PTCD - Chapter 1
Title: Put That Cookie Down
Fandom: Fallout 3
Summary: ADVENTURE AND PIRATES, LOTS OF PIRATES
Winthrop was having a generally good day. The generators were holding up alright, Cerberus had yet to backtalk, Quinn was gearing up to make another trip to the outside for supplies, and no dumbass had clogged up the toilets so far. He was actually relaxing, something that was becoming rarer by the year.
He laid down another domino and sat back, taking a sip of his cola. Patchwork wasn’t always the best guy to socialize with but he could play a mean game of dominoes if there was betting involved, and it seemed to put the poor guy in better spirits for a short while. Something he sorely needed, which was why Winthrop made it a point to seek him out for a game when he could.
They’d set a table out in front by the stairs in the concourse. The ghoul looked over the table and at his hand before laying down one of his own.
Quinn had promised he’d bring him a good amount of scrap metal if he could convince Wolfgang to make half the trip back, though with the Mutant increase in numbers in D.C. that'd probably be a no go. What would have made his day better is if there wasn’t so much fucking garbage thrown around the place. He felt like the janitor more than the handyman most of the time, but hell if he was going to clean any-fucking-thing today. Today was for sitting back, farting and watching Cerberus try to smack talk some poor soul.
“Shit, you won again.”
Patchwork grinned before grabbing his won caps, doubtless already fixing to waste them at the Circle. Oh well, it probably would have wound up there anyway. Ahzrukhal had a way of raking in all the dough and hell if Patches wasn’t his favorite customer.
The doors behind the pair suddenly slammed open, scaring the living shit out of him and making him spill his drink. Patchwork had dropped to the floor, some of his caps slipping out of his hands. Winthrop grabbed his cheap excuse for a pistol and aimed it at the intruder. A tiny smoothskin.
For fucks sake.
He holstered his gun and made to get up, seeing Patches look up from under the table. What the hell was wrong with humans?
The girl looked scared out of her wits at the sight of them, she stumbled and ran to the side just as a super mutant stormed through after her, its head hitting the frame and causing its front to lurch forward fast like some demented puppet from hell.
“Jesus Christ!” Patches swore behind him, ducking back under as it was immediately hit with a rain of pistol fire from the residents of Underworld. The mutant screamed out in pain and anger, its thunderous roars echoing in the main entrance, while its trunk-like arms tried to find a perch to pull itself out.
They were soon followed up with the combined firepower of Cerberus, Charon and Quinn. The mutant finally gave up the ghost, still stuck in the doorway. Winthrop winced, that was going to be a bitch to move. Both Quinn and Charon walked up to it, checking to see if the bastard had brought any friends.
Speaking of which.
He looked back over at the smoothskin, she was cowering in the corner behind the trashcan, an arm shielding her face. When he got closer he could hear her sobbing and felt a stab of pity. She looked up when she heard his footsteps and started sobbing louder, shrinking further against the walls.
Well, that was a bit rude.
“We just saved your hide, you can stop crying now.”
She didn’t respond, but she seemed to be calming down a bit. He looked her over again, the girl was in a dirty blue suit, her head was bleeding and one of her arms was lying limply by her side. The crying petered out to hiccups.
“Really, calm down already.” He looked back over at the front, Charon and Quinn had managed to push the mutant out of the doors. It was busted up pretty badly; he’d have to find a replacement tonight or they’d end up freezing what was left of their asses off. She looked up at him again, one side of her face was turning black and blue.
"...You can talk," she said in awe, as if just realizing the obvious.
"What the fuck? Of course we can talk." Fucking smoothskins. But the girl didn't seem to have meant it as an insult, she was probably in shock.
“What’s the story here?” Quinn had come over during this, rolling his shoulders to loosen them up.
“Don’t know. She probably hit her head running from the mutie. Who’s helping with it?”
Quinn sighed, looking at the human before replying. “I’m going to have some of the boys help me drag the fucker out, Charon’s talking with Willow right now, they’re probably going to be posted overtime tonight just to make sure we don’t get a repeat of this. As for her...” He looked over at the frightened girl, who was watching the two in awe. “Look hun, you’d better get out of here, I don’t think it’d be too wise to stay after this.”
Winthrop walked over to the busted entrance before he could hear her response. He didn’t particularly like the idea of throwing that pathetic thing right back outside but she’d already caused them enough problems. Still, he felt a little guilty at having Quinn handle it.
He examined the damage; it wasn’t as bad as previously thought. One of the doors was being held on by its last intact hinge and the other had practically broken in half. Easy enough to take care of, they hadn't been shot up too bad. The only thing he didn’t look forward to was working past the blood that covered everything. Some abraxo mixed with water in a spray can could get it off.
He went to get his tools, trying to push the thought of that human to the back of his mind.
--
When Winthrop came back out of his room she was already gone. He looked back to the table he’d been sitting at before. It was still in disarray, Patchwork’s chair thrown aside, the dominoes on the floor. Fucks sake, would it really have taken him so long to pick up? He walked past the doors and got to removing the broken one, slipping on the blood and cursing silently as he tried not to bust his ass on the floor. That was next on the To Do list.
“Hey, Danny!” A ghoul turned to look at him irritably. What the fuck was he doing anyway? Had Winthrop interrupted his daydreams? “Go get some papers from Tulip, I can’t work like this!” He sure as shit didn’t want to track blood all over the place. He’d mop it up later, hopefully it wouldn’t dry too much, God it stank.
Well it had been a good day. Next time he wouldn’t even think about it or he’d probably jinx himself again. He donned rubber work gloves, after this he was going to get nice and buzzed at Greta’s. She always had a bottle of the good stuff for him. It was better than that watered down shit Ahzrukhal tried to sell him. Not that it mattered, booze only worked on Ghouls if it was strong, and Ahzrukhal kept the best liquor unless you were willing to put a hole in your wallet. But one could always pretend, usually it was just there to tide them over before Ahz busted out the 'read goods.' He wasn’t stupid, they all knew just what the fuck went down there.
“Hey, Danny said you’d be needing these...” a soft voice said from behind him, Tulip.
“Yeah, wait, where is he? I asked him to take care of that, you’ve got shit to do.” That lazy bastard.
She shrugged, setting down some of the old papers over the blood. They usually kept them around to soak shit up regardless of how many times they’d been used. “I don’t have anything to do right now, it’s alright.” She smiled back up at him shyly.
“You’re a good girl, you know that?” he said, forcing out a stripped screw from its holding. He thought he heard a whispered ‘thank you’ from below.
He set down the busted door and started to remove the hinges. Those would be a bit more of a pain to get. He could always just scav them from the Lincoln exhibit, shit, he hated going into that place. It was always a good reminder of what they’d lost, and a precursor to what some of them would end up as. He’d rather they just put the crazies out of their misery but Doc Barrows was using them for ‘testing purposes’.
To him it was just like defiling the dead. And Graves wasn’t any help in that department either, she always acted like the town bleeding heart but he’d seen the way she’d so carelessly treated the subjects. It was always too disturbing to stay in the Chop Shop for too long.
He’d managed to fix the hinge on the other, bending the metal back into proper form with his hammer. That took care of that, he’d have that lazy fucker Danny deal with carrying out the broken door later. Now to get those parts...this was going to be fun.
--
Winthrop grimaced at the trail of blood the mutie had left behind. If they thought that he was going to clean all of this they had another thing coming. He looked at the entrance to the exhibit and felt a sudden chill run down his back. It could wait a little longer, he had to take a piss anyway.
He set his tools down by the entrance and headed for the men’s room.
--
He’d just begun unzipping his trousers when he heard it. It had come from one of the stalls beside the urinals and almost sounded like a whimper.
He grabbed his pistol, one hand holding his pants up and approached the stall. Winthrop pointed it straight at the door, listening for any other sound. The person behind let out another choked gasp and he lowered his weapon slightly.
“Who’s behind door number one?”
Who’d be crying in the bathroom other than that girl anyway? He shook his head, it really was pretty sad.
“...W-who’s? Please. Please don’t make me leave.” Her voice was raw from weeping. “I’m sorry,” she gasped again before breaking out into fresh, full blown sobs. “I’m so, so sorry. Abbi... I’m sorry.”
Not again, he wasn’t good with crying girls. Had he ever been?
“Just...just calm down. I’m not going to throw you out. It’s okay.” Quinn was going to chew him out for this one. She just kept on apologizing behind the door. He leaned against the dirty tiles of the bathroom, buttoning back up before bringing his palm to his face. He let her go on for another minute before speaking again.
“Listen doll, you’ve got to calm down. I can’t help you if you don’t.”
She quieted down some, hiccupping. “Yes. Okay...I’m sorry...okay.”
“That’s a good girl.” He patted his front looking for a pack of cigarettes, where were his smokes when he needed them? “Now, let’s start small. What’s your name, doll?”
--
“But, where, look-the. The chairs they could do so much. Shit...can I get another?”
“No, now for the last time, either shut up or get the hell out of here.” Ahzrukhal had quickly lost his patience with the boy as he drank. At least sober he’d keep a slip of his sense and Ahzrukhal could simply ignore his existence while draining his caps.
“Did you see the, Christ, there was blood?”
Just what was he on about now? The boy set down some caps and he sighed, pouring him another shot. He could feel a headache coming on, what he wouldn’t give to just go upstairs and run a bath. Let Charon deal with the junkies and drunks. Except Charon wasn’t here. Some asshole had apparently drawn an ogre their way and everyone was on damage control at the moment.
He’d have to remind Charon when he got back to go find that human and thank them.
“Like a balloon its head...shit. Where the fuck did your nose go?”
Maybe put in some of those bath salts the Doc had brought in. A shot of whiskey and one of those novellas from the shelf. Turn the lights down and watch the shadows play on the walls...
“FUCK. It just, this is some good shit. Ya always got the, the...best.” He coughed into the cup, spilling some on the counter before gawking at the bartender.
No, his ledger was more fun to read than any of the books he’d ever found. That would definitely make up for it. Maybe he’d even crack open one of those canned deserts, hard to find but why not?
“I love you...so...SO much.”
Or maybe he’d just wrap his hands around Patchwork’s neck and choke the life out of him.
-------------
A/N: Lolol, dominoes.
Fandom: Fallout 3
Summary: ADVENTURE AND PIRATES, LOTS OF PIRATES
Winthrop was having a generally good day. The generators were holding up alright, Cerberus had yet to backtalk, Quinn was gearing up to make another trip to the outside for supplies, and no dumbass had clogged up the toilets so far. He was actually relaxing, something that was becoming rarer by the year.
He laid down another domino and sat back, taking a sip of his cola. Patchwork wasn’t always the best guy to socialize with but he could play a mean game of dominoes if there was betting involved, and it seemed to put the poor guy in better spirits for a short while. Something he sorely needed, which was why Winthrop made it a point to seek him out for a game when he could.
They’d set a table out in front by the stairs in the concourse. The ghoul looked over the table and at his hand before laying down one of his own.
Quinn had promised he’d bring him a good amount of scrap metal if he could convince Wolfgang to make half the trip back, though with the Mutant increase in numbers in D.C. that'd probably be a no go. What would have made his day better is if there wasn’t so much fucking garbage thrown around the place. He felt like the janitor more than the handyman most of the time, but hell if he was going to clean any-fucking-thing today. Today was for sitting back, farting and watching Cerberus try to smack talk some poor soul.
“Shit, you won again.”
Patchwork grinned before grabbing his won caps, doubtless already fixing to waste them at the Circle. Oh well, it probably would have wound up there anyway. Ahzrukhal had a way of raking in all the dough and hell if Patches wasn’t his favorite customer.
The doors behind the pair suddenly slammed open, scaring the living shit out of him and making him spill his drink. Patchwork had dropped to the floor, some of his caps slipping out of his hands. Winthrop grabbed his cheap excuse for a pistol and aimed it at the intruder. A tiny smoothskin.
For fucks sake.
He holstered his gun and made to get up, seeing Patches look up from under the table. What the hell was wrong with humans?
The girl looked scared out of her wits at the sight of them, she stumbled and ran to the side just as a super mutant stormed through after her, its head hitting the frame and causing its front to lurch forward fast like some demented puppet from hell.
“Jesus Christ!” Patches swore behind him, ducking back under as it was immediately hit with a rain of pistol fire from the residents of Underworld. The mutant screamed out in pain and anger, its thunderous roars echoing in the main entrance, while its trunk-like arms tried to find a perch to pull itself out.
They were soon followed up with the combined firepower of Cerberus, Charon and Quinn. The mutant finally gave up the ghost, still stuck in the doorway. Winthrop winced, that was going to be a bitch to move. Both Quinn and Charon walked up to it, checking to see if the bastard had brought any friends.
Speaking of which.
He looked back over at the smoothskin, she was cowering in the corner behind the trashcan, an arm shielding her face. When he got closer he could hear her sobbing and felt a stab of pity. She looked up when she heard his footsteps and started sobbing louder, shrinking further against the walls.
Well, that was a bit rude.
“We just saved your hide, you can stop crying now.”
She didn’t respond, but she seemed to be calming down a bit. He looked her over again, the girl was in a dirty blue suit, her head was bleeding and one of her arms was lying limply by her side. The crying petered out to hiccups.
“Really, calm down already.” He looked back over at the front, Charon and Quinn had managed to push the mutant out of the doors. It was busted up pretty badly; he’d have to find a replacement tonight or they’d end up freezing what was left of their asses off. She looked up at him again, one side of her face was turning black and blue.
"...You can talk," she said in awe, as if just realizing the obvious.
"What the fuck? Of course we can talk." Fucking smoothskins. But the girl didn't seem to have meant it as an insult, she was probably in shock.
“What’s the story here?” Quinn had come over during this, rolling his shoulders to loosen them up.
“Don’t know. She probably hit her head running from the mutie. Who’s helping with it?”
Quinn sighed, looking at the human before replying. “I’m going to have some of the boys help me drag the fucker out, Charon’s talking with Willow right now, they’re probably going to be posted overtime tonight just to make sure we don’t get a repeat of this. As for her...” He looked over at the frightened girl, who was watching the two in awe. “Look hun, you’d better get out of here, I don’t think it’d be too wise to stay after this.”
Winthrop walked over to the busted entrance before he could hear her response. He didn’t particularly like the idea of throwing that pathetic thing right back outside but she’d already caused them enough problems. Still, he felt a little guilty at having Quinn handle it.
He examined the damage; it wasn’t as bad as previously thought. One of the doors was being held on by its last intact hinge and the other had practically broken in half. Easy enough to take care of, they hadn't been shot up too bad. The only thing he didn’t look forward to was working past the blood that covered everything. Some abraxo mixed with water in a spray can could get it off.
He went to get his tools, trying to push the thought of that human to the back of his mind.
--
When Winthrop came back out of his room she was already gone. He looked back to the table he’d been sitting at before. It was still in disarray, Patchwork’s chair thrown aside, the dominoes on the floor. Fucks sake, would it really have taken him so long to pick up? He walked past the doors and got to removing the broken one, slipping on the blood and cursing silently as he tried not to bust his ass on the floor. That was next on the To Do list.
“Hey, Danny!” A ghoul turned to look at him irritably. What the fuck was he doing anyway? Had Winthrop interrupted his daydreams? “Go get some papers from Tulip, I can’t work like this!” He sure as shit didn’t want to track blood all over the place. He’d mop it up later, hopefully it wouldn’t dry too much, God it stank.
Well it had been a good day. Next time he wouldn’t even think about it or he’d probably jinx himself again. He donned rubber work gloves, after this he was going to get nice and buzzed at Greta’s. She always had a bottle of the good stuff for him. It was better than that watered down shit Ahzrukhal tried to sell him. Not that it mattered, booze only worked on Ghouls if it was strong, and Ahzrukhal kept the best liquor unless you were willing to put a hole in your wallet. But one could always pretend, usually it was just there to tide them over before Ahz busted out the 'read goods.' He wasn’t stupid, they all knew just what the fuck went down there.
“Hey, Danny said you’d be needing these...” a soft voice said from behind him, Tulip.
“Yeah, wait, where is he? I asked him to take care of that, you’ve got shit to do.” That lazy bastard.
She shrugged, setting down some of the old papers over the blood. They usually kept them around to soak shit up regardless of how many times they’d been used. “I don’t have anything to do right now, it’s alright.” She smiled back up at him shyly.
“You’re a good girl, you know that?” he said, forcing out a stripped screw from its holding. He thought he heard a whispered ‘thank you’ from below.
He set down the busted door and started to remove the hinges. Those would be a bit more of a pain to get. He could always just scav them from the Lincoln exhibit, shit, he hated going into that place. It was always a good reminder of what they’d lost, and a precursor to what some of them would end up as. He’d rather they just put the crazies out of their misery but Doc Barrows was using them for ‘testing purposes’.
To him it was just like defiling the dead. And Graves wasn’t any help in that department either, she always acted like the town bleeding heart but he’d seen the way she’d so carelessly treated the subjects. It was always too disturbing to stay in the Chop Shop for too long.
He’d managed to fix the hinge on the other, bending the metal back into proper form with his hammer. That took care of that, he’d have that lazy fucker Danny deal with carrying out the broken door later. Now to get those parts...this was going to be fun.
--
Winthrop grimaced at the trail of blood the mutie had left behind. If they thought that he was going to clean all of this they had another thing coming. He looked at the entrance to the exhibit and felt a sudden chill run down his back. It could wait a little longer, he had to take a piss anyway.
He set his tools down by the entrance and headed for the men’s room.
--
He’d just begun unzipping his trousers when he heard it. It had come from one of the stalls beside the urinals and almost sounded like a whimper.
He grabbed his pistol, one hand holding his pants up and approached the stall. Winthrop pointed it straight at the door, listening for any other sound. The person behind let out another choked gasp and he lowered his weapon slightly.
“Who’s behind door number one?”
Who’d be crying in the bathroom other than that girl anyway? He shook his head, it really was pretty sad.
“...W-who’s? Please. Please don’t make me leave.” Her voice was raw from weeping. “I’m sorry,” she gasped again before breaking out into fresh, full blown sobs. “I’m so, so sorry. Abbi... I’m sorry.”
Not again, he wasn’t good with crying girls. Had he ever been?
“Just...just calm down. I’m not going to throw you out. It’s okay.” Quinn was going to chew him out for this one. She just kept on apologizing behind the door. He leaned against the dirty tiles of the bathroom, buttoning back up before bringing his palm to his face. He let her go on for another minute before speaking again.
“Listen doll, you’ve got to calm down. I can’t help you if you don’t.”
She quieted down some, hiccupping. “Yes. Okay...I’m sorry...okay.”
“That’s a good girl.” He patted his front looking for a pack of cigarettes, where were his smokes when he needed them? “Now, let’s start small. What’s your name, doll?”
--
“But, where, look-the. The chairs they could do so much. Shit...can I get another?”
“No, now for the last time, either shut up or get the hell out of here.” Ahzrukhal had quickly lost his patience with the boy as he drank. At least sober he’d keep a slip of his sense and Ahzrukhal could simply ignore his existence while draining his caps.
“Did you see the, Christ, there was blood?”
Just what was he on about now? The boy set down some caps and he sighed, pouring him another shot. He could feel a headache coming on, what he wouldn’t give to just go upstairs and run a bath. Let Charon deal with the junkies and drunks. Except Charon wasn’t here. Some asshole had apparently drawn an ogre their way and everyone was on damage control at the moment.
He’d have to remind Charon when he got back to go find that human and thank them.
“Like a balloon its head...shit. Where the fuck did your nose go?”
Maybe put in some of those bath salts the Doc had brought in. A shot of whiskey and one of those novellas from the shelf. Turn the lights down and watch the shadows play on the walls...
“FUCK. It just, this is some good shit. Ya always got the, the...best.” He coughed into the cup, spilling some on the counter before gawking at the bartender.
No, his ledger was more fun to read than any of the books he’d ever found. That would definitely make up for it. Maybe he’d even crack open one of those canned deserts, hard to find but why not?
“I love you...so...SO much.”
Or maybe he’d just wrap his hands around Patchwork’s neck and choke the life out of him.
-------------
A/N: Lolol, dominoes.