooper being an asshat. “Now Lucy, you ain’t innocent in this, you broke my vials then bit my finger off,” Cooper spoke, propped up on the bed.
“I didn’t know they were important, and you kidnapped me, and you used me as gulper bait. Plus I’m not that dumb, you took my finger and now it’s on your hand,” Lucy spoke, a bit miffed.
“I don’t know Coop, it kinda sounds like you’re the bad guy here,” Sev spoke, smirking at the man.
“Well I never claimed to be the good guy honey,” Cooper responded with a smirk of his own.
The conversation stopped there, she knew she wasn’t going to get an apology and honestly she was way too damn tired to even care anymore. Sleep found all of them quickly, even the dogs, as today just seemed to drag on for all of them.