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Chapter Text

Prologue - Small Moments of Falling

When RJ MacCready first met Asher Lilysen, he thought he was just a kook. He also thought he was going to die.
The man walked into the back room of the Third Rail like a strangely decorated black and white crow and casually sat right next to him as Winlock and Barnes ranted about mercenaries and boundaries and straight up murdering him. He sat and leaned toward MacCready with his chin in his gloved palm as his elbow rested on the arm of the chair. A lazy grin on his weirdly clean smooth face.

It put Winlock off to the point that the Gunner stopped his rant and turned his attention on the newcomer, “Listen, pal, I dunno what your deal is -”

The man's voice was deep and rumbling as he cut in, “Hmm? Sorry, just waiting for my turn to speak. I'm polite, y’know? Carry on with your speech. It's riveting.” He had long, wild, midnight-black hair that had many small braids with bits of silver and coloured beading wrapped in it. His skin was pale, almost translucent-like as MacCready spied small blue veins beneath the line of his jaw, and his eyes were as dark as that wild hair. The only colour on him came from those odd coloured beads in his hair. Mac found himself staring openly in shock.

Winlock didn't continue his speech, instead throwing one last insult towards MacCready and leaving with Barnes grumbling at the lack of bloodshed. MacCready faced the man sitting directly next to him and had to lean back a touch for the man was sitting so close, “Listen pal, if you're gonna preach the Atom,” for he appeared a little cultish in all honesty, “or if you're looking for a friend, you got the wrong guy. If you're looking for an extra gun…then maybe we can talk.”

“How much are you?”

“W-what?”

The newcomer smiled with straight white teeth, “How much do you charge?”

“Oh. Two-fifty. No negoti -”

“Okay.” He shrugged and dug a hand in his pockets and bag, offering the caps up in full.

“Uhh. Okay? I guess you have yourself a hired gun.”

“Sweet, let's go. Got a job for Hancock.” He stood and pulled Mac up by a gloved hand.

They found the Pickman Gallery that night and MacCready decided it was the worst job he'd ever been on. It was also the easiest two-fifty he'd ever made. This guy didn't need an extra gun because he was bad in a fight. He needed an extra gun because he flew in like a brutal, bloodied, maniac and MacCready's job had simply been to keep people off his back from afar.

Asher had control of many settlements in the Commonwealth. Some big, some small, and the folk followed him around like little lost ducklings as soon as he, his team, and his pack of dogs walked through the gates. The dogs had surprised Mac at first but they were sweet little fluff balls willing to accept all the belly rubs a person was willing to provide. Unless, Asher whistled and said sic ‘em. He'd explained that he had trained the K9 units in the US army before the Great War and that he simply liked dogs.

It was in one of these many settlements where MacCready first witnessed the man's feelings on the Brotherhood of Steel. The guards of the gate sent a runner over to their group just as they were settling at a table to eat, throwing chunks of meat for the dogs to happily catch as their tails wagged madly.

“General, sir, there are men in Power Armour at the gates requesting entry.”

Mac watched Asher’s black eyes narrow and a frown flick his mouth down before he recovered into a more neutral look. He stood and waved at Hancock, Curie, and Nick to remain seated and gestured for MacCready, Preston, and Deacon to follow. Cait and Piper remained protectively near their ‘non-human’ friends.

At the gate, he heard Ash sigh. It was a strangely sad sigh. Or, maybe disappointed? The group of Brotherhood soldiers were waiting just outside the gate, seemingly unbothered by the Minutemen and disguised Railroad guards keeping their weapons ready. As Asher approached, one of the Brotherhood stepped forward in armour that was delicately personalised with a few sweeps of gold and blue lining over the gleaming silver. Asher addressed the Power Armour by rank and name, “Ah, Paladin Danse. How might I help?”

The Power Armour bobbed its head in recognition, “Knight. We have been sent to barter for supplies and also to inform you that Elder Maxson is expecting you back on the Prydwen by this evening.”

The guard and Preston tensed around them and Mac let his hand move towards his rifle as Deacon took a small step back ready to assist from the shadows. MacCready wasn't fully in the know about Asher's relationship with the Brotherhood but gathered enough from those around him to know that it wasn't…copacetic. 

Ash simply shrugged, completely relaxed and unbothered, “He can request an audience but he has no authority over me, you know that Danse.” He spoke firmly but remained in his easy stance.

“You are a Knight of the Brotherhood of Steel and as such -”

Ash snorted, “I am not a Knight. C'mon, Danse, do we have to do this every single time?” He had his hands on his hips with one cocked to the side.

The helmeted head tilted and Asher casually moved to stand partially in front of MacCready, “See you've decided to keep the merc around.”

Mac scowled and Ash brushed his arm as he moved more fully to hide the smaller man from view. MacCready wasn’t sure why he did it but he didn’t dare interrupt this tense exchange. Not with so many innocent settlers nearby that could get caught in any cross-fire and definitely not while this Brotherhood guy was saying merc like a slur, “Not any of your business, is it?”

Asher was a big man but MacCready doubted he'd be able to stand up to a full squad of Brotherhood Knights and Paladins.

“Ash -” The Paladin began but was cut off sharply.

“You’re free to trade with us but once you're finished you can leave with your little squad until you come to your senses. Yeah?” The other members of Danse's crew shuffled awkwardly but otherwise didn't react.

Danse seemed to chew his words over before he finally replied, “I appreciate your assistance, civilian.” Ash just snorted again with a little pfft noise and made a motion to the guard to allow a few members of the squadron into the settlement.

Mac whispered to Ash as they walked away, leaving Preston and Deacon to keep watch over the trade happening, “What was that about, boss?”

Ash shrugged and looped an arm over Mac's shoulders. MacCready had a feeling it was less a friendly gesture and more a warning to the Brotherhood to leave the merc alone, “I know Danse. We had a falling out, is all.”

“About what?”

He scratched his cheek absently with his free gloved hand, “Uh…about you and Hancock joining the team, actually.” His arm tightened around him a little as a Knight passed by with an armload of razorgrain, “Ghouls are unnatural, changed people are abominations, and mercs are devils, yadda yadda yadda.” He waved as though dismissing the insults, “Told him to get rid of the stick up his arse or leave. He left. Obviously.”

Mac didn’t want to know what personal beef Danse had with him: he was excellent with his rifle but purposefully chose to fight at range, he could scrap when needed but against a fully armoured Paladin? He didn’t like those odds one bit, “Oh…you didn't need to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Stick up for me. It's not the worst insult I've ever had thrown at me. Being a devil is a good deterrent against most folk.”
No one had ever stuck up for him before. Except Lucy.

He laughed and gently shook MacCready's shoulders from where his arm still wrapped around him, “I wanted to.”

A warm feeling spread over MacCready at that and he pushed the feeling down.

They were sitting around a fire in the Castle and MacCready watched Asher rebraid his hair. He had found a new bead and was tying it in with the others there. Some beads looked very very old, tangled and twisted into fine the braiding, and some looked cleaner and newer. Apparently, some of the silver in his hair had come from an old chainmail vest thing he'd found in a museum further up north. He was a magpie: drawn to shiny things and wearing them like decoration.
It was a long and convoluted process when he braided his hair with intricate little patterns that seemed deliberate.

Piper snorted from over her mug, “Why don't you just cut it off, Blue? Easier to manage that way.” His hair was very long and wild. Deacon nodded in agreement, rubbing a hand over his bald head.

Asher shook his head, “I can't just cut it off.”

Hancock chuckled from where he was sharpening a knife, “What? You got magic hair or somethin’?”

“An apocalyptic Rapunzel.” Deacon laughed.

Asher took it in stride with a smile and a laugh, “Savages. No, where I come from, or when I guess, we believe hair is sacred. It connects us to our spiritual beliefs, ancestors, family, all that jazz.” His long fingers were gentle and dextrous as he wove and twisted a lock with silver, “It was weird, coming to America when my dad sent for us. Everyone, even some of the girls, had shorter hair.”

“So you've never cut it?” Mac asked.

Asher smiled at him, a warm soft thing that had Mac’s belly doing a stupid little flip which he pointedly ignored, “I have in the past. When I was drafted into the army I had to have it a bit shorter. Normally, we only cut our hair if we've had some great shame come.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged, “Depends on what your family classes as shame I guess? Ours were; breaking major promises, infidelity, negligence. You know, things that affect the family as a whole rather than the self.” He continued to braid.

Cait rolled her neck, “Can I have one?”

“‘Course. Anything to bring some culture back to you heathens.” He put a few braids with silver rings in Cait's hair. Then Piper's. Then Preston's and Curie's. He looked at Mac then, “Want some?”

“Maybe later.”

“Hey, do you mind if we stop off in Goodneighbor? We're nearby.” He felt awkward asking but needs must.

Asher looked at him with a small confused quirk of the brow. They were currently mid-mission getting ready to go to the Glowing Sea to find some scientist weirdo who’d decided to live there. On purpose, “Uh, sure. Mind me asking what for?” He looked around at his mostly done job of checking their supplies again.

“Just the trade post there…I'm expecting a letter.”

“Oh!” He was already standing and waving at the others to wait, “Yeah, let's go then.” He was like this. Didn't need to know the full details. If you needed something from him he'd give it if he could.

Too good for his own stupid self.

“I can go on my own and be back in a few hours, boss.” They really weren’t that far away being at Hangman’s Alley.

“Nah, best you have some backup. Just in case.”

So they went, just the two of them. Asher hadn't spent loads of time in Goodneighbor, just staying long enough to pick up a few odd jobs and to trade with Kleo for ammo. He never stayed overnight saying that the town, whilst safe enough under Hancock, gave him the heebie-jeebies. Whatever that meant.
Asher linked their arms at the elbows and nattered on about this and that. Mac hummed and replied as needed as he fiercely ignored the warm strong muscle holding him close and kept an eye ahead and around them.

Mac led the way through the gates of the chaotic little town and pushed through the crowd to get to Daisy's Discounts. It was a small shop that stood out amongst the grime and chaos around it; its windows were lit with warm lantern light, the sign painted in bright but faded colours, and strings of silver and coloured glass dangled and tinkled in the breeze.

The bell jingled when he pushed the door open. Asher followed him in and picked up a random book nearby as they waited for the proprietor to make an appearance. It didn’t take long.

“Asher Michael Lilysen!”

Asher jumped, the book he had been holding falling to the ground and crinkling as his head snapped up toward the shocked gravelly voice. MacCready watched him vault over the counter toward the small ghoul woman and he almost aimed his rifle at the man until Asher scooped Daisy up into a big bear hug. She wrapped her legs around him and, quite suddenly, MacCready was watching them both cry into each other's necks. Great heaving sobs that shook the both of them as they swayed in the middle of Daisy’s shop.
He moved around the counter and then heard Asher whispering in a thick watery voice, “Oh, fuck! Oh, shit! How? Daisy! How is this real?” He collapsed onto a nearby couch with Daisy still wrapped around him. He had a large gloved hand on the back of her head, twirling a braided bead between long fingers. Mac had never really registered that Daisy also had small beads and braids that were startlingly similar to Asher's in her much shorter hair.

“I guess you two know each other?” He mumbled awkwardly but it didn't seem like either heard him. He chewed the inside of his cheek as he watched them. It looked like Daisy had sat in Asher’s lap many times before and an ugly dark twisting pulled in his chest. They definitely had history and he rolled his neck against the strange feeling of possessiveness that wrapped around his brain. He didn’t understand why.

Eventually, Daisy pulled back and Asher held her scarred ghoulified face between his hands and kissed her brow. That had MacCready clenching his fists and he quickly relaxed them again, “How Daisy?”

“How me? How about yourself!?” She ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the metal and other decor there, “I thought you were dead. You've not aged a day! And Nora? Shaun? Are they okay?”

He was silent for a moment before he took a deep breath to answer her, “I was…frozen. Vault-Tec froze us in the Vault near home. Nora and Shaun…they…” His lip wobbled, the small muscles in his chin quivering, and Mac carefully sat quietly nearby. He wanted to leave. He didn’t want to watch them reminisce and reconnect or whatever. But he needed his letters.

“Hush, Ash. It's okay, we're together again now.” 

Ouch.

“What about the others? Willow and Rosie? Oak?” 

Daisy shook her head, “It's just me, Asher. I've been alone -” Her voice caught in her throat, threatening tears.

“Hey, hey,” he hugged her again, “Shush. I'm sorry. If I'd known I'd have come and got you sooner!” A hand brushed Daisy's hair again, “Your hair…”

She held his hand against her head and pressed her forehead into his chest, “It burnt away. During the bombs. Never grew back right.”

Mac watched them speak for a while and then watched Ash pull a white bead from one of his many braids and twist it into Daisy's much shorter and lighter hair. He tried to talk the ghoul woman into going back to Sanctuary with them but she was firm in staying in her shop. She passed Mac his new letters and he handed her his own to send back.

She smiled at Ash as she stepped back from them both, “Asher, look after this one, okay?” She nodded her head at Mac, "He's one of the good ones.”

Ash gave her one more kiss to her scarred forehead, “Don’t worry, I plan to.” Mac felt the flush rise in his cheeks and simply nodded at Daisy as the pair left the shop and Goodneighbor.
For once, he couldn’t leave fast enough. Daisy and Asher had been all over each other! Holding hands, touching faces, hugging. 

“So…you and Daisy? You both..?” 

No, Asher was his boss. He had no right to feel whatever this twisting feeling was in his belly and chest. No right to care about who Ash spent his time with. He did his job and got paid and that’s it.

Asher looked down at him in question before he gathered what Mac was trying to say, “Oh, ew, no! One, I'm as gay as the day is long, Robbie. Two, she's my sister.” A strange sense of relief flooded through Mac at that.

His sister!?

“Huh?”

“Yeah. God, I thought they were all dead!” He smiled so wide then, bright and giddy and directed at the buildings around them as though they weren’t crumbling death traps. As though the world were suddenly much brighter and better than it had been a few hours ago, “There was five of us; Me, Daisy, Willow, Rosie, and little Oak. I'm the eldest.” He said it so proudly and Mac found himself smiling back at Asher even though the man wasn’t looking at him.

“Oh.”

He kind of forgot that Asher would've had a whole life before the bombs dropped. Family and friends and things he liked to do. It was nice to know a little more about him.

They were scouting from the vantage point of a large hill that overlooked a Super Mutant camp nearby. The others were back at camp, hidden in the trees not too far away. Ash had lay on his belly beside Mac as the mercenary watched the camp through his scope, counting the mutants and assessing their ambling patrol routes. By his reckoning, he could take out a few with clean head-shots before they even grasped where the bullets were coming from.

He felt Asher shuffling around in his bag and rolled his eyes, “Boss, I’m trying to concentrate here.”

“Sorry, sorry. One sec.” The shuffling continued, his thigh bumped against his, his side shifted and brushed against him and Mac fought to keep his eyes on the mutants below them. After a moment, Ash stopped his rummaging and whispered, “Here, I got you something.”

MacCready didn’t look round, “Not really the time, Ash.”

“It’s the perfect time and it’ll take less than a minute.” His gloved hand rested on top of the barrel of his rifle, “Gimme your gun a moment.”

“Boss…” 

“One minute! I swear.”

Mac reluctantly pulled his eye from the scope and looked at Ash. He was grinning with his soft black eyes sparkling with mischief. How could he say no to that face? “Fine.” He handed over the gun and switched to his binoculars.

He heard a few metallic clicks and a small huff of frustration. This was meant to be a stealth job. He should’ve taken Deacon up on his offer of being his back up. Sometimes, Ash got too giddy at the prospect of an incoming fight and it could be distracting. Fun. But, distracting.

He was a little distracting all the time, now that he thought about it. He walked with his head held high no matter where they went or who they spoke to. He was fiercely protective of their little group, quick to defend them all, and threw biting barbs back at rude comments made about Hancock. He dressed in black and white; moon-pale skin, black eyes, wild dark hair that flipped and whipped around in the wind. Glittering silver and coloured beads wrapping his intricate little braids. He kept himself clean shaven and his skin looked so…soft.
Was it soft? Was his hair soft? Was the skin of the hands he kept forever hidden beneath his gloves soft?

What would it feel like if he -

“Here.” Mac jumped as his thoughts, which had been turning increasingly impure the more he had let them wander, were suddenly cut off with a gentle shoulder nudge from where Ash still lay on his belly beside him. Mac pulled his binoculars away from his face and prayed he wasn’t blushing.
There, being carefully laid down in the grass, was his rifle. But, it now had a brand new scope on it: it looked fancy and technical with green glass and hidden blinking lights on the interior, “It’s got night vision. That way, if we’re in the dark or underground, you can still see.” He said it with a soft smile and MacCready was dumbfounded for a moment.

“Still see?” His eyes were perfect. They had to be considering his perfect aim and the distance he could spot enemies at.

Asher’s mouth did that small frown it did before it neutralised out again, “Yeah? Aren't you…” He waved his hand negligently.

“What?”

He whispered, “Aren’t you scared of the dark?” He leaned his head forward as though worried someone might overhear.

Mac leaned forward too to whisper back, “No? What made you think I was scared of the dark? I lived in a cave for sixteen years, boss.”

“Oh, right…forgot about that.” Ash turned his eyes back onto the Super Mutant camp and so did Mac through his fancy new scope, “It’s just…when we were in that underpass last week: it was dark and the ferals were hard to spot and you kinda locked up a little.”

Oh.

He mulled over how to answer before simply deciding to tell him the truth. He would have to eventually and it’s not like he was trying to hide it anyway. But, if it was noticeable in a fight, he needed to tell him sooner rather than later, “It wasn’t the dark, Ash. It was the ferals.”

“Ah, yeah. Creepy little buggers.”

“Hmm, yeah, creepy.” He hadn’t realised how flatly he’d said it until Ash nudged him. Mac sighed through his nose, “I’m not scared of them. I just really really don’t like them, okay? Don't worry, it won’t affect my job.”

“You don’t like them the same way you really really don’t like water?”

Mac looked at him and he had a smile on his face but he wasn’t making fun of him. He was just trying to make it easier to talk about. MacCready had a funny feeling that Asher actually gave a damn about him, “Yeah, the same way I don’t like water, Ash.” A small pause before he dared to ask, “What about you? Anything you really really don’t like?”

“Loads.” An easy shrug as though it didn’t bother him to admit such weakness.

“Yeah?”

“I hate snakes. Bad storms…” His mouth opened and closed again as he tried to get the words out so MacCready nudged him the same way Ash had done for him, “I don’t want to be alone again, Robbie.” He said it so quietly.

They were two sides of the same warped fucked up bottlecap: dead wives, sick or stolen kids, alone and lonely in the world until they’d found this group of misfits, both just trying to do what they could and survive.

“Me too.”

When Asher nudged him this time, he kept his shoulder against him. They whispered out a plan of taking down the Super Mutant camp before Ash stood and pulled MacCready to his feet with his forever gloved hands.

“I guess this world can still be a lonely place. Until you find someone to share it with.”

He smiled, his hair whipped in the breeze, and MacCready felt his chest flutter.

MacCready walked close to Hancock as they wandered vaguely south towards a settlement that lay in the swamps somewhere. Dirtywater? Blackwater? Murkwater? One of the three.

The sun was high and warm and he grinned at the conversation Hancock was having with Preston. He'd gotten off on the wrong foot with Preston at first when the man found out he used to run with the Gunners, but things had eased somewhat when the man realised that Mac wasn't going to slit his throat in the night or call a random squad to take over a newly budded settlement.

“...so then I tells him -”

“Hello!?” A muffled desperate voice called out from somewhere, making their whole group pause to listen, “Is someone there!? Please. Let me out!”

Mac watched Asher tilt his head like a decorated jingling bird and spin in a slow circle, “Hello? Where are you?”

The voice cried out in shocked relief, “Ah! Hello! Yes! I'm in the fridge! Please, let me out!”

There, just nestled in the verge of the road they were walking on, was a fridge precariously tilted almost onto its side. Asher approached it slowly with Deacon backing him up as the Railroad spy whispered, “Feels like a trap, boss.”

Mac couldn't agree more and shifted to get his rifle ready. He raised it and kept it aimed in the general direction of the rusted old thing. Asher tapped on the door, “Hello?”

“Hi!” The voice sounded almost chipper, “Can you open the door, please?”

“Um…what are you doing in an old fridge?” Ash was already looking at the seams of the door and testing the handle which made Mac tense. It could be a trap. A bomb rigged with a radio. He checked their surroundings and saw no strangers obviously nearby watching to see how this played out.

“I hid from the bombs…they always told us to find somewhere safe if we heard the sirens. This was the closest thing I could find! But there's no handle inside.” A sniffly pause, “Please, I'm so hungry. I just want my mum and dad.”

He saw Asher's brain shut down at that: all thought leaving his head at the plea of hunger and the childlike want for parents. Even as the dogs hackles raised, Asher raised his pistol and shot the handle off the door and tore it open.
What emerged had everyone's eyes widening and little gasps of shock spilling out.

Ghoul kids were a rare phenomena. Almost mythical in their numbers and MacCready had never met one such person before. But there, stumbling from the fridge on shaky little legs and blinking in the sudden sunlight, was a little ghoul boy.

“Wow. Thanks mister…and missuses.” He smiled a little watery smile at them all and Mac kinda fell in love.

Asher squatted down to the kids level as everyone lowered their weapons, “Hey, little buddy, you okay?”

“Thanks to you I am! Wow. Everything is so…different?”

“Yeah? How so?” One of the dogs padded over to the ghoul kid and sniffed at him before licking his little scarred fingers. The ghoul kid laughed.

“Ha! Hey puppy! Um..? Well there's no cars and the roads are all busted up mister. Can I still get a bus home?”

The General frowned and ran a hand through his decorated hair, “You're from before the war? How long were you in the fridge, uh..?”

“Billy! My name is Billy, sir. I heard the sirens and ran somewhere safe. My ma and pa must be real worried.”

“My name's Asher. These are my friends.” he gestured vaguely at them all.

“Asher. Hi! Um, do you think you could walk me home?”

Asher stood and looked around at them all: Cait shrugged, Piper looked like she wanted to cry, Nick nodded, Preston took off his hat and ran fingers over his hair, Hancock took hold of Mac's hand and Mac looked away awkwardly. It was too sad. Poor little guy just wanted his mum and dad but they'd have been dead for over two hundred years by now. It made him think of his own kid, too far away from him and probably wondering where he'd gone.

Deacon cleared his throat, “Can't hurt to try, Charmer.”

Asher nodded down at the kid, “Sure, Billy. Where do you live?”

“Down near Quincy! Oh, thank you so much!” A little scarred hand slipped into Asher's big gloved one and they were on the move again. The kid prattled on to Asher about all kinds of Pre-War stuff; comic book shops, chocolate, cars, aeroplanes, and Ash smiled and joined in with his own tidbits of information.

“Oh, man, I remember those cakes!” Or “What kind of car did your mum have?” Billy would laugh and reply and the pair reminisced over things that Mac could only imagine.

The peace and fun conversation was interrupted by a Gunner appearing from down a road to their right. He had dirty blonde hair that hung in greasy strands to his shoulders, dim blue eyes bloodshot through too many chems and too many sleepless nights. Mac recognised him though wasn't sure of the man's name.

“Cute kid, he for sale?”

MacCready felt his whole body tense and his eyes flickered between the Gunner and the General. Asher turned slowly as if just realising the Gunner was there, “I beg your pardon?”

“The ghoul kid, how much is he?” Bloodshot blue eyes ticked over them all, “I'll take the other ghoul and the traitor off your hands too.”

Ash glanced over at MacCready and Hancock before scowling down at the Gunner, “They aren't for sale. I recommend you go back the way you came.”

The man shrugged, “Oh, yeah? Just the kid then. I'll give ya two-fifty for him.”

Billy had his hands holding tight to Asher's belt and Asher placed a gentle hand over the kid's scarred scalp, “I said they aren't for sale. Fuck off.” The clicking of guns being cocked and the growls of dogs filled the air around them.

The Gunner raised his hands and started to back up before he glanced once more at Mac, “Hey, MacCready, long time no see. Winlock is still lookin’ for ya. I'll be sure to let him know you're still alive and kickin’, yeah?”

Hancock squeezed Mac's hand and moved to take a step in front of him. The Gunner laughed as he walked away and Asher paused as he tilted his head for a moment, “Who's Winlock?” He asked the group in general.

Mac sighed and rubbed his forehead and frowned at the Gunner walking slowly away, “He, uh, he's the one who was threatening me in the bar when you hired me. Ran the squad I used to run with.”

Ash nodded, “What happens if he knows where you are?”

“Probably end up with a bullet in my back.” He said it with a shrug and scuff of his boot as Hancock grumbled beneath his breath.

“I see.” Asher said before he let out a low whistle that had the dog's ears pricking up and pointing forward. He glanced at them all before clicking his tongue. The dogs took a few steps forward, vibrating with an excited dangerous energy, muscles bunched and poised ready to spring, “Sic ‘em.” He said.

The dogs burst forward in streaks of greys, browns, whites, and blacks, and Asher turned to carry on walking with the ghoul kid to distract the boy from the dogs on a hunt. Mac kept watching the pack as they caught up to the Gunner a few hundred feet away. He couldn't fully hear the man screaming but could see enough to know he was dead after a few short moments.

The dogs returned with bloody muzzles and to rewarding scratches to the backs of their ears and little mumbles of "good boys" from Asher.

Warmth bloomed in Mac's belly as he continued to follow.

Diamond City was a heaving pile of garbage as usual. They were just in town to collect Nat to move her things out to Sanctuary and Ash wanted to see what the markets had to offer whilst the others helped the girl pack.

They were wandering through the thick crowd of the markets: vendors called out their wares, people hollered and gossiped, and the thick smells of cooking noodles filled the air. Mac saw a content looking man with a rounded belly and a soulmark visible on his neck and it made him ache for Duncan. He was pondering whether Ash would help him go to Med-Tek - even though the guy had so much on his plate right now - to look for the cure. He was just working up the courage to ask him about it when he caught sight of a familiar green uniform. 
He pulled on Asher's sleeve to get his attention and pointed with his chin. Ash frowned and pulled him deeper into the crowd with his gloved hand. As they passed Myrna’s store, they saw another Gunner and heard the guy say, “We're looking for MacCready. Green hat and brown coat. Wears a stupid scarf. You seen him?”

Mac heard Asher whisper out a fuck and then moved quicker into the throng of crowded people. As they moved, he watched Asher pull on a hat and hood up over his own head to hide his tell-tale decorated hair. Then, his hand flew out towards someone's chair and came back with a black beanie. He spun MacCready round in another direction and snatched his hat off his head and yanked the beanie over his brown curls.

“Hey!”

“Shush, Robbie. Hang on.” Robbie. He skirted around the edge of the market and pilfered a hoodie from the edge of a table, “Take your coat off.”

“But -”

“No time!” His eyes were flickering over the crowd counting the small groups of Gunners he could see, “Hurry. There's so many.”

“Fu - frick.” He pulled his duster off and accepted the hoodie in its place. Asher carefully folded his beloved coat and put it in his bag before they continued to weave through the crowd. Asher grabbed his hand and kept their fingers entwined as they moved.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”

“We can hide in Nick's?”

“No, they'll check there and I don't want to risk a shootout with Nat and Ellie there too.” He pulled them down a dim alleyway and kept Mac pressed close to his side, “We'll go near to Home Plate but not go inside yet.”

“Why?” They stepped around a grimy thick puddle of unknown bodily fluids.

“Can't risk them knowing we own the place if we can help it.”

We?

Asher paused at a corner and peeked his head around it before nodding and dragging Mac over the street and taking a sharp left to move ever further away from the market. The bustle of people grew quieter and quieter behind them. He pulled them around another corner and into another dark alley with the red door of Home Plate just visible at the end of it, “Listen, if this doesn't work, make a run for the house and lock the doors. Yeah?”

“But -”

“Hush, just nod or shake your head.” They could hear heavy footsteps coming and the grumbles of dissent and fucking little bitch, gonna put his head on a spike. Asher's eyes narrowed with his dark brows pulling low in anger at the sound and Mac nodded quickly.

Ash then easily pushed him up against the wall, ignoring Mac’s little startled squeak at the manhandling, and shielded him with his larger body from the incoming squad of Gunners. He placed one hand on his face, the leather of the glove cool against his suddenly heated skin, and another hand on his neck. He tilted his head and brought their faces close together, “Put your arms around me, Robbie.” He felt his breath ghost over his mouth. Mac carefully brought his arms around and gripped at the fabric on the big man's back, “Loosen your grip, just hold on and act like you're enjoying this.” He mumbled.

He loosened his hold and gently placed a hand on Asher’s waist and the other in the middle of his spine. He felt the muscle shudder and forced his own body to stay still. An effort that went to waste when Ash placed a knee between his legs to hold him against the wall.

He couldn't hear anything as he looked into Asher's eyes. This close he could see little flecks of lighter brown in the black irises as his pupils dilated and a small flush climbed his pale cheeks. His mouth had gone dry. He could, if he dared, move this last centimeter and press their lips together.
What would it feel like to kiss another man? He’d only ever kissed Lucy before. Would it be much different? Would Asher let him? Would he like it?

Stop, brain.

Then Ash turned his face away and MacCready almost protested before he heard the bigger man growl out, “Does it look like I've seen anyone? Fuck off.” He turned his face back and MacCready couldn't help his hands brushing down his back as he shivered at the shift of the knee between his legs.

He heard a Gunner mumble perverts before the squad moved on. When they had left the area, not that MacCready had even realised they were there with his mind tumbling at the closeness of Asher’s mouth, Ash stepped back with a smile and said, “Most people don't like PDA. Makes them feel awkward.”

MacCready felt like his skin was too tight with his nerves tingling with every look Asher threw his way. A feeling that persisted when they moved to take down Winlock and Barnes later that week.

A feeling that became almost unbearable as they stood outside of Med-Tek with his son's cure in hand as he presented his little toy soldier to Ash. Of course, Asher had helped him without question. They’d simply loaded up and moved out within the hour of MacCready telling him about his dead wife and sick kid.

They had stood there in front of the rotting building as their friends and dogs set up camp nearby, “I was hoping that what we had together could be more than friendship…” Ash said after Mac spilled his heart out about being best friends and nearly family.

MacCready's brain short circuited.

They came to the river around Sanctuary. They'd killed a Courser and got the information from Virgil and were now waiting for Sturges and Tinker Tom to build the relay that would take Asher to the Institute. Alone. There was also a debate going on about getting the Brotherhood involved so that they could make use of their tech and ordnance.

Mac wasn't happy but he couldn't really do anything about it.

He followed Asher down to the river. The man was being extremely patient with him after he'd spilled his heart out and asked for more. Mac had frozen up at the suggestion. It's not that he didn't want to, he just didn't know how to start. He kept thinking about the time in Diamond City where he’d felt all of Asher’s large body pressed up against him. There hadn’t even been any skin involved but that didn’t stop MacCready fantasising about it when he was alone in his bedroom in the big house they all shared in Sanctuary.

It was also very distracting watching the man strip in the shallows as he nattered about this and that. His long hair fell down past his shoulder blades as he undid the braids and carefully placed the beads and little links of silver onto a nearby rock. Mac wanted to run his hands through his hair. Wanted to feel Asher’s bare hands roam over him. He blushed furiously as he stepped into the water to wash.

Then, Mac slipped and his head went under the softly bubbling stream. He didn't have time to panic to his usual thoughts of drowning and sea monsters as he felt bare hands lift him by the arms and the shock of pure lightning down his spine. They stood staring at each other, water dripping into rivulets from their hair and down their chests, as the soulmark formed on the inside of their forearms and Asher smiled. He smiled wider than Mac had ever seen and he knew he was in hopelessly deep. And, now, they were tied irrevocably by the new tattoo of a bare tree backlit by a sunburst.

“Wow.” Ash said simply and breathlessly.

That evening, he let Asher put a braid in his hair. It lay just in front of his left ear and framed his face in an intricate little pattern. He tied a little black bead into it and a new matching green bead into his own.

“There. Now we match.”

They consummated their new budding relationship after Asher returned from the Institute a wreck. He had been gone for three nail biting days and came back to Sanctuary raging and crying and ranting and they found an outlet for the emotional turmoil in each other.

They kissed tentatively at first, just a soft barely there brushing of lips, before simply melting into each other. The kiss became heated. Teeth nipping and tongues exploring.
Mac let his hands wander over Ash's broad chest and back, finding the buckles and straps of his armour and undoing what he could blind as Ash continued to kiss his mouth and jaw. He felt his duster be pulled away and then hands on his hips to pull him in closer. Ash whispered against the skin of his neck, “you sure?” and Mac nodded as he moved his hand to the back of Ash’s head to push his mouth harder into his sensitive skin. He felt him smile against him.

He backed them carefully into his room, not letting his hands and mouth stop their exploration, and then MacCready's hat was gently pulled away and placed on a bedside table. Asher laid him on the bed and stood at the edge to fully remove his armour before pulling his shirt up and off. Mac took a moment to finally take in his bare skin. So pale he could see small blue veins over the tight muscle of his pecs and abs. A dark trail of hair led from his navel and disappeared into the waistband of his pants.
Ash crawled onto the bed and hovered over him as he bent to kiss him again and his hair fell about them in a thick black curtain. He rested one knee between his legs and applied a bit of pressure that sent a shockwave up MacCready's spine only for it to pool low in his belly. His hips rolled up without him telling them to and he groaned into Asher's mouth.

Ash balanced on one elbow as his other hand started to undo the buttons on Mac's shirt and sighed as his fingertips brushed the goose pebbled flesh that was slowly exposed. Mac trailed his hands down his partner's spine, bitten nails gently scratching, before he held tight to his still clothed hips. He pulled on them to encourage the bigger man to put more weight on him, needing to be closer after the agonising stress of waiting for him to come back from the Institute. Asher obliged and moved his mouth to Mac's collarbone with his teeth gently nipping before brushing over the slight sting with his lips and tongue.

“I've wanted to do this for so long.”

Mac moaned as Ash rolled his hips down, “Y-yeah? Since when?”

“Since I sat next to you in the Third Rail.” His long fingers were carefully undoing the buckles and straps of MacCready's many belts and pouches and bandoliers of bullets from around his hips and thighs.

“That was months ago.”

He laughed and brought their mouths together again as Mac felt the fabric around his hips loosen, “I know. Been driving me nuts.” He pressed their cheeks together and hummed into the stubbly skin there before kissing him again, “God, even then, you had me wrapped around your fingers.”

They pulled their remaining clothing away and lay bare against each other. Mac hadn't realised how goddamn touch starved he had been since losing Lucy all those years ago. He'd never been with anyone else since and had never even entertained the thought of being with another person before. Until Asher. He was beautiful and kind and gentle. He sang songs and braided hair and helped the people that needed helping. 

He was also deadly. Strong. Mac had seen him twist someone's head all the way around in one fluid motion before following through to put a bullet between someone else's eyes.

And he was his. Branded and claimed by a little tattered mercenary.

Asher licked a stripe up his throat as he lifted his leg to one side and Mac felt the moan tear its way from deep in his chest as the movement caused the briefest moment of friction for him against Asher's belly. He wasn't sure where the oil came from but his whole body jerked when Ash placed a slick finger against his arse and rubbed a lazy circle there. His hips twitched as he rolled against the feeling and met Asher's lips again as the man pushed inside him to the knuckle. Ash swallowed his gasp and murmured nonsense words and praises as the finger inside the merc started to press and stroke. He saw stars as he tensed when he brushed against a spot that had the breath leaving his body.

“There it is…” Ash whispered as he continued to rub at that spot as he added another finger.

“There's…oh fuck…there's what?”

He let out a low laugh and began to scissor his fingers back and forth to open his lover up, “The part of you that finally makes you swear.”

The fingers were removed after another minute of mind numbing teasing and Mac felt he should've been embarrassed at the protesting whine that came from him but found he didn't care. He watched Ash use the oil to slick up his dick, a dick that he wasn't sure he'd be able to fit inside but, damn it, if RJ MacCready wasn't a trier, and then he shuddered as the head of said dick was pressed against him.

“You ready, love?”

Love. 

It made his chest feel warm and couldn't help the smile that almost split his face in two. Ash smiled down at him and brought their mouths together again as he slowly pushed inside.
Mac trailed his fingers into Asher’s too long hair and held on tight as he gasped for breath against the man's face. He heard Ash groan and felt him shiver as Mac dragged his mouth, lips and teeth, along his cheek and jaw. The moan that escaped Mac as Ash fully sheathed himself inside was loud and loaded in a thick emotion that he couldn’t place.

They paused for one hovering moment of anticipation before Ash rolled against him. The hard drag of the dick inside him turned him into putty beneath the General's hands and he babbled nonsense words and prayers into Ash's ear as the big man kept his warm body close. 

Ash pulled one of MacCready's grabbing hands out of his hair and entwined their fingers on the bed, his other arm working its way beneath Mac and pulling him impossibly closer and using him as leverage for the continued slow movement of his hips. So so slow and deep and making MacCready tingle from the crown of his head all the way down to the tips of his toes.

It was a gradual build up of the tension in his belly and lower back. A slow tight warmth that pooled and twisted and shuddered somewhere deep in his soul. Like the ever progressing roll of ocean waves or the deep rumbling of a storm. It surged through him, the brand on his forearm burning like a live electric wire, and every nerve lit up.

His orgasm had him arching his back and curling into Ash at the same time. He cried out his lover's name as he felt him throb and spill into him and had never felt so warm and full before.

Ash collapsed half atop him and left warm kisses along his sweat slick shoulders, a hand brushing up his side and not caring about the mess Mac had left on them both, “Fuck, I love you so fucking much.”

Mac felt whole. As though all his life, even with Lucy and Duncan, he had been missing something. Soulmates were everywhere and he'd heard how that connection between two people transcended all others. He'd never dreamed he'd get to have it for himself. He had been disappointed when Lucy hadn't turned out to be his but neither of them had overly minded and, when Duncan was born, the idea had kind of left his brain. But now? He knew what he had been missing. Knew how others felt. Understood the looks and touches and reverence he'd seen in others as they interacted with their person.
He got it now. And he wouldn't let anything take it away from him again.

“Love you too.”

Chapter 1 - The Tail-end of Bullshit

MacCready had to admit he had a pretty good life now, even if it had taken him a long long time to accept that he deserved it. Not because he was good or bad or had been part of the group that had saved the Commonwealth from the bogeymen, simply because he was a person and people deserved to live in whatever relative peace they could scrounge up for themselves.

Sure, their peace may be broken every now and again by the odd raider attack, Super Mutant rampage, or request for help from a nearby settlement. But, generally, the last few years had been filled with nothing but what he'd always hoped for. 

Calm peace.

He had a home, a Soulmate, a town to call his own, and his son was safe and healthy and by his side. Well, when he could tear him away from his other dad, that is.

They, himself and Asher and their little forged-in-fire family, had collected Duncan from the Capital Wasteland when the dust had settled and once the boy had been strong enough to travel again. He'd been four then and had quickly settled into his new home as though he'd always been there. And now, at seven-nearly-eight, he went everywhere with Asher: literally clinging to his broad back and shoulders like a velcroed stuffed toy. MacCready's heart would swell to about ten times its size when he'd come home from wherever and from whatever mission to find Duncan curled up on Asher's chest, fast asleep, as Asher drew gentle soothing lines down their boy's back.
The first time he'd heard Duncan call Asher dad he thought he'd pass out from the bubble of sheer joy that exploded in him. He'd sat with a big goofy grin as Asher put intricate little braids into Duncan's curly hair until they all matched, “Now, Dunc, why don't we cut it?”

“So grandma and grandpa can look after me too.” Ash had taken Duncan to his parent’s graves a while ago in Wildwood Cemetery where they’d been buried a few years before the bombs to introduce Duncan to them: Here's your grandson, he'd said and Mac had wanted to throw himself at his partner.

Mac's own hair had grown longer as he easily adopted this one part of Asher's homelands culture into his life. Ash hadn't asked him too, just like he hadn't asked the rest of their family to wear braids, but Mac took it on anyway and delighted in the little prideful looks Ash would throw his way. Those of them that didn't have hair; Hancock, Deacon, and Nick, had little beads sewn into various seams of their hats or jackets.

Duncan would help Asher with everything. Turrets and food and patrols around the settlement. Mac had joked once that the pair were going to go out the door and forget all about him and leave on an adventure all their own. Their response had been to make a dramatic show of packing their bags with heartfelt speeches before they walked out the door. They were just going to the trade post on Covenant's side of the settlement and would be back in a few hours. Those hours, Mac had spent laughing to himself as he did his own job of checking the town's defenses.

The town, colloquially known as Boathouse now, started from what had once been Taffington Boathouse and wrapped around the back edge of the lake all the way to Covenant. They lived in the original old boathouse with their closest neighbours being their family and friends: Piper and Nat across the street, Hancock next door, Nick after that, Preston, Curie, Cait, Deacon, Codsworth. All of them had moved here after the battle for the Institute and the pain it caused Asher made living in Sanctuary an impossibility. But, with Asher being a beacon for people to flock to, the town had grown tremendously. The lake was an excellent resource of food and scrap and the purifiers set up in evenly spaced intervals kept it clean enough for kids to splash in when it was warm. All this, along with many more settlements across the ‘Wealth, his partner had accomplished by being too good for his own good and by being almost completely selfless. He led the Minutemen as though it were second nature and worked with the Railroad when he had the time.

He and Asher were Soulmates. Everyone in their settlements knew it even without seeing their marks because, apparently, they were just so obvious. Hanging on each other whenever they got the chance and spending every spare moment talking about everything and nothing. And now, three or four years down the line, MacCready and his friends and family were just waiting for Asher to pop the question. Behind MacCready's back, they'd nudge and poke Asher to just get on with it already. He'd wave them away with vague promises of “All in good time…” and “I'm waiting for the perfect moment, hush.”

Everything was perfect and, in the evenings once Duncan was asleep in his own room, he’d crawl into bed with his partner and simply marvel at everything that had led him to this point. He’d trace his and Asher’s soulmarks and let his fingers roam over the man’s tightly packed muscle that rippled beneath his pale skin. His hands would find purchase in his too long black hair and his mouth would find his lips.
They’d made a promise a long time ago to never go to bed angry with each other after a massive argument had left both of them heaving and clawing at their own chests. He can’t even remember what the argument had specifically been about anymore, just that tensions had been high and everyone had been stressed and tired after the Castle had been attacked by the Institute. So now, no matter what had happened during the day or whatever daily stress life threw at them, they’d find each other at peace in their bedroom.

Yes, everything was now perfect for MacCready. So, he really shouldn’t have been surprised when the other boot dropped and he once more found himself gasping as though his soul was trying to leave his body.

He woke up one bright sunny day feeling like he’d been run over by a stampede of Super Mutants. His whole body ached like a giant bruise or broken bone, his head felt foggy and dizzy, and he rushed to the bathroom to throw up. Violently.
Asher was by his side almost instantly, combing back his hair and holding it away as Mac continued to heave until nothing but bile escaped him. He disappeared for a moment and came back with a can of purified water and gently rubbed circles into his back.

“Maybe you should stay in bed, love. I’ll get one of the runners to check the overnight turrets for you.” His dark eyes were full of concern and worry and Mac could only nod as he was helped up off the ground and deposited back into their bed, “Back in a moment.” A gentle kiss was pressed to his head and Asher disappeared again.

He didn’t feel too bad now that his stomach was empty and he was lying down again. He carefully sipped at his water and grumbled as he pulled the blankets back up to his shoulders and settled to wait for his partner to return.
When Asher came back, he was carrying a tray of food with hot tea which he settled on the side table. Mac was about to smile and thank him when the smell of Radstag sausage and egg hit his nose and he heaved over the side of the bed, emptying out all the water he had just drank.

“Yikes, maybe something plainer? And a bucket…” Asher took the food away. Mac heard him knock on Duncan’s door and some mumbling and assumed Asher gave their son the breakfast tray instead. When Asher came back, it was with a bowl of razorgrain porridge, a bucket, and a damp rag to wipe the floor down.

“Ash…I’m sorry. I dunno -”

“Hush, sweetheart, everyone gets sick now and then.” He brushed his hand over Mac’s forehead with a small frown, “You’re not warm so maybe you just ate something funny yesterday? Try and eat and I’ll be back later once I’ve sorted out the rounds. You have your walkie or do I need to get it?” Mac reached for the bedside drawer and pulled the walkie-talkie out, its twin would be in Ash’s bag somewhere, “Good, just get me on the usual channel if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay.” Then Asher left to begin his day's work and Mac remained in bed with his bucket and bowl of porridge that didn’t stay down either.

The mysterious vomiting and dizzy spells would return at seemingly random points over the next few weeks as he tried to function normally. He’d smell food cooking and have to duck his head and breathe deeply to keep the churning of his guts down. A child laugh-screaming nearby would make his head spin and the sudden vertigo would force him to sit. He was tired all the bloody time but couldn’t sleep as weird dreams would jerk him awake in the night. He couldn’t stop pissing and he’d get random stomach cramps low in his belly. He pushed through as best as he could to do his job in keeping the security of their settlements as safe as possible. 

He had thought he’d been doing a good job at hiding just how sick he felt but he couldn’t hide from Asher. His partner knew him better than anyone else on their little destroyed planet and, one night as Asher pulled MacCready to his chest, MacCready surprised them both with a sudden lashing out of frustration.

“Oh, for fu - frick sake! Give me some space, Ash!” He regretted it instantly and didn’t understand where the outburst had come from. He just knew that the feeling of Asher's hair on his chest rubbing on his own had instantly made him snap. He cringed at the little flicker of hurt in Asher’s eyes before whispering out, “Sorry, I don't know why I did that.”

Asher frowned before tentatively running a hand up MacCready's arm, “I think we need to get Curie to have a look at you,” Mac went to protest but Ash plowed ahead, “Robbie…you're so obviously ill I'm surprised Hancock or Deacon haven't dragged you to the clinic yet. You've lost weight, love, and you look so fucking tired.”

“I'll be fine.” He didn't need to take up Curie's time over a lingering stomach bug and, with a settlement their size, the clinic was always so busy.

“Robbie, you're not fine. What if it gets worse? What if you're contagious and Duncan gets it?” Their son even struggled with colds after the plague had nearly killed him as a toddler, “Please. We'll go tomorrow and hopefully Curie can suggest something to help, yeah?”

“...fine. But I'm telling you now: it's nothing to bother Curie with.”

The next morning Asher was called out with Preston, Deacon, Cait, and Nick on an urgent job down near the Castle. They'd be gone a few days and, just before they left, Asher had MacCready promise he'd go and get checked at the clinic.

So, Mac grumbled and huffed his way toward Curie's domain. He hoped, with the early morning, that it'd be empty. 

It wasn't. 

As always, the clinic was practically bursting at the seams with medics and people in various levels of discomfort. Curie caught his eye as he walked into the main room and he nodded as he sat on a stool to wait his turn.
It felt like the wait lasted for hours and hours as he fought with the nausea rolling inside him. He sipped at his water as the smells of other people's sweating bodies filled the air. The stench of antiseptic and meds and chems burned the back of his nose and he found himself leaning against a table and breathing through the crook of his elbow. A helper came by and offered him a snack as the wait dragged on and he had to force himself to not throw up on the woman's feet.

Then finally, after what felt like actual torture and a personal insult against his entire family, he heard Curie’s gentle voice call out to him, “Monsieur MacCready?” He looked up and she was calmly waving him over, “Come through with me, oui?”

Mac swayed on his feet as he stood, the vertigo pulling at the edges of his consciousness, and he staggered toward Curie who was watching his movements with a tight worried frown painting her face. She gently held his elbow as she led him down a small corridor and into a private room that had her name printed on the door. Whilst she was the town's primary doctor, her private room was mostly reserved for them and their family. Or, for people seriously ill and hurt, of course. She sat him gently down in one of the cosy armchairs that filled the space along with her exam table, desk, and medicine cabinet. Her desk was lined up perfectly with various medical implements that they had managed to scavenge for her over the last few years.

“Now, ArrJay,” His name came out stilted with her thick French accent, “Vat seems to be ze problem?” She was assessing him with her eyes, taking in the weight loss visible on his face and the sallow clamminess of his skin.

He shrugged, “I’ve just been feeling sick lately and promised Ash I’d come see you about it. I’m sure it's just a bug or somethin’.”

“Ah ah, you know you should see me if you ‘ave somethink possibly contagious, oui? Duncan -”

“I know.” His frustration was back. He knew that Duncan fell ill harder than the other children in the settlement and they all worked hard to keep him as healthy as possible, “I don’t think I’m contagious or other people will have had it by now.”

“‘Ow long ‘av you been ill, Robbie?”

“I dunno…about three weeks?”

“Any other symptoms?” She was writing notes on a little clipboard now.

“Uh…nausea, headaches, dizziness…peeing a lot. I’m tired.”

She paused in her writing before continuing, “Hmm, dislike for certain foods?”

He sat forward in surprise, “Yeah! Which is really fu - fricking irritating because I’d kill for some bacon right now but the smell makes me sick.”

“I see. Please, get onto the table and remove your shirt.”

He did as he was told. Curie had seen him shirtless countless times in the field. Hell, she’d seen all of them completely naked at least once as she worked to bring them back from the brink of death hundreds of times. She looked at him now and her eyes squinted in disapproval. He knows he’s lost weight but he didn’t think it was enough for Curie to catch on to, “Monsieur, I am surprised that Asher did not force you to see me sooner.”

He flushed and suddenly felt a bit put out by her comment, “Wow, Curie, way to put a guy down.”

What the fuck is up with these mood swings? Fuck.

“Apologies, Robbie, but you ‘av lost a lot of weight, oui? Too much.”

He wanted to cry and covered his eyes as he lay back on the exam table. He felt the gentle touch of Curie as she tried to soothe him, “I don’t know what’s wrong, Curie.”

“I ‘av an idea but I must be sure before I suggest it.” She pulled over a stethoscope and gestured with it, “May I?”

He nodded and she got to work. She lay her palm on his forehead first and then pulled his bottom eyelid down to check its pinkness and mumbled anaemia to herself. Then, she lay the stethoscope onto his chest and counted his heartbeats as the sound carried through the device and into her ears. She moved it to the left side of his ribcage first and directed him to take deep breaths before doing the same on the right. Then, she moved it to his belly and slowly, seemingly picking points of his gut at random, moved further and further down until she laid it in the concave dip taut with muscle between his hip bones. There, she paused for a long while before removing the device and gently started palpating the area with soft hands. He felt a sharp twinge and winced, his knee jerking a little, “Tender?” She asked and he nodded.

She helped him sit up and directed him to put his shirt back on, “I know what is wrong, Robbie.” Her big brown eyes had a weird sparkle in them that made him feel nervous.

“Yeah? Is it serious?”

She nodded, “Oh, indeed. Possibly the most serious thing there is.”

He felt his chest tighten and his stomach drop into Hell. He wanted to cry and scream, “Oh, f - fuck. I’m going to die? What is it? Cancer? Holy shit! What about Duncan? And Asher! I can’t leave them Curie! You gotta cut it out or -”

“Calm, Robbie,” She laid her hands on either side of his face, fingers brushing his long hair away, and smiled, “You’re going to be just fine. I’m sorry if my word choice made you panic.”

“So, it’s treatable? I’ll be fine? You swear?” He wanted a cigarette and a beer and then a stern conversation with Curie about bedside manners.

“Oh, oui, very treatable. In about eight months.”

He clenched the edge of the table with his hands: fingers and knuckles turning white with the strain, “W-why can’t you do it now?”

“Because, Monsieur MacCready, you are expecting.” She smiled so wide and the blood rushed to MacCready’s head. He felt sick again.

He whispered as though she were a bad omen come to tell him the day, hour, and way he’ll die, “Expecting what, Curie?”

She laughed like air and carefully held his shoulders, “You are ‘aving a baby, oui? Yourself and Asher are going to be parents…again.”

He was silent for a full minute before his brain registered her words, “I beg your biggest fucking pardon?”

“You are preg -”

“No no no. I got it.” He dragged his hands through his hair, the small cuffs of silver and beading rattling, and tried to breathe.

What the fuck!?

It wasn’t unheard of. The radiation has changed people in many different ways over the last two-hundred years or so: exacerbating a slow process that had begun before the Great War through the arrogance of medical experimentation, massive pollution, and the over-processing of foods.

Some people could breathe underwater, a handy trait for scavvers. Some people were incredibly strong, some were incredibly quick. Some people had the intelligence of five men and others could simply blend into the shadows. And, some people turned into ghouls instead of dying from radiation poisoning. Other things had also changed with people in general; their resistance to radiation was better than those Pre-War, they could survive on very questionable foods, could take more hits, and some men had been born with the ability to carry children.
Some bigwigs from ages ago attributed it to nature trying to find ways for life to live. Others just called it a fluke of the radiation lottery.

No, it wasn’t unheard of. But, it was still rare enough to turn heads when you saw a guy with an obviously rounded stomach and a pregnancy glow.

He felt his stomach churn and heaved. Curie was quick with a little tub for the water he’d drank earlier to splatter into it. 

What was he going to do? He and Asher hadn’t talked about having more children. They were happy with Duncan and after…Shaun, MacCready assumed that adopting a kid would be too painful for him. They didn’t talk about Shaun. Asher had had one massive rant about the situation with his son being in his sixties and creating fake child versions of himself and it had made his skin almost crawl off his body. When the synth child ran towards them as they were getting ready to leave the Institute and started calling them both daddy, it had taken everything in Asher to turn the robot away. It took a long time for the nightmares to stop plaguing him even if he didn’t regret his choice of not accepting the robot boy.

How was he going to tell him? How was he going to tell their family? Duncan? 

He was going to get round and cumbersome. He wouldn’t be able to go on missions. And then he’d have to…squeeze a full person out of himself. How did that even work? It wasn’t something he’d ever looked into thinking it didn’t apply to him. He and Lucy had Duncan and, before Asher, he’d never been with a man before. A fact Asher enjoyed immensely.

Oh, God…a baby?

“Curie…what do I -”

“First things first, we get you eating again. You’re very dehydrated and anaemic which isn’t good for ze fetus. And then we need to get you -”

“How far?”

“Hmm?”

“How far along am I?” He remembered Lucy asking the same thing when they’d found out she was pregnant with Duncan.

“I would put you at around five or six weeks along.”

Oh fuck.

“Right, and can I…get rid of it?”

As soon as he said those words, alarm bells started ringing in his head. A chorus of screaming  no no no no no! He curled in on himself and wrapped his arms around his belly, instantly regretting the thought and the words. He couldn’t do that. Not to a little thing that was suddenly relying on him. Some little tiny bean shaped life that needed him to survive.

“...um…you could but I highly recommend thinking about that before you go ahead with it.”

“No, sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”

“It’s okay, it ez normal for those kinds of thoughts at first, oui? It ez a big change…to yourself and to your family.” She brushed along his arms to coax him out of his nearly ball shape, “Now then, I can give you something for the nausea and I recommend you eat plenty of iron rich foods. I must send a message to the General for ‘im to collect some folates and iron from the medics in Vault Eighty-One and -”

“Wait! Don’t tell Asher.”

“Monsieur, ‘e ez the closest to the Vault right now. It makes sense for ‘im to go -”

“Please! I’ll…I’ll tell him myself. He’ll want to hear it from me. Please, Curie.”

“Hmm…I could put ze request in as a general resupply? Would that be agreeable?”

“Yeah, just don’t tell him. I need a few days to…I dunno. Then I’ll tell him when he gets home.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. In ze meantime, take this,” She handed him a small bottle of off-white pills, “an antiemetic. It’ll 'elp with ze sickness. Make sure you drink plenty of water and no more smoking or drinking alcohol. It is dangerous for ze baby.”

“...right. Um…thank you, Curie.”

She smiled at him again as he stood and then wrapped him into a hug, “Et ez my pleasure, Monsieur MacCready. I am so ‘appy for you both. I will come and see you in a day or two to see ‘ow you are coping, oui?”

He nodded against her soft neat hair where Ash had braided it into a crown, “Oui.” He replied and left the clinic with a feeling as though a leaden weight had dropped into his chest and got tangled up in all his nerves. He lit a cigarette, scowled, and then threw it away.

Fuck fuck fuck FUCK!

Chapter Text

He tried to be normal for Duncan. He really did. But, he was so aware of the life inside him that it made thinking about anything else difficult. He took the anti-sickness pills Curie had given him and choked down the food she recommended him and forced it to remain inside his body. All the while, his son with his big blue eyes, would watch him with a worried frown. Mac tried so hard to do their usual things together; patrolling, looking after the dogs, playing games and cooking food, but he'd find his brain wandering away from whatever task was before them.

It took two days for Duncan to talk about it, “Daddy, are you still poorly? Dad said that Curie was gonna fix you.” He was idly flipping a page in the Grognak comic he was reading, pretending that he wasn't as worried as he was and Mac felt awful about it.

“I'll be okay, buddy. Just got a bit of a stomach thing going on right now.”The understatement of the century.
He sat and sipped at the hot tea that Curie promised would help ease the constant sick feeling. He didn't remember Lucy being so ill when she was pregnant but he felt a new swell of love for her if she had fought through this as they'd roamed the Wasteland. She hadn't once complained as her body changed: she had simply continued on as if everything was as normal as could be. When Duncan was born, she had been so happy and had taken to motherhood as easily as a duck to water. She had sang sweet lullabies to their baby, held him close and fluffed his hair, and had dragged Mac into impromptu cuddle piles where the three of them would just be. God, how he missed her sometimes. Even now after all these years. She had been his best friend: his confidante, his shoulder to lean on during cold nights in the desert.

Another bout of nausea gripped him and he shifted uncomfortably through another swallow of the strange tasting tea.

Morning sickness? Fuck off.
It's all bastard day sickness.

“Hmm, is that what the medicine you're taking is for?”

“Yeah, and dad is gonna bring me some more. I promise I'll be fine in a few weeks.” He didn't know if that was true but he hoped he wouldn't be this ill for the next eight-ish months.

Oh fuck. A baby.
Eight months.
An actual fucking baby.
What the fuck?

Duncan sighed dramatically as the comic flopped out of his pockmarked hands and onto his chest, “When will dad be home? No offence, but I'm bored.”

Mac held back the wince, he really was trying to be normal for him but the roiling of his stomach and the ever present panic in his mind kept him rooted in a shell of his own anxieties, “I know. Sorry. He'll be back in a couple days.” He put his tea down, it tasted like weird menthol medicines, “If you're so bored, why don't you go find Billy? Or play with Nat?”

Duncan looked his dad over with a frown, his dark eyebrows drawing low in an almost perfect rendition of Asher's disappointed face, “What if you need something? Dad has the other walkie and you look -”

“Baby, I'm telling you, I'm fine. Go out and play for a while. Come back when the lights start to switch on and stay out of the lake.”

“But, dad -”

“Dunc, I promise I'm okay," Liar, "and Piper is right over the street if I need help.”

His serious seven year old stood with a sigh and toed on his boots from where they sat at the end of their little black couch, “Okay. But I'll be coming home sooner than the lights. Dad will be pissed off if I leave and you get more sick.” He pushed his curly hair and braids off his forehead as he moved and Mac was struck with how alike to Asher he was.
Duncan looked like him with glimpses of his mother peeking through every now and then: her brow shape, the bow of her mouth, the shape of her ears, but his mannerisms were all Ash. What would the baby look like? Pale as snow like Asher? Wild brown hair or black? 

He shook himself out of those kind of thoughts and kept up with Duncan, “Language. Cap in the swear jar before you go.”

Duncan rolled his eyes but moved and dutifully deposited a cap in the nearly full jar. They'd be able to buy a new rifle with that jar soon, not that they didn't already have ten in MacCready's collection. He watched his boy pull on his jacket and step out of the boathouse and then quietly shut the door.

Mac was on his feet almost instantly and moving to the bathroom. There, he stripped off his shirt and looked at himself in the mirror, turning his body to the side and running a hand over his flat lower belly. Lucy had gotten so round, especially towards the end of her pregnancy: her stomach had been hard and cumbersome and she had moved so slow.

Fuck.
I'm gonna get fat.
Ash is gonna be pissed and hurt and there'll be nothing I can do.

He caught a glimpse of the soulmark on his forearm and brushed his thumb over it. It was a pretty little thing: a small bare tree with a sunburst lighting it up from behind. Ash had told him that people Pre-War believed the soulmarks to represent a person's given birth name and, in their case, it definitely did. Ash told him that his name was directly taken from the type of tree that used to exist; his parents had named him and his siblings after various plants; Asher, Daisy, Willow, Rosie, and Oak. Robert apparently meant light. It had made him bitterly laugh the first time Ash told him that because he'd been so full of grief and darkness and the need for revenge. 

When they'd discovered they were Soulmates, it had been purely by chance as these things tended to be. They'd been washing in the river by Sanctuary, talking about nothing in particular as Mac's eyes roamed over the pale expanse of Ash's bare back, when he'd slipped on a loose rock and tumbled beneath the water. Asher had been quick to pull him up, the bare skin of his hands on the bare skin of Mac's upper arms, and that had been that. They'd felt the lightning flash down their spines and the burn in their arms as the marks bled into their skin like watercolour ink as though they'd always been there and had just been waiting for the right time to bloom to life.

They'd stood in the river for a long time just staring at each other, Mac's mind running a mile a minute as he flipped from relief to grief to guilt to joy and back again, and then Asher had smiled: the biggest smile Mac had ever seen on him. As though he'd never seen him smile for real before and this was a wall breaking and letting the sun in to warm some old ruins. Like Sunshine. He smiled that smile and simply said wow and that was that.

Would he smile like that again and say wow when Mac told him about this new development?
He'd been so open to Duncan when they retrieved him from the edge of the Capital Wasteland. The pair had simply clicked into place. But, with what happened to Shaun, Mac knew that children were sometimes a difficult subject for his partner. Even after all this time.

He couldn't imagine the pain of losing Duncan and then being asked to have another kid. 

But, isn't that what Asher had done for them? They'd lost Shaun. Lost him in such a weird convoluted messed up way that had left Asher a shell of himself for a few weeks. He'd been hurt and miserable and so so grief stricken. He had screamed and raged about his failure: how he had failed his son, how he had failed Nora, and how he had failed them. How he had failed to make their family whole and right. Asher, Robert, Duncan, and Shaun. They, MacCready and the rest of their family, had had to talk Asher out of cutting his hair. Shaun hadn't been his fault and he hadn't failed them all. The world was simply a hard place to be now and Asher had done his best with what cards he had been dealt. He had fought and struggled and killed to survive, to have them all survive, and no one held those hard choices and difficult actions against him.
And then, he'd picked himself up off the ground, dusted himself off, and walked all those miles to Mac's old farm and scooped Duncan up as though he'd always been there. Stepped into the role of a father as though he'd been born for it. He never compared Duncan to Shaun. He never had a talk with MacCready about any awkwardness or bad feelings about it all after his initial weeks of grief and mourning. He'd glowed when Duncan first called him dad.

Maybe having another wouldn't be so bad. A baby that was part Asher and part Mac. Maybe Asher would be happy about it and MacCready was worrying over nothing.

Mac squeezed his eyes shut against his own reflection. He was going to change. He was all wiry muscle and taught lines and chiselled trained hardness from the way he grew up and the almost constant fight of living in the Wastelands and the Commonwealth. He had more scars than he cared to count and the reputation of being a snarky little bitch. A rep he didn't actually mind because it made people think twice when dealing with them in the towns and cities.

But, he was going to get round. Fat. Soft. It's hard to be intimidating when you couldn't get up off a couch properly or sprint into a building for cover. Would the recoil of a rifle hurt the baby? Would Asher still find him attractive? Would he scream and rage and grieve?

Oh, shit…am I gonna grow tits?

He needed to read a book or something about this. Or, talk to Curie. Or, find another guy who had gone through this. He didn't know any other guys who had gone through this. He'd seen a few in Diamond City and one in Sanctuary once but he hadn't exactly gone up and introduced himself. It's not like he knew this was a possibility for himself and Asher.

He started to pace the bathroom and chew on his nail, a habit he had been trying hard to stop and tried to fend off the prickling panic beneath his skin. He wanted a cigarette but Curie would probably slap him if she saw. He wanted a beer but, again, Curie would be livid. 

How hadn't he gotten pregnant before? It's not like he and Asher were careful in bed and they fucked a lot. Had they just never done it at the optimal time before? Or, maybe Mac's body was now relaxed and fed enough that he could carry? Had he been pregnant before and lost it and never known?
He's been shot, knifed, kicked, electrocuted, beaten, choked, and almost drowned in the time he's been with Asher and none of that was exactly conducive to carrying a baby.

Oh fuck. What if I lose this one? 
What if I just can't do it?
How many times has this happened and we just didn't know?

He could feel a headache coming on and the nausea swirled in his guts again but it had more to do with his anxiety than the pregnancy right then. He sat on the edge of the bath and held his head in his hands to will his breathing to settle. He wanted Ash to be home now but also wanted to be alone to deal with his spiralling thoughts. He felt like his brain had turned to mush and choked on his next breath as it pulled from his chest in a ragged gasp.
He wanted to find Curie and ask her all these questions but didn't want to be seen going into the clinic again so soon. He didn't want rumours to start flying even if the towns generally kept gossip to a minimum for the most part when it came to the General and his group. His leg started shaking and he placed his hand onto his thigh to stop it. It didn't stop.

He stood again and yanked his shirt back over his head as he glared at his own reflection.

Fucking man up.
You've killed a Courser. You've helped take down twenty Deathclaws and a behemoth.
You helped to take down the fucking Institute!
You can handle telling Ash he's gonna be a dad. Again.

You can keep it safe.

He collapsed into his bed in the fetal position and jammed Ash's pillow into his face. The smell of him filled his head and he settled into a semi-panic-semi-calm half state. 

He hoped, as his mind forced his tired body into rest, that when Ash got home, it'd be better and they could maybe get excited about something like this. Maybe.

He picked up the courage to send for Curie the next day. The runner he'd sent looked concerned but Mac just waved him off with a nice tip from the swear jar and to tell Curie to only come when she was free from the clinic and that it wasn't an emergency.

He spent the rest of the day as an anxious nail biting mess. He fed the pack of dogs absently, helped Duncan adjust the sights of a rifle they were rebuilding together, and kept sipping at that awful tea. His hands shook, his mind wandered, and his insides curled and twisted with a pressure he'd never felt before.
He jumped at every crunch of a boot he could hear through the open window thinking it was Curie or, worse, Asher back from his mission. Every shout of the guard had him flinching and looking over at his forever loaded rifle in trepidation.
What if he got shot in the belly? What if he got kicked or punched? Stabbed? It made him curl forward and wrap his arms around himself to try and protect the small life there.

Duncan, bless his heart, kept trying to get his father to relax. He tried soothing him with stories of his friends and the things they did together, or reading from a book out loud. He made him the special tea that Curie had given him and made sure he took those weird pills. And he promised he'd get dad to come home as soon as he walked through the gates. Asher was due to be home by tomorrow evening or maybe the next morning after at the latest.
After a while though, seeing his efforts weren't doing much, Duncan coaxed his dad to lay down on the couch and went to find Curie himself. He needed another grown up. A little seven-nearly-eight year old could only do so much.

Curie looked up at the serious looking child trying to keep his face in calm neutral lines but could see the panic in the eyes that matched his father's and stood quickly from her desk to join him. She followed the speeding little boy through the streets towards the old boathouse and then asked Duncan to go to his room when she saw MacCready having a mild panic attack on his couch. The boy went as instructed and Curie went into doctor mode.

She lay her hand gently over MacCready's brow and was content to find it no warmer than it should be even if he was a little flushed. She rubbed his back to help him breathe and once he'd settled enough she spoke in soft quiet tones, “Whatever is ze matter, Robbie?”

And everything spilled out of him. So many questions and concerns and fears that Curie had to wait for a solid few minutes for his rambling to stop. The whole time, she kept her hand rubbing a soft circle between his shoulders.

She answered as calmly and as honestly as she could:
No, Robbie, you aren't going to grow breasts.
I'm sure Asher will still find you very attractive.
No, the baby won't come out of your penis, homme idiot.
Oui, your body will change but not forever.
Maybe you have been pregnant before and had the misfortune of an early miscarriage but there's no way to know and we'll be vigilant with this one. If you were, it wasn't your fault.
I'm sure Asher is going to be happy with some time to process.

Please, Monsieur, take some deep breaths.

Little did they know, as they were working on getting MacCready back onto a level where he could function, Duncan was doing his own work in his bedroom.
He snuck into his father's room and quietly passed over to the bedside table. He opened the drawer and carefully filtered through its contents until he found what he needed: ammo boxes, a spare handgun, a knife, the box full of letters Duncan had sent his father when he was sick, a little enameled pin of a rifle that his dad had gifted to his daddy some time ago, and the long range walkie-talkie. 

He clutched it to his chest and carefully slipped back to his room. He could hear the quiet murmurings of his father and Curie in the living room downstairs but couldn't make out any of the words. He sat on his bed, legs criss-crossed beneath him, and tuned the radio into the frequency that his dads used. He'd seen it plenty of times and knew it by heart. He also knew to click the walkie in a pattern of one-pause-two-pause-one so that Asher knew that it'd be MacCready on the other end.
He waited a moment for the radio to respond with the matching clicks that meant his dad could talk and he winced at how loud it sounded in his quiet room.

He took a deep breath and held the button down to talk, “Dad? Is that you?” He had to be sure. His daddy always told him to never take any chances.

There was another long pause and Duncan wondered how far away Asher was and maybe this whole plan was a waste of time, “Duncan? Is that you? What's the matter?” He sounded tinny and metallic over the frequency but it was unmistakably Asher.

“Dad!” He nearly cried with relief and quickly wiped his big blue eyes, “Please! Come home now. I don't know what to do and Curie is here and I want you to come home.”

Another pause before the walkie-talkie crackled again, “I'm on my way, we're packing camp right now, baby. What's happened? Is your dad okay? Are you okay?”

“I don't know! Dad's freaking out. He's all sad and weird and Curie gave him weird medicine and he's curled up in a ball. Please, come home and fix him.” He was very nearly crying but managed to keep it together.

“I'm coming, Duncan. I'll be home as quickly as I can. Stay with your dad and Curie and see if Piper can help you. We're coming.”

“Okay,” he sniffed loudly and felt the water fall from his eyes, “please be fast.”

“I will. Love you, buddy.”

“Love you too.”

The walkie-talkie went silent and Duncan ran to the living room to his father and Curie. Dad had told him to stay with them so that is what he would do. He took a deep breath and met his dad's eyes from where he was now sitting up and drinking that awful weird tea, “Dad's coming home. He'll be here as quick as he can.”

He watched his father's face turn even paler and flinched at his voice as it came out raspy and wet, “What? How do you know?”

Duncan held up the walkie-talkie and his dad rubbed his forehead between his finger and thumb, “I called him, daddy. You were freaking out and being weird and it was scaring me!” He nearly shouted but managed to keep it down.

“Oh, Jesus, Dunc. He's gonna think I'm dying or something. What did you say to him?” Duncan relayed the conversation as well as he could remember, “Duncan…”

“You were freaking out and I…you scared me.”

Mac opened his arms for his son and Duncan crawled onto his dad's lap, “I'm sorry I scared you. There's just a lot going on and it…it scared me too. I promise I'm gonna be okay. Shall we call your dad and tell him not to rush back?”

Duncan wildly shook his head, curls and braids bouncing against his dad's chin, “No! I want him to come home so you'll stop being so weird.”

Curie pat his little leg and stood to leave with a quiet hum, “I shall return in ze morning and stay with you until ze General returns.”

“Yeah, thanks again, Curie.”

“It ez no trouble, Monsieur. Au revoir et bonne nuit.” 

She blew a kiss as Duncan replied, “Bonne nuit. Au revoir, madame Curie.”

Mac shifted and pulled Duncan in closer to cradle him properly against his chest, “Wanna sleep in my bed tonight?” Duncan nodded and was carried his dad to bed where he promptly snuggled in tight to his side and let his dad drape his arms around him, “Night daddy.”

“G’night, buddy.” A small kiss to soft brown curls and the night fell in full.

Chapter Text

When Asher was very young, long before the bombs dropped and long before he came to America, he lived in a little village that was isolated and wrapped tightly in ice rivers, mountainous snow capped hills, and evergreen fir trees.

Every morning, he and his mother would pray: for their health, for their wealth, and for his father's safety all the way across the sea. They'd eat a breakfast of smoked meats and fish with warm home baked breads, his mother would check his hair and then bundle and swaddle him up in warm clothes and fur ready to begin their day.
His mother was a beautiful woman; pale haired, pale skinned, and eyes as blue as the cloudless sky. Her braids wrapped in silver and beading fell to her hips and she was respected in this village and their neighbouring communities as the best doctor around. She hadn't gone to medical school, so isolated as they were, but she had learnt from the elders of their village who had learnt from their elders. On and on and on down generations through this tiny place's long history. Her hair by extension, so long and decorated, reflected this respect and the knowledge she carried with her. It had never once been cut as far as a young Asher knew and neither had his own where it tumbled to his shoulders in wild black spikes. Their hair wouldn't be cut unless they caused some great distress to their family or greater community and, with their family just being the two of them, that was very unlikely to happen.

He first met his father in person when he was five years old. He was a big, scarred, man with dark hair and darker eyes that he gave to Asher. He and his mother had met when he had been stationed on the borders of their village whilst the politicians of America had tried negotiating with the leaders of some nearby country that had been dragged into the cold war currently plaguing the earth. 

He had seen pictures of his father, of course, and his mother read him the many letters the man sent to them. His father loved him and explained that, whilst he wished they could be together always, the climate in America was simply too turbulent and that he couldn't leave the army yet due to some contract or draft that a young Asher didn't fully understand. His father wore one braid in his short hair that lay in front of his left ear and matched his mother's own but, where hers had a red bead, his had a white. They explained to him that when he was older and found his person that he'd be able to have the same kind of braid too. They showed him their soulmarks: a caught fish wrapped in wire, and we're so happy together in this brief visit during his father's leave. He taught Asher about his grandparents and cousins and told him that when the time was right, he'd come and get him so that they could be together forever. Then, he left again.

His mother discovered she was pregnant a few weeks later and the pair of them excitedly got the house ready for a new person to join their little group of two. When Asher was six years old, Daisy was born and his father had been there to help his mother through the process and for a few weeks after as she recovered. The women and men of the village had sang their songs and prayers and, on the ninth night, his father held Daisy aloft and spoke her name loudly into the snow: Daisy Veronica Lilysen.

When Asher was nearly ten and Daisy nearly four, their father sent for them to come join him in Boston, Massachusetts. He was excited but also sad to leave the village. Other boys and girls his age had started meeting their people: watercolour blooms of ink spreading over their skin to tie them together forever. But, his skin remained bare. Maybe, if he was very lucky, he'd find his person in the place called school. 

The journey was long but the aeroplane had been exciting and, when they landed, his father and people he had never met but knew were waiting for them with little signs written in English to say Welcome Home. His grandfather and grandmother tutted their tongues at his and Daisy's hair and suggested he cut it for school. His mother and father refused for them.
Nearly everyone had shorter hair in Boston: it very rarely passed a person's shoulders and some even had it shaved off completely! It made him a novelty at school. He was pretty and had a strange voice and girls tried to play with his hair. He supposed it was okay. It was better than being picked on like some of the other children.

Boston didn't have villages. It had suburbs. Communities within communities within communities of all kinds of people with ancestry from all over the world; African, Jewish, Middle-Eastern, British, South American. On and on it went and it was a melting pot of entwining beliefs and cultures with many differing places of worship and holy days. There wasn't a place of worship for him and Daisy though, their faith too old and isolated for it to be as common as Judaism, Catholicism, or Islam, so their mother built them a small altar in their house in Sanctuary Hills where they could pray and sing like they had in their village. Their extended family were Catholic so they went to church on Sundays and prayed to the singular God before meals. His cousins found his faith confusing and convoluted but, after that initial suggestion of cutting their hair before school, their family didn't ask them to stop. He thinks that was because of his father: his mother was his soulmate and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Separating soulmates by force went against their god given human rights and was, technically, illegal.

Willow was born next, then Rosie and, once Asher turned eighteen, Oak came into the world. He was a proud big brother and did all he could to be there for each one of his siblings in any way they needed. Daisy met her soulmate when she turned nineteen, a nice man named Martin, and Asher attended her wedding with his first and best friend he'd made in high school. 
Nora was a wildfire of a thing and as obviously lesbian as anyone could get; short haired, butch beneath power suits and “male clothes”, and brought more women home to their dormitory in college than Asher could count. She didn't care that Asher hadn't found his person yet for she hadn't either and she didn't care that his hair brushed his hips and jingled when they walked together. 
She was training to become a lawyer who specialised in family law and Asher wanted to go into some form of animal care. He wanted to look after and train dogs and if that meant working in a shelter then so be it. He didn't mind, he just wanted to help those that couldn't help themselves.

He didn't get the chance to follow this dream, small as it was, as the climate of the ever present war shifted into desperation as their enemies invaded Canada. The draft rolled through Boston and, whilst his father was proud, his parents were worried. His name was called out in the great hall of his college and he approached the major with red crescents imprinted into the back of his hand from where Nora had gripped him so hard.

He was bundled into boot camp and, to his absolute horror, they demanded he cut his hair. He tried explaining that it was religious and promised to keep it tied back from his face and out of the way but they had never heard of his faith and refused to acknowledge it. He was sat in a chair and a woman scooped all his thick beautiful hair into a rough ponytail before using her damnable scissors to roughly chop it away without care or ceremony. It fell to the ground in great clumps of midnight black and lay abandoned as though it meant nothing, just garbage to be swept away, and he refused to cry.

Boot camp was brutalising and, at night, some of his fellow recruits could be heard crying in their bunks. Some didn't make it out. He hardened himself against it as his hair slowly grew back in. His mother had cried for him when his family came to visit Hagen to see him off to more specialised training once he graduated.

“Oh, Asher…your hair…”

“It'll grow back, mum.”

He was put in with the canine units after expressing an interest in the dogs’ training and well being and he was good at it. Dogs simply listened to him. He carefully trained them from pups up to fighting age where they would be shipped off with a unit to sniff out bombs and hidden enemies in the snows of Anchorage.
He was shipped off too and it was discovered that, if Asher simply let his mind go somewhere else and asked for absolution, he was very good at killing people and getting the mission at hand completed. He grew harder, bigger, stronger, and climbed the ranks in the army. He was never without at least two dogs.

He was caught having sex with a private and was placed on dishonourable leave. The reasoning on paper had been for engaging in sexual activity with another man but, in reality, it had been because this man had already found his soulmate and the moral qualms surrounding that had left his commanders at a loss of what to do about it. Still, even though many men and women in the forces engaged with people of the same sex, rumours flew about his homosexuality. It spread through the army, through his family and wider community, the churches, everything started to dissolve around him. 

His mother and father along with Nora's parents pushed them down the aisle to drag the rumours back under control and he was allowed back into the ranks as a pariah. He stayed with the dogs and pushed the lonely darkness down. His hair now reached his shoulders and he could twist his many braids back in to it to keep it off his face.

He and Nora never consummated their marriage and engaged in amorous activities outside of their lavender marriage frequently. However, after a few years of this, suspicions began to rise again within their community: why hadn't Nora gotten pregnant yet? Why wasn't there a little Lilysen running around the cul-de-sac? It spread to Nora's work where she was well respected but still had her wifely duties to perform.
They used the old turkey baster trick to conceive their son. He finished in a cup and she did her end of the business in an almost clinical fashion. It took them three tries to get the timing right and they had genuinely been delighted when the little red lines showed up on the test. He wanted children, always had done, but his nature - and Nora's - had simply put a damper on it. 

He was placed on an extended paternal leave to help Nora as she suffered with incredible sickness during the first few months. She could barely keep water down and lost weight before she hit her stride and began to recover. He decorated the nursery, bought a Mr. Handy to help out, and his dogs were kept meticulously clean to stop them shedding on the new baby items.
Shaun was born in the August of twenty-seventy-seven and Asher had never felt anything like it: pure unadulterated love. That unconditional feeling that his parents had so often referred to when they discussed him and his siblings. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he would do anything for the small bundle cradled to his chest in that room with the machines that beeped and whirred. He’d kill for this boy. He’d die for this boy.

And, after he had defrosted from that metal tomb above Sanctuary, he did. He killed so many. Repeatedly. Over and over again as he scoured every inch the Commonwealth had to offer to find his boy. Raiders, Super Mutants, slavers, feral ghouls, it didn’t matter, none of it would come between him and Shaun.

Except Shaun himself. 

Along the way: he found a new family. Forged through fire and steel and simple survival. He gathered them together like so many caps and swore to them that they’d never be alone again. Not a single one of them. But, especially MacCready. As soon as he had sat down next to the mercenary in the Third Rail he had been drawn to the little brat. 

And, so, he found himself on this night tearing his way through the night of the Commonwealth to make it home to him.

Duncan had sounded so scared and worried on the radio and images of MacCready wasting away or dying in Curie's lap had been battering his brain since he'd started this run from a little ways to the south. He'd ran and ran and ran with the others hot on his heels after they'd heard Duncan's frightened little voice. Preston had doused the fire, Hancock and Nick packed the camp in record time as Cait and Deacon strapped everyone's armour to them as they worked as a single unit to not leave anything behind.

He couldn't do it again. He couldn't lose another piece of his family again. Not Robbie. Not Duncan. He'd do anything to make sure they stayed safe and whole and happy. He'd lost one partner and son before, he'd lost three of his siblings, his parents and grandparents and cousins, and he'd be damned if he'd lose it all again. He'd climb to the top of Greenetech and throw himself off before he let that happen again. He'd fight every Super Mutant and Courser barehanded if it meant they'd stay safe. 

He'd run through the dangerous night of the Commonwealth without a break if it meant he'd have a chance of stopping Duncan from crying.

Was Robbie okay? He'd been ill before he'd left but hadn't realised it had been bad enough for Curie to make a house call. He hadn't realised it was bad enough to warrant their son to beg him to get home faster. 

I shouldn't have left.
What if he's gone?
What am I going to do?

No no no no no no!

He felt his heart clench as he gasped for breath at the thought. The small box, where it rested beside a little toy wooden soldier in the front pocket of his shirt, suddenly felt like it weighed a tonne. They were meant to grow old together. Meant to watch Duncan grow up and have a family of his own. Do the grandad thing and retire and be sappy stupid idiots until the end. Get married like their family was begging him to do. Do all that and more.

It had taken him a long time to realise that actually, yes, he would like to marry again. He wasn't sure how all that stuff worked nowadays but people talked about it like it was still a common enough practice.

After Nora died, he hadn't put much stock into the thought of marriage again. He loved her and missed her and she would always have a place with him. She had been his first real friend in this country when they had been younger and, even now, he kept a part of her close with her ring clipped snug to some mementos in his and Robbie’s room at home. He had initially buried her near Sanctuary but, after the Institute and the hole Sanctuary made him feel, he had made the decision to disturb her rest one last time and move her to the little cemetery he’d established in Boathouse. 
After she had died screaming for their son and begging for help as he strained and broke his knuckles against his decontamination pod: marrying again had felt like a far off impossibility. To tie himself to someone like that just for them to get tore away from him? No, thank you.

Then, he met Robbie. The young, jaded, grumpy, twenty-something desperate for caps and hating the whole world on principle. Asher found him impossibly endearing even when he was bitching about scavenging and getting wet in the rain. The man could've asked him for anything and Asher would've tore the world apart to get it for him.

If you're looking for a friend you've got the wrong guy.

Haven't been to Diamond City in years, but I'll tell you...nothing says welcome like the stench of urine-soaked garbage.

Standing here talking ain't making us any caps, ya know.

Good God…what a loser.

You need to grow a pair, buddy.

I'd kill for a drink. Come to think of it…I have!

I hope you're not thinking of swimming in that mess.

I got it Daisy. I found the cure for Duncan's disease.

If humans were meant to swim, the radiation would've given us flippers.

I'm just tired of taking instead of giving. Maybe one day I'll get my priorities straight.

Cocked, locked, and ready to rock, boss.

And his most favourite memories: Wake up, sleepyhead and you're the closest thing I have to family out here.

Happy. For the first time in my life, I'm happy. Can you believe it?

His voice rang in his head like a bell all day everyday and he wanted to add more and more of his silly takes and quiet mumbles of embarrassingly sappy tidbits to his memory to play over when he was on the road without him.

So, he ran. He ran as fast as he could just for the chance to hear him say something, anything, again.

He banged through the gates as soon as the guard opened the lock and ignored their startled shouts of General! What's happening? Hancock and Preston would calm them. He tore down the quiet sleepy streets of his town, the orange street lights leaving deep shadows in the alleyways that had formed with their buildings, and skirted around Dogmeat as the loyal hound ran to meet him with the rest of the dog pack.
He came to a skidding stop before the steps of their porch and took a deep breath as he took in their home: Dogmeat sniffing and whining at his hand as the others began to make slow circles around his legs begging for treats. 

The house was dark, not even the usual lantern they left lit for Duncan in case the lad woke in the night for a drink was on. He could see his bedroom window shut tight against the chill night and the sheet they used as a curtain drawn over it. The porch steps creaked a little under his weight as he stepped up to the door and drew his key. He put it into the lock and frowned as he realised the door was already unlocked. Mac never left the door unlocked or unbolted at night. They trusted their neighbours and townsfolk but you never knew when raiders would attack.

He breathed deep through his nose and whispered to his dogs, “Okay, boys, first sign of trouble, you find Duncan.” He took the quiet ruffs as agreement.

He pushed the door open and his eyes automatically flickered over the shadows looking for anything wrong or out of place. Nothing was except for a single mug on the table by the couch and Duncan’s boots haphazardly kicked into a corner.

He dropped his bag as quietly as he could and let his fingers rest on the handle of his gun where it rested in the waistband of his pants by his spine. He didn't take his boots off like he usually would, just in case. It spoke a lot of the amount of battles and near death experiences they'd all had over the years where he couldn't even step into his own quiet home at night without feeling a touch of trepidation.

He checked the kitchen and found it quiet and dark but saw a small tin of something beside a pill bottle. He flicked on his PipBoy torch and checked the labels: the tin didn't have one but had tea leaves inside that smelled strange, and the pill bottle had Curie's neat writing declaring them to be antiemetics. 

Fuck. He's still being sick.
If he's still doing anything at all.

He squeezed his eyes shut against the thought and turned his attention to finding out what was happening. He quietly made his way to the stairs and kept his feet on the far edges of the steps to avoid the creaking and groaning they usually made. 

He peeked into Duncan’s room and found it as empty and dark as the rest of their house so far. Maybe he'd been taken to Piper's or is still with Curie? He checked the spare room they used for weapons and armour storage and found it as equally empty and undisturbed apart from one of Mac’s rifles in pieces on the workbench.

He pushed his bedroom door open, steeling himself against what he might find, and almost cried in relief when he met MacCready's eyes over the barrel of a gun he'd pulled from somewhere in the mattress. His partner blinked owlishly for a moment, hair that fell past his shoulders sticking up in wild sleep strewn tufts, and clearly having heard Asher wandering slowly through the house and thinking they had an intruder in his sleep.
He lowered the gun and let out a quiet breath. Duncan was curled up with his head buried into his dad's side and Mac slowly relaxed back down into the cuddle pile. He kept watching Asher as the big man removed his armour and boots and shirt, he directed Dogmeat to his bed with a click of his fingers in the corner and the other pups wandered about finding their own spots, one of them huffing and curling up by Duncan’s feet. Then, Asher climbed into bed behind Mac and tucked the smaller man against him, not caring that he was most likely damp with panicked sweat and dirty from the road.

He whispered so as to not wake Duncan, relief making his heart flutter wildly as Mac's warm skin pressed against him, “Holy shit, you're okay. I thought…Gods, my brain went to some dark places…”

Mac pressed back into him and twined their fingers together where Ash had wrapped his arm over his belly, “Sorry, Duncan was worried. I didn't know he was gonna call you back like that.”

Ash hummed and pressed a kiss to the back of Mac's neck through his hair as he relaxed into him, “It's fine. It's all okay. Wanna talk about it now or in the morning?” He was just grateful that Mac seemed to be okay, if very tired, and was happy to leave the issue for now.

“Uh…yeah, the morning might be best. I'm okay it's just…” he trailed off and Ash pulled him ever closer as his other hand found a curl of Duncan's hair and smoothed it gently between his finger and thumb.

“It's okay. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it, love.” Mac just nodded against him as he slowly fell back to sleep.

Asher didn't sleep. He stayed awake and held his family close, the panic of the run home slowly slipping away as he felt Mac breathing and his heartbeat against his chest.

Mac rolled over to find his bed empty. The sun was up, casting a beam of light through the sheet they used as a curtain to warm his chest, and he briefly thought that maybe Asher coming home in the very early hours had been a dream before he heard his deep rumbling come from downstairs and then a higher laughing reply from Duncan. He could smell food cooking and groaned as his stomach churned in a mix of hunger and nausea.
He carefully sat up to try and avoid the usual vertigo and immediate throwing up but was unsuccessful as he ran to the bathroom. He must've made quite a bit of noise because, suddenly, Asher was squatting beside him and pulling his hair away from his face. He passed a can of water and one of the little anti-sickness pills over and waited for Mac to sit back against him.

“Please, tell me what Curie said, Robbie.” He shuffled a little so that Mac could lean against his chest more fully and brought both his arms around him, “Duncan doesn't know what's wrong and he told me you were freaking out. A panic attack? We'll deal with whatever it is, love. Take you to Vault Eighty-One or I'll see if Med-Tek has anything more hidden away. Or maybe we could -”

Mac pat Asher's arm, “It's nothing like that but I really don't want to talk about it in the bathroom, Ash.”

“Okay, c’mon, I'll make you some of that weird tea and whatever you think you can handle to eat, yeah?”

Asher helped him stand and then simply lifted him up, Mac's legs automatically wrapping around his hips, and carried him down the stairs before placing him carefully on the couch. He found Duncan and had a quiet word with their boy which led to him pulling his boots on and leaving through the back door and running along the porch to disappear into the streets beyond, “He's okay, I just sent him to the market for more razorgrain and tatoes.” Asher passed over the cup of tea and then sat beside Mac and gently took his hand in his. 

Mac's heart rate skyrocketed and he chewed the inside of his lip to keep from just bursting into tears. He didn't realise he was shaking until Ash tutted and pulled him into a hug so that Mac's head rested against his shoulder, “Please…it can't be that bad right? You're not…dying are you?” Mac felt Ash's hand clench against his hip and he wanted to cry again.

Fuck these fucking hormones. Or whatever it is.

“I'm not dying, Asher.” It was easier to talk about it when he didn't have to look at his eyes. The hand against his hip relaxed and then moved to hold him there to start drawing idle patterns with its thumb.

He puffed out a breath to the top of his head, “Well, that's the best news I've heard all week. Anything else we can deal with, yeah? Remember? You said that when we're together we can handle anything the world throws at us.” Mac grinned, Ash rambled when he was nervous, “You know I'll stay by your side no matter what, right? And Duncan. We got this. We'll get you all fixed up and then everything will be back to normal, yeah?”

Everything will be back to normal.

Mac tensed against him and Ash pulled him in closer, “Hey! Hey, it's okay. We'll fix it. You'll be okay.”

Mac took a deep breath and mumbled into the skin of Asher's shoulder, “It's not something we can fix, Ash.”

“What? What do you mean?”

Mac pulled his face away and looked up at him. He could feel the water pooling in his eyes and tried to force it not to spill over. He failed with a small whine escaping him and Ash made his own little worried noise as he simply dragged Mac fully into his lap, “Hush, love. Just tell me. I can't help if I don't know what's happening.” Mac held on tight to Ash, willing him to stay when he finally let spill about how their lives were about to be upended. About how Ash was going to have a child he didn't want and how Mac was going to change and - “Robbie. Please, breathe.”

He took a great shuddering breath and just let the words come, “I'm pregnant.”

There was an agonisingly long silence as every muscle that Mac could feel beneath him tensed and shook. Asher’s throat was making a weird high pitched sound that Mac had never heard him make before and he shut his eyes against the incoming shouting and complete destruction of their life together, “Sorry? What did you say?” His voice sounded shaky and tight as it came out a strained whisper and Mac held on even tighter, fingers digging into Ash's shoulder hard enough to leave bruises.

“I'm…fucking pregnant.”

Ash stood with Mac still clinging to him and started to pace them both around the living room and kitchen. He kept hold of Mac as he did another loop and then absently took them both upstairs to do another pacing loop there.
After what felt like a forever of crushing silence, Ash deposited Mac onto their bed and started to pace again around their room before he simply walked out the door as he dragged on a shirt and left.

Mac stared at the door as it shut between them and finally let the crying start in full.

Chapter Text

It was an hour or so after Asher had walked out when Hancock found MacCready curled up in bed with red puffy eyes. The ghoul sat on the edge of the bed and looked down with a frown at his friend.

“Fuck, Mac, heard you were ill but I didn't realise it was this fucking bad.” Mac just scowled at him as the ghoul lit a cigarette and cracked a window, “What's going on, pal? After Duncan called us back I coulda sworn you were dying or somethin’.”

Mac shuffled up so that he was leaning against the headboard and forced himself to not cry again. He'd be damned if he cried in front of Hancock of all people, “I don't even know where to start. Do you know where Ash is?”

“Hmm, Sunshine took the meds we brought back from the Vaulties to the clinic and has been holed up there ever since.” Hancock crossed his arms and lay back on the bed with the cig still hanging from his mouth, “White as ghost and that's saying something for him. Figured I'd come check on you myself…just in case.”

“He's at the clinic?” Would his heart ever beat normally again?

“Was last time I saw him, yeah.”

“F-fuck.”

He wants me to get rid of them.
He doesn't want them.
No no no no.

He curled in on himself as he felt his chest tighten again as another crying fit threatened to take hold. He couldn't breathe. Everything felt too tight and his clothes constricted painfully in every joint as his head throbbed with panic inducing jolts.
He couldn't do this. He didn't want to have to fight for this. He's had to fight and claw and argue for everything he had and he would like for just one thing to be calm. He just wanted to be happy.

A warm scarred hand gently pat his shoulder and rested there to feel the shaking of the younger man's shoulders, “Hey, Mackie, take a breath. He's fine. Shit…I dunno how to do this kinda stuff, man. Calm down.”

“It's not that, Hancock. I don't know what to do and he just walked out when I told him and I just -”

“Told him what, RJ?” His blood and gravel voice was oddly comforting. Like a warm coal fire that crackled in the cold evenings.

It just spilled out, “I told him I'm pregnant and he just fucked off and didn't say anything and now he's at the clinic to see if I can get rid of it and I don't want to but he's -”

Hancock’s breath hissed through his teeth as he carefully packed that news into his brain. He couldn't react too much one way or another with Mac working himself into hyperventilation.

He pushed Mac's head between his knees as the man started breathing erratically with little hitching gasps forcing air into him, “Breathe, Mac, fucks sake.”

Mac curled forward with Hancock's hand gently gripping the back of his head, sharp erratic breaths forcing their way in and out of his chest, “He just walked out?” His voice had a hard edge to it and Mac could only nod beneath his fingers, “No worries, Mackie, I'll be right back, yeah? Just…keep breathing, okay?”

Another pitiful nod and Hancock stood in a flurry of red fabric and black leather. Mac watched him leave as though they were under attack and buried himself beneath the sheets.

“Okay, Curie, how does this all work exactly?” He was stuffing his pockets with all the pills and supplements that the synth doctor was shoving at him: folic acid, iron, vitamins, anti-sickness. He was reeling and needed a fucking job to do. Needed something to shoot.

He'd seen pregnant men before over the last few years and it always took him by surprise. He knew the radiation had changed people, sometimes dramatically, and that's why the Institute had required an untouched person all that time ago to create their Gen-Three synths. But, he'd never expected to be given this kind of news again. He thought he was going to faint. His brain shutdown and he'd suddenly just found himself at the clinic doors with Curie looking up at him expectantly.

“Vell, General, he ‘as been struggling with the nausea and fatigue so I recommend he rests as much as possible. He's also been quite prone to panic and upset since he found out. I suggest you make sure he feels loved and cared for for a while.”

He nodded along as he pat his pockets with the new meds and mentally ticked them off in his head, “Meds…rest…loved…cared for…got it.” He could do that. Hell, he tried to do that every single day for MacCready to show the Merc how much he loved him. How much he was wanted no matter what.

“Ash,” Curie stepped into his space with a frown and crossed arms, “Where is Monsieur MacCready right now?” He stopped his patting and mental checklist and paled, “How did you react when he told you?”

“Fuck, I don't know. I just -”

The door to Curie's office banged open and framed a heavily breathing and livid ghoul mayor. Hancock stepped in and, quick as a viper, actually grabbed Asher by the ear to pull his face down to his level, “You stupid fucking idiot.”

“Fuck, John! Ow!” He tried to pull away.

Hancock pinched harder, “You fucking idiot of a stupid fucking Pre-War bastard.”

“C’mon, John, I don't know why you're angry at me but can you fucking let go?”

“I ain't fucking letting go until you fucking apologise to MacCready. Leaving him high and dry like that?” He pinched ever harder and shook Asher’s head a little, “You don't want the kid? You gotta talk to Mac, not do it behind his fucking back.”

“Ow! It's not like that! I fucking panicked! I came to get his meds!”

“Yeah? Fucking c'mon then,” Hancock began to pull the General of the Minutemen by his ear out of the clinic and into the street with the light laughter of Curie following them, “I don't give a shit if everyone sees this, Sunshine. Stupid idiots get stupid prizes, ya feel?” 

People were indeed watching the General get dragged down the street by the ghoul; they paused in their activities, chores, and conversations to stare wide eyed and slack jawed at the spectacle. Hancock didn't give two shits.

“Fucks sake, Hancock, let go! I'm coming aren't I?”

“Yeah. And you shouldn't have walked in the first place. Guy's a wreck and you left him like that.”

“I'm sorry! Ow! I didn't mean to I just -”

Hancock gave another shake, “Don't fucking apologise to me, Sunshine. No skin off my arse having to do this.”

“The saying is: no skin off my nose.”

“Ha ha. Very funny, dickhead.” He pinched harder as he bodily dragged the saviour of the Commonwealth up his own porch steps, “Now, get in there and make this right. Or, next time, it won't be my fingers pulling your ears off your head.”

He was finally let go and Ash rubbed at his sore red ear, “Fuck, you really didn't need to do that, John. I was coming back. I just needed to talk to Curie and get the meds. Fuck.”

“Maybe you should've told him that before you flounced off like the great fucking idiot you are.”

“Ouch. Thought you were my brother.”

“I am, and big brothers sometimes need to beat shit out of their younger ones. Keeps ‘em humble. Be grateful I ain't your sister because when she finds out…” he whistled like a bomb about to go off, “Now, go fix this and if I don't hear loud excited make-up sex in the next hour, I'll be back. With a knife.”

Ash was heavily shoved into his home and the door was slammed closed by the ghoul. Ash could've sworn he heard him cackling as he walked away.

Fucking Hancock thinking he owns everything. 
Dickhead.

He took a deep breath and rubbed his hand down his face. He pat his pockets again and moved quickly to grab a can of water and whatever mostly plainish food and snacks he could find that Mac could hopefully stomach. He balanced it all in his arms as he made his way through his house and up the stairs.

His feet felt heavier and heavier with each step he took.

Shit. A baby?
I didn't mean to upset him.
Stupid fucking idiot.
Could've at least said something before you fucking ran away.

He heard the sniffling before he opened the door and paused with his forehead pressed against the wood.

Fuck. 

He really hadn't meant to react the way he did but who could blame him? He and Mac had fucked a lot with nothing like this ever happening before. It was just a shock but, thinking back on it, all the signs had been there. He remembered Nora being sick as a dog at the start of her pregnancy with Shaun. She couldn't get out of bed for days and barely kept down water. She'd been moody and anxiety ridden and it seemed like Mac was the same.

Did he even want another kid? He's never really given it much thought.

Losing one and finding love and joy in Duncan sometimes felt more than his heart could take. He'd felt guilty, at first, having Duncan and being so comfortable with him but the kid had just always felt right. As though he'd always been his. 

He felt guilty over Shaun and the time they never got to have with him and the monster his first born had turned into. He felt guilty for Nora, sure they'd never been in a romantic relationship and had been best friends, but he sometimes wondered if she'd have been disappointed that he hadn't managed to save their son. She would've been heartbroken to see what her baby; the light of her life, her reason for being, had turned into.

He felt guilty for Duncan, he wanted to give him everything he could as a father, but worried the boy thought he was just Shaun's replacement. He didn't want to give the boy any reason to think that Asher didn't love him wholly and tried to show him every day how much he was wanted here.

And then, weirdly enough, he felt guilty for Lucy. Mac had loved his wife with all he had and dealt with the grief of losing her for a long long time. He didn't want to think that the woman would think he was trying to usurp her from her son's life.

And, now, a baby? His baby. Mac's baby. He didn't want to displace Duncan in his affections and didn't want the caverns of guilt to open up again. The nightmares. He was happy with Robbie and Duncan and didn't want to upset that balance. The little family they had was perfect. 

He heard another sniff and cringed. 

What if Shaun's psychopathy was hereditary? Asher had done many terrible things before and after the bombs had dropped and what if this new child leaned into those kinds of feelings the way his eldest had? He didn't think Shaun had ever killed someone with his bare hands like Asher had but Shaun had definitely ordered the deaths of many people. He had ordered the kidnappings, experimentation, and torture of countless people before Asher killed him with a bullet to the head.
Had he doomed this new life before they had even had a chance to take their first breath?

More guilt for the guilt pile in his head.

He pushed the door open gently with his hip and slowly entered their bedroom. Mac was sniffing beneath the blankets so Asher snuck around to his side of the bed and carefully put his arm load of snacks and water down. He winced at the slight rustling noise from it but Mac hadn't seemed to hear as another quiet sniff came from the blanket and pillow fort.

Ash shrugged out of his jacket, shirt, and boots and then gently slid himself into bed and wrapped an arm around his partner. 

Mac's elbow flew out and caught him in the gut, “Get off me.”

“Ouch, Robbie -”

MacCready rolled over so that he could face Asher and Asher flinched a little at the sheer ice cold fury on his partner’s face, “Don’t you fu - fricking 'Robbie' me.” His voice was a hiss and he jabbed a finger into Asher’s chest angrily, “You don’t get to make this choice without me. They're mine and fuck you if you think otherwise.”

It kinda reminded Ash of the way Mac was when they'd first met: so quick to snap and get defensive about even the smallest of things. His Merc always wanted to appear cool and detached when, in reality, he was deeply affected by everything, “What choice, love?”

“Don’t love me either. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

He held his hands up in surrender, “Okay, okay…MacCready, enlighten me. Please.”

Mac scowled and pouted, “That’s even worse.”

“Robert? Joseph? RJ? Any of those doing it for you?” He almost laughed and he would have if Mac didn’t still look pissed off to high Heaven.

“Whatever. You don’t get to just go and talk to Curie about me getting rid of them without me! I don’t want to get rid of them and you’re such a fucking arsehole for just walki - why the fuck are you fucking laughing at me?”

Asher couldn’t help the deep rumble of a laugh that shook his shoulders, “I didn’t go to Curie for that and I’m sorry for walking out. I honestly think I blacked out for a minute there,” He twisted so he could reach his shirt and jacket and the many pockets therein. He started pulling out the meds and recommendations from Curie and laying them on the bedside table, “I went for these. Folic, iron, supplements…things to make you and the baby healthy, Mac. I’d never ask you to just get rid of them.”

“...oh.” Asher watched as his partner deflated into a more relaxed puddle beneath the blanket. Less angry hissing cat and more of a sleepy grumpy cat.

“Can I touch you now?” Mac nodded and Ash wasted no time in sliding right up to his face and wrapping his arms around him. Their feet tangled together and he started to draw little lines on his back as Mac finally let his body bleed away the fear, “Can I call you love and Robbie again?”

Mac nodded again before whispering, “You’re not mad? Or, gonna leave or somethin’?”

Ash pressed his lips to Mac’s forehead and pulled him ever closer so that the smaller man was almost laying on his chest, “Not gonna lie…I’m a bit shocked and confused…and worried.” He soothed a hand down his partner’s back as he tensed up again, “But, I’d never leave you, Robbie. Not for anything and definitely never on purpose. I’m sorry I walked out…I don’t even remember leaving.”

Mac relaxed on top of him, head tucked beneath his chin and hands wrapped beneath his back, “So, you wanna do this? Even though I’m gonna get fat and then there’ll be a baby and I won’t be able to fight for a while and I’m still -”

“Hush, Robbie, I wanna do everything with you. Promise.” He kissed the top of his head between the braids and beads as Mac fully relaxed into him.

Hancock didn’t hear loud make-up sex later that afternoon and, as promised, he let himself into Asher and MacCready’s home armed with a butterfly knife. He wouldn't actually cut Sunshine’s ears off but he’d make the man piss himself at the thought at least.
He nodded gently at Duncan who was happily raiding the cabinets for some sweet treat and skirted around Dogmeat with a good scratch to the pooch’s ear. He quietly ascended the stairs, listening for arguments or crying, but found everything quiet. Too quiet.
He frowned as he pushed the door to their bedroom open and then grinned when he was met with the sight of MacCready sleeping curled up in a ball on Asher’s chest and the big man himself looking at Hancock with a big middle finger directed at him. Asher mouthed silently; fuck off, John, so Hancock backed away with an obvious show of flicking his butterfly knife closed.

They went to the cemetery together. The ground was damp and slick with morning dew and mist and the dogs wove about them as they enjoyed their walk. The dogs could come and go as they pleased whenever they wanted but, sometimes, Mac liked to pretend that they were all walking as a family like people used to do before the world blew up.

Asher was clicking his tongue and directing the dogs to come to heel or to run to a certain spot before he rewarded them with a bit of Brahmin jerky when they performed the task as instructed. Mac wasn't sure how Asher knew what sounds to make or what words to say to get them to listen and, anytime Mac tried to do it, one of them would just use him as a human pillow and beg for belly rubs.
Even through the small moments of training the pack, Asher didn't let go of MacCready's hand. Their fingers were twined together and he rubbed small circles into his knuckles with his thumb. 

They carefully stepped by the small grave markers and stone memorials before coming to a particular grave and cairn laying side by side: Lucy and Nora.

Lucy's body wasn't buried here, her skeleton still rotting in some underpass somewhere in DC, but Asher had made him and Duncan this little spot beside Nora so that they could keep her memory alive. Asher had offered to put the little toy soldier on the cairn but MacCready had declined, explaining that Lucy would be happy that it was still loved and being worn smooth in someone's pocket.

They unlinked their fingers so that they could each kneel respectfully before their dead wives. Asher, whatever he said to Nora, never said it out loud: he’d kneel with his hands resting on his thighs with his palms up toward the sky. Mac would be able to see his lips move every now and then but he never made a sound. This was one of those times with his head slightly bent forward as he told Nora about everything that had happened since the last time they’d visited.
Mac turned his attention to the little mountain of stones and went about his own reverence. He brushed the stones off of some wayward leaves and dirt and grinned at a few little pieces of coloured glass and beads obviously left behind by Duncan at some point fairly recently. He tidied up the edges of the grass along the bottom of the cairn and then laid down the small selection of late blooming Hubflower he’d plucked from Asher’s stash in their yard. Asher used them for the chem station along with some other plants but he never minded MacCready stealing some for this reason.

“Hey, Luce, got everythin’ all neat for you again.” He whispered it out but saw the slight tilt of Asher’s head as the man heard his mumblings, “um, Ash is here, if that matters and stuff. Not like I can really know, right?”

He paused and picked at random blades of grass as he thought about what to say. It's not like he didn't want to talk to her the way Duncan did or the way Asher did to Nora but he wasn't super comfy with it either. Someplace between awkward, embarrassment, and self-consciousness, where everyone else who visited the graveyard just seemed to be able to get on with it.

“Sorry, I dunno what to say…I must sound like a little wuss. You'd laugh at me.”

Asher snorted and whispered, “You're doing great, Robbie. Just be yourself, that's all she'd want.”

“Right, yeah, I got this.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes a moment: imagining Lucy sitting before him instead of her the way he'd seen her last.
She was a brunette like he was but her skin was just a shade darker as she soaked up the desert sun, freckled and smiling with her big brown eyes, nimble fingers that she used to heal the folk in the towns they wandered through.
She was always smiling, always with a crappy joke on her mouth and telling him he was too serious. He tried to be less serious for her; making his own silly quips as he'd worked with Ash, trying to laugh even when he'd felt so dark inside.
He didn't have to try so hard anymore, the silly takes coming easier, smiles wider, laughter that hurt his belly.

“Well, last I came here I think I'd told you about the job to Abernathy me and Preston went on? A lot has happened since then! Duncan lost another tooth, dunno if he told you already, and he got his own rifle. He wants some Power Fists like Asher's but they're too heavy for him yet.”

He opened his eyes and Lucy wasn't there. But Asher was. He'd stood at some point and wandered slightly away to give him a little privacy and was throwing a stick into the distance for the dogs to fetch, “I've told you about Asher before. He's really good, y’know? And he has my brand and stuff, but you know that already…he's got a job tomorrow so he wanted us to come and see you and Nora before he left.”

He really wanted a cigarette as he bent his head to pick at the grass again, “I don't want him to go without me but I gotta stay home for a little longer because…well, because I kept being sick and stuff. If you were here, you'd know straight away, but you're not so I gotta tell you like this, yeah?” 

God, he wished she was here. He wished she was with him and Asher and, even, Nora. They would've worked something out between the four of them, he's sure, he and Asher would still be Soulmates and Nora and Lucy would've been happy for them. Maybe they would've been friends. Maybe Nora and Lucy would've still stayed close or something but the world was cruel and didn't even give them the chance to try.

“Fuck, I wish you were here, Lucy. Is it bad that, even with Ash, that I still miss you, sometimes? You'd roll your eyes and tell me to stop being such a big fucking baby.” He snorted to himself, “Speaking of babies: Duncan is gonna be a big brother. Who would've thought that my luck would be so frickin’ crap that this could happen?”

He waited for something to happen. Some sign that she'd heard or was with him in this moment. But, nothing did; the breeze brushed by, the grass swayed, no angry ghosts erupted from her or Nora's graves, no screaming or accusations, just a quiet peace and the distant ruffs of the dogs as they toppled Asher to the ground into a great pile of flailing limbs, licking tongues, and wagging tails.
"You'd really like him, I think. I thought he'd be upset about it because of Shaun, sorry Nora, but he's not left us. He's still a big dweeb and got so sappy yesterday watching Duncan sleep…he's a good dad to him, Lucy. He's teaching him stuff that I don't even know and training him to be strong and capable. Way more than I could.”

He sighed and brushed the picked blades of grass to the side so that they wouldn't blow onto the stones again once he left, “Anyway, that's what I had to say: I'm gonna have another kid and I hope you'd be happy for us. I hope that, wherever you are, that you and Nora are friends and stuff and you'll help me out, if you can? I don't have anyone else who has done this before, y’know?”

There was, predictably, no reply, so he stood after one last brush of the stones and a pat to Nora's cross, and he wandered towards Asher and the pile of giddy fluff balls.

“Sunshine! Duck!”

Asher dipped at the waist and then felt the force of Hancock using his back as a spring board as the ghoul launched himself with daggers drawn at the last of the raiders they were wiping out.
They were just a little west of the lighthouse after they'd called for some assistance with a new group of scum hassling them for the settlement and its supplies. He's sure that the Minutemen stationed here could've handled this themselves but he was antsy for something to do and Hancock got just as stir crazy as he did when cooped up for too long.

He heard a scream and brought his fists together to power up the heavyweight gauntlets strapped to his arms. They hummed and clanked and he rushed in to help Hancock take these last few stragglers out. A chest was caved in, a head obliterated into wet confetti, and then the last neck severed with a dangerous and dark knife. Quick deaths. Simple. No excessive suffering or pain where they could help it.
A far cry to how he used to fight when he first got here: then, he'd just incapacitate and let folk bleed out where they dropped, not wasting time with assisting sending them on their way.

When all went quiet, Hancock flicked the blood from his blades and came to his side as he started to pilfer pockets and the few boxes this group had with them, “So…how's everything?” 

“Yeah, fine, didn't take any hits.” He looked over his ghoul but couldn't tell if the blood was his or not, “You? You've got a lot of red on you.”

He tilted his head with a grin, “None of it's mine, Ash. I meant is everything okay with Mac.”

“He's fine,” he said it with a shrug. Mac was fine even as he struggled a little with the sickness still but it wasn't as bad as it had been, “I think he's a lot calmer knowing that I'm not in the business of asking him to abort, y’know?”

Hancock was quiet for a few moments as they finished looting what they could before he huffed and nudged Asher's elbow with his own, “And? What about you, Sunshine? You wanna go all the way with this?”

“What do you mean?” Bags back on and the worst of the blood wiped hastily away from their skin.

“You said you ain't in the business of asking him to get rid of the kid, but what about you? You excited to be a dad again and shit?’

“Oh!” He dropped a big arm over Hancock's shoulders and, together, they started the walk back to the lighthouse to tell the head settler there the good news, “Yeah, ‘course I am. It was a…surprise, obviously, but I'm okay with it.”

Hancock snorted, “Just okay, brother?”

His arm tightened a little over Hancock. He was his best friend, practically his brother, and they could tell each other anything with little worry of judgement. He liked to think that if he had been born in this time, and if Fate was a kind being, that he and John would've been actual brothers. Or, at least grown up together. Maybe, if he had woken up earlier, he would've been able to help Hancock before he got so downtrodden that he'd turned to the chems that ultimately changed him forever. Or, he could've at least been with him as he went through those first painfully excruciating days once his ghoulification started. He'd had his people in Goodneighbor, at least, so that's something.

“I'm more than okay, promise. I just…can't find the proper words to explain. I didn't mean to upset him when he told me, swear, I was just…” he waved his hand vaguely.

“Flabbergasted.”

He laughed and pulled John closer to his side as he walked, “Yeah! But, I'm happy, promise. It's gonna be great and I'll get to actually be there for this one.”

“You're there for Duncan.”

“I know! I mean I'll get to be there from the start! I won't miss anything this time. I'll get to be with them from day one all the way up until they tell me to piss off for being too clingy.” He enunciated his point by shaking Hancock's shoulders gently from where he still walked plastered to his side.

“You are very -”

He cut his words off as the sounds of stamping feet crunching over dry grass and crumbling concrete before the glint of steel swept around a bend down the road. Ash and Hancock stood still as they watched the Brotherhood patrol approach: Asher, not recognising any of the markings on the Paladin’s armour, nudged Hancock slightly behind him as they waltzed by.

“Civilian.” A tinny voice echoed out from behind a helmet and Asher nodded his head even as he felt Hancock step to the side a little to keep Asher’s body between himself and the squad.
If any of them noticed the ghoul shuffling behind the big man, none of them mentioned it.

They watched them move off into the distance before they started up their walk again, “Why didn’t you say hello, Sunshine?”

“I didn’t recognise any of them…they’re pretty far from the blimp, right? Wonder what they’re doing.”

“Eh, who knows with the Brotherhood of Bastards.” He paused in his swagger and glanced back up the road the way the patrol had gone, “Wanna follow ‘em and find out?”

“Nah, too risky with just the two of us and I don’t think they recognised me. Be hard to talk our way out of anything if they don’t know who we are.” He nudged Hancock forward to finish their mission for the lighthouse, “Didn’t know Maxson had called more people in. Weird.”

“Could ask?”

“I’d rather stick pins in my eyes, John.”

Ash lay on the bed, tired from his journey but happy to be home, with Mac and gently drew patterns over his lower belly. It didn't look or feel any different yet and he idly wondered how long it would take for a little bump to appear. What would Mac look like all round with their baby kicking inside him? He was all lean muscle and hard lines and it was hard to imagine him softening with life.

What would their baby look like? Would they have brown hair or black or something in between? Blue or black eyes or maybe green like Daisy's had been? 

Oh, shit. Daisy is gonna lose her goddamn mind.

Were they a boy or a girl? What would they call them? Would Mac want something similar to Duncan’s or would they go with his family's tradition?
His mother has been called Lily and in her culture, her name had become his and his siblings’ last name. Asher Michael Lilysen and Daisy Veronica Lilydatter. Their other siblings had been the same; Willow Lilydatter, Rosie Lilydatter, and Oak Lilysen, with their middle names coming from their father's American family. He'd broken that tradition with Shaun and the boy had been Lilysen instead of Ashersen as it would've been in his tiny home village. Duncan was Duncan Robert MacCready and Ash suddenly wanted a child with his name.

Iris or Hazel or Poppy Asherdatter.
Aspen or Cedar or Sylvan Ashersen.

“What you thinking about, Ash? You've been looking at my belly for ages.” Mac's hand came down and held his over the still flat stomach.

“Names.” He kissed Mac's side and looked up at his partner's face. He seemed to be doing a bit better lately, holding down food and water and was definitely less anxious about everything now that he knew Asher was all in on this.

He grinned, “Already? Curie said we're still in the danger zone, whatever that means. You shouldn't get too giddy.” Mac was one to talk. Ash had caught him standing in their spare room that they kept their weapons in, measuring it with his eyes and thinking about where to move his guns to make space for a whole new person, “We haven't even told Dunc yet.”

That was true. The only people apart from themselves that knew about this new development were Curie and Hancock, “We can tell him. I have a good feeling, the baby is gonna be fine.” He wrestled his hand out of Mac's to continue his tracing patterns over where their kid was growing. He liked to imagine the baby could feel and hear him even though it was maybe too early for that, “You're gonna be fine.” He mumbled against the belly before giving Mac his full attention.

They brought their mouths together for a quick kiss before Mac said, “Let's wait a little longer before we get his hopes up. I don't wanna see him get all excited just for it to fall away if something happens.”

“Nothing is going to happen, love. We'll make sure of it. You've got all these fancy meds to keep you and him healthy, you're not gonna go fighting any raiders or Mutants. You'll stay safe and wrapped in cotton if I have anything to say about it.”

“Him?” Mac wrapped his arms around Asher's back as the big man straddled his hips, careful to not put any weight on his belly.

He shrugged, “Call it a hunch.”
He played with one of Mac's braids and felt a sense of rightness at seeing them in his hair. They all had meaning and Mac let him change them as needed. All except the one that hung in front of his left ear that matched Asher's except Mac's had a black bead and Asher’s had a green one. The others varied depending on Mac himself; the ones that held tight to the right side of his scalp labelled him a warrior with silver links and cuffs, another had coloured beads symbolising Duncan, more had their family entwined, another for Lucy with blue and pink for the tranquility and the love Mac had for her. He has beautiful hair and Asher suddenly had the need to add a new one. For the baby.

He stood and went to his bedside drawer where the box of cuffs, silver, and beads rattled inside. He held it up and questioned, “Do you mind?”

“You know I don't.” 

Mac scooched a little forward on the bed so that Asher could fit behind him on the pillows and then rested against his chest. He hummed happily as Ash's long pale fingers began to do the familiar and comforting motions of combing out his hair and sectioning it, “I need a new one too.” He mumbled as he started to braid. He used white beading and then a colour he very rarely used: gold.

Mac shut his eyes against the feeling and said, “What's this one for?” He vaguely knew the meanings of all the braids Asher did in their, Duncan’s, and their family's hair, but mostly just enjoyed the attention from the man during these moments.

“This one is for the baby and you. White for innocence and good luck, gold for prosperity and wealth.” He kept braiding even as he kissed the top of Mac's head again.

“Wealth?”

“Wealth and prosperity doesn't always mean caps, sweetheart. We're wealthy in other ways; our family, food and water, a home, our health. The baby needs that kind of wealth too.” Mac stayed against his chest as Ash twisted a matching braid into his own hair. 

It was then that Duncan burst into their room ready to rant about some grand insult one of his friends had thrown at another before he paused at the sight of his dads getting new beads in their hair, “Hey! What about mine!”

Duncan’s hair was wild from running and playing and he often came home with twigs, leaves, dog fur, and bits of lake plant life stuck in his braids and curls. He bounced over to his dad's bed and sat to watch Asher finish tying a gold link into his midnight hair, “You know, Dunc, your braiding would last longer if you looked after it.”

Asher said that but he really didn't mind redoing his son's hair as often as the boy liked. He untangled himself from Mac and scooped their son into his lap to start fixing his hair. Mac and Duncan spoke quietly together as he worked undoing all the old braids and beads and cuffs and started pulling the veritable bounty of nature out of the curls. He even found a little water bug trying to make a home there.
He started rebraiding; some to state that he was the son of a high up official and should be protected, more for the sign of the warrior like his father, one for his mother, some for their family. It was soothing and the intricate delicate patterns calmed him.

His mind wandered back to the baby and his eyes roved over MacCready's belly again. He'd have a whole new person to help braid their hair. A whole new person to teach and love and protect. A little brother for Duncan. He wove a braid that was similar to the one Asher wore for his own siblings, a different coloured bead for each, and then paused as he looked into his box to find a new unique colour for Duncan’s new sibling, even if the boy didn't know it yet.

He must've paused for a while because both Mac and Duncan turned to face him, “You done, dad?”

He startled and shook his head as he brought the box closer for the both of them to look into, “I need you to pick a new colour, Duncan. A brand new colour. One you haven't had before.”

“Oh, why?” His little scarred fingers started shifting through the metals and plastics and ceramics.

Ash looked to Mac who was chewing his lip. He sent him the question with his eyes and Mac hummed a little before nodding, “Well, it's important that you pick this one. The same way I did for your Aunt Daisy.” So much for waiting until they were out of the danger zone.

“Uh huh. What colour is Aunt Daisy's?”

He pulled the braid for his siblings forward and pointed to a pale yellow one high up in the strand, “That one is Daisy. This one is Rosie, Willow, and Oak.”

“Okay…” Duncan concentrated as he searched, “How do I know which one?”

“It'll just feel right.” Asher shrugged.

Duncan nodded and then looked at his father, “Why am I picking a new bead, daddy?”

Mac kissed his forehead, “You know how I was sick?” Duncan nodded, fingers still in the box, “Well, it's because something huge is about to happen, okay? And I don't want you to think we're gonna love you any different or less or anything, yeah? It's all good news and -”

“Robbie, love.” Duncan had tensed so hard in his lap that he had to start rubbing soothing lines down their boy's back, “Just say it, sweetheart.”

“Okay, okay. Um…” He pulled one of Duncan's hands into his own, “Okay. Duncan. You're gonna be a big brother.”

Duncan jumped, “W-what do you mean?”

Ash rumbled a quiet soothing noise, “We're going to have a baby.”

Duncan spun in Asher's lap, nearly tipping the box of beads, and flickered his eyes over Asher's belly before looking at his father's. Seeing nothing massively different his eyebrows drew together and he frowned, “Dad! You got someone pregnant!? What the fu - frick!?”

Ash laughed, “Okay, ouch, for assuming it'd be me to cheat. No, you know I'd never do that to your dad.”

Mac sighed and pulled Duncan against him, “No, Duncan. Neither of us got someone else pregnant. It's me. I'm the one who's gonna have the baby.”

Duncan put his hand onto Mac's belly, “But you're not fat!”

A bark of a laugh escaped MacCready at that, “Not yet, I'm not. But, soon, maybe I will be.”

Duncan's eyes had gone impossibly wide with wonder, “A baby brother?”

“Or sister.” Mac said.

“And the new bead is for them? I get to pick a colour for them?” Ash nodded and Duncan quickly went back to the box. His dads let him take his time as he held up all the different types and scrutinised each one seriously before he finally landed on his decision. It was a small jagged little ceramic bead in a deep forest green. He held it up proudly, “This one!”

Ash smiled and got to work weaving it into his son's hair, “There. Now you're a big brother.”

Duncan spent a long time after that sitting with MacCready as they talked and laid his hands on his belly in an almost perfect imitation of what Asher had been doing earlier.

It was a few more weeks before Mac's body showed signs of change. A very slight swell bloomed low in his belly and Asher was fascinated by it. It was small and neat and stayed snug just beneath his Merc's muscle. He couldn't stop laying his hand over it in the night with Mac tucked in tight to his chest and whispered stories into it when Mac would sit up to read or clean his rifle or do some other random task that required him to be still for a while. He'd kneel in front of him at the workbench, settle on the floor between his legs as Mac sat on the couch, or keep his head down by his hips as they lay down in bed or on the grass by the fire outside with their family.

Mac laughed as Ash fully put himself underneath the table like an overly protective guard dog, their actual dogs not caring one jot about the strangeness of their master, to continue his story about Goldilocks and the Three Bears as Mac ate his dinner, “You keep putting your face near my dick and I'm gonna have to fuck your face, Ash.”

“Swear jar. And, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, hmm?”

Duncan was out with Nat and Billy so Ash got more comfortable on his knees before his partner beneath the table.

Mac's leg twitched in surprise as Ash ran his hands up his calves and along the inside of his thighs, not actually expecting Ash to go through with the suggestion of sucking his dick. He leaned back in the chair, dinner forgotten, as Asher started to undo his belt and pant buttons.

He mouthed at the growing bulge and huffed hot air through the fabric and Mac canted his hips up into the contact. He kept his hands on the table, bitten nails scraping at the wood as he watched Ash brush his wild hair away as he unzipped his pants. He watched his long fingers dip into his jeans and groaned as he felt them wrap around his suddenly aching prick.
Fuck, he needed this. It had admittedly been a little while, way longer than they usually went without touching each other, owing to them waiting to be one hundred sure Mac was fully over the morning sickness and out of the danger zone. And now he was and he was ravenous for Asher's fingers and mouth and dick.

Ash pulled him out and wasted no time in wrapping his lips around the head of his dick. He was already leaking and the heat in his belly and tension in his back screamed at him to fuck and cum as quickly as possible. One of his hands left the table and gathered all of Asher's long hair into a rough ponytail that he held onto to guide Asher's face further down. The slick hot heat of his mouth as he swirled his tongue and pressed it hard against the underside of his prick had him gasping and gripping the table for dear life. He pushed up into his mouth and shut his eyes against the vibration of Asher's hum of satisfaction that rattled through him.

“Fuck, Ash…” Another hard thrust up into the tight vacuum his lover made by hollowing his cheeks, “I'm not gonna last.”

Asher took that as a personal challenge. Ignoring his own discomfort as his dick strained against his pants, he redoubled his efforts with the goal of making MacCready cry out and cum in record time. He bobbed his head down until his nose brushed against his pubic hair and little belly and swallowed his dick into his throat. He held his partner's hips still and sucked hard as he rolled his tongue. MacCready shook beneath his grip and he groaned as the grip in his hair tightened. 
He moved one hand, letting a finger trail in a little of the pooling saliva on Mac's skin, before dragging it down and dipped it into the gap between his jeans and arse. He pressed the slick finger hard into him and expertly found that spot that made him babble and turn to mush. Mac thrust up into his mouth as he cried out his name and Asher dutifully swallowed the sudden stream of cum as though it were his last meal on earth.

He pulled back with a soft pop and rushed from underneath the table. He picked Mac up as the Merc still fought to catch his breath and took the stairs up two at a time.

He gently put Mac onto their bed before rapidly stripping Mac's clothes off and then doing the same with his own. All of it was haphazardly thrown into a corner as he crowded Mac down into the mattress. 
This was going to be quick and messy, he knew, and he simply didn't care. He needed to be inside. Needed to feel him clench around him as he called out his name in a prayer. 

He grabbed the oil from his bedside table and generously applied it to his fingers. Then, he moved Mac to lay on his side and positioned himself behind him. He lifted one of Mac's legs and started to press his finger inside him.

“Asher, fuck,” Mac was already hard again and Ash wrapped his free hand around his already hard again prick as he kissed and nipped at his shoulder, “please…no more prep. Just fuckin’ fuck me already.”

“Gonna have so many caps in the jar, love.”

“Shut the fuck up you big dork.”

Ash grinned against his skin and removed his fingers, using the excess oil to wet his dick before pressing inside him. He went slow and carefully, letting Mac press back into him at his own pace as he started to jerk him off. Mac whined and groaned as he was filled and Ash gently bit at his shoulder and neck. He sighed happily as he bottomed out and Ash let his free hand run down over Mac's chest before spreading over the little swell of his lower belly.

Mac rolled his hips slowly back and forth even as he asked, “It's not gonna hurt them, is it?”

Asher shook his head and buried his nose into Mac's hair, “No, sweetheart, I'd never do anything to hurt you or them. We'll go so slow and gentle. I promise, it's fine.”

Curie had told them it would be just as it was when a man and woman had sex when pregnant. This was no different or any more risky. But, MacCready had told him about his fears of maybe having been pregnant before and losing it so Asher would take all the time he needed to feel okay about this again.

“Okay, slow and gentle.”

Asher rolled his hips, pulling almost all the way out before sliding agonisingly slowly back in. He did it again just to hear the moan sliding out of Mac's mouth. It sounded like his soul was trying to escape out of his chest and Asher loved it. He kept up with the slow rocking of his hips, rutting in shallow thrusts deeper and deeper into his partner, and twisted his hand around his dick. The loud Ah! and sinful wanton groaning coming from him was like music and it sent shocks of electricity through him.

“Jesus, Robbie, do it again. Please.”

Mac's arm came up and held the back of Asher’s head as he moaned loudly again. Ash's eyes fluttered shut at the sound of it and the feeling of Mac's tight heat gripping him. 
Ash moved his hand and dragged it up his side and then all the way up to twine their fingers together in his own hair. His face was pressed into the skin of Mac's neck and the smell of him filled his senses; rain, gunpowder, and the forest that surrounded their town. 

Mac came first, his cum spilling over Ash's hand and into the rumpled sheets beneath them. Asher pumped him through his orgasm and thrust into his clenching walls as they milked him dry as he spilled into him. 

“Fucking fuck…yes.” He shuddered as he pulled out and grabbed a blanket to drape over them both.

“Hmm, I really want a smoke now.” He said it even as he shuffled to curl up firmly against Ash as he began to slip into a happily sated sleep.

“In five-ish months, Robbie.”

Chapter Text

Ash was frowning through the scope of one of Mac's many rifles as he watched another Brotherhood Vertibird fly a slow loop a little ways to the east. It had been easy to forget that the Brotherhood were around as they tended to keep away from the Minutemen settlements that dotted the Commonwealth unless they needed to trade and the odd patrol seemed to float around various areas of the ‘Wealth with no obvious purpose. These patrols didn't seem to be outright hostile after Asher had bumped into another after the one with Hancock when he and Cait had taken a walk to Sanctuary the other week, but they left him with a queasy feeling that he didn't enjoy. 

He also didn't know why the Brotherhood hadn't left after the Institute was shut down and they hadn't requested access to the place to scavenge more tech in over a year. Elder Maxson had been quiet and only sent the odd correspondence to keep up their tentative alliance. These little notes - sent by caravan or runner - were innocuous with just the basic formalities, updates about nothing, an invite to catch up, and other such nothing statements. The patrols and the nothingness aside, these Vertibird flybys were a newer development that he had had reports about from other settlements across the ‘Wealth and he seriously doubted that they had anything to do with alliances or the Institute.

Mostly, now, the Institute was almost completely stripped bare of its tech, it being distributed out to settlements and towns to help the people. There were a few medical labs still stocked that he planned to clear out in the near future and the place as a whole was mostly just the Railroad using the interior to study the original makings of synths. The group weren't making new synths but were making spare parts and components should any of the active ones require major repairs or, even, a whole new body. It was a boon that Nick had benefited greatly from as some of his more busted parts; his arms, a section of his torso and abdomen, and part of his left thigh, had been repaired to near perfection. Though he had left his face to stay cracked and aged saying it gave him character. This making of parts also brought in caps from DiMA over in Far Harbor should his collective need anything specific made.

So, no, he wasn't sure what the Brotherhood were up to but was happy to live and let live so long as they left his people alone.

“So, brother,” Hancock was by his side as usual, “all well on the home front?”

“Hmm, not sure. That Vertibird is a little too close for comfort and I wanna know what they're up to. Gonna ask Pres to see what he can find out and Maxson…” He trailed off as he kept watching through the scope as the machine swooped lower before lifting back up and to begin a new loop. They were close to the Covenant side of their town and would bet anything that Peters and Marowki were watching through their own rifles down that way.

“Didn't mean the Brotherhood of Bastards, Sunshine. Meant with RJ.”

Deacon sidled up out of nowhere and leaned against the guard post, “Guy looks like he's glowing. Like out of an old magazine spread about baby baskets and onesies.”

Asher grinned and pulled his face away from the scope of the rifle. He followed Deacon and Hancock’s eye-line over to where Mac was standing with Cait and Piper where they leaned casually on a fence. He was glowing; hair freshly braided, face happy and relaxed as he chatted, laughing as he bat Piper's hand away from his belly. It was still only a slight bump and roundness but the women in their family had become very fiercely protective of the little thing. They followed Mac around like personal guards and glared or outright threatened any of the more rowdy townsfolk that attempted to hassle him. It was rare but Mac, being the main guy for the general security of their towns, always had some issues to try and fix. It was a job Ash was thinking of handing over to Deacon or Cait when the time came but, right now, Mac wanted to stay as normal as possible until he simply couldn't anymore.

“He's been doing fine. Eating properly and resting. He's doing great.” Pride coloured his words as he turned back to the scope. He really needed to have a chat with Preston when he was back from Abernathy about the growing activity from the Prydwen. The giant blimp was a high small speck on the horizon where he could just see it peeking out from behind the ruins of Boston beyond the curve of the horizon so far away.

“And you, Charmer? How you holding up?”

He smiled again, “Excited. Can you imagine? Our little family getting one person bigger. What are you gonna do with two nephews begging to learn to be super secret spies?”

Deacon snorted and pushed his sunglasses up his nose but he couldn't hide his grin for once. Hancock took his hat off to fan himself a little in the warm air, “Or niece. Piper, Cait, and Curie are gonna lose their shit if it's a girl. Daisy too.”

Ash nearly dropped the rifle and caught it before it could clatter over the edge of the wall, “Oh, shit! Daisy!”

“You haven't told her?”

“Fuck! No. I haven't been to Goodneighbor since we found out and it's not exactly something you can put in a letter. Fuck! She's gonna have my head!” He put said head in his hands, “No! Worse than that! She's gonna make me cut my hair, John!”

“Ah, well. Then we'll all match, yeah?” Deacon gestured between his and Hancock’s bald heads.

“She ain't gonna make you cut your hair, Rapunzel. Don't worry, she'll just cut off your dick or somethin’. You'll still be pretty and maybe Mac will get a kick out of being the top for once.”

Asher couldn't help the cackle that erupted from him, “God damnit, I really don't have time to go to Goodneighbor right now. What am I gonna do?”
Outpost Zimonja and The Slog had both requested his presence and help, Desdemona was coming up in the next few weeks or so to discuss access to the Robotics room of the Institute again, and now the Brotherhood were flying close to his home. Elder Maxson had also requested an audience to catch up at some point in the near future which Asher had begrudgingly agreed to. He'd get to ask about the flybys, at least.

Hancock shrugged, “Well, me and Deek are going down in a few weeks to check in. Fahrenheit needs me to call some shots on a few rule breakers. We could take Mac and he can tell Daisy? It has to come from one of ya’s.”

“Oh, I dunno, John.” He looked back over to Mac. Duncan had shown up with Nat Wright and Billy Peabody and he was gesturing proudly to his father's belly as the other kids nodded and looked serious, “He's so…fragile right now. Going for a walk-about maybe ain't the best idea.”

Deacon sniffed, “Trickshot is anything but fragile when it comes to a tussle and me and Hancock won't let anything get close to him. Quick jaunt to Goodneighbor. There and back.” He nodded in Mac's general direction, “It'll do him good to stretch his legs if he wants to come with. Won't be able to in another month or so.”

He mulled it over in his brain. It was true, Mac had been fighting in the Capital Wasteland and then the Commonwealth long before Asher had defrosted and had continued to fight with him up until they'd settled in their town. Then, Mac's jaunts became less and less frequent as his attention stayed on Duncan and the security of their towns. When he did go out, he fell into the familiar battle rhythm with them all and enjoyed the change in scenery and seeing people they knew. Staying cooped up would drive him nuts eventually, “Fine, you can ask him and, if he doesn't want to, I'll find the time to tell Daisy myself.” It would be easier if his sister moved north like he kept asking but she was firm in running the trade post in Goodneighbor.

“That's the spirit, Sunshine. He'll be just fine under our careful babysitting watch.”

“Don't worry your pretty Rapunzel head over it.”

He had a knife in his belt and rifle held casually in front of him as he listened to the old guy grumbling by the bar. Apparently, some caravan guard had stolen his caps during a card game that had gotten heated and now, somehow, that was Mac's problem.

“I'm tellin’ yeh, they fuckin' cheated! There's no way he had an ace and a jack dealt out to him.”

“Hey, man, it's luck of the draw, I dunno what to tell you.”

The man bristled, “Ain't you meant to be on my side? I live here!” Mac wasn't one hundred percent sure that this guy did live here. So many people drifted in and out to trade and rest on journeys.

“I don't control what card games are played or who plays them, man.” Mac shifted his rifle over his front a little more, “I just make sure you can sleep at night without being killed by raiders.”

“He was a raider! He raided my pockets. I want him gone from my town and I want my caps back! You're the police, do something!” He stepped forward into MacCready's space a little more.

Mac tried his hardest to not roll his eyes, “We don't have police, pal. What even is that?” The man took another step; chin tucked in, hands clenched by his sides, “And I can't just kick a random caravan guard out of the town, you'd have to ask the General about that.”

“The General's out. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Besides, ain't you his bitch?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Oh, yeah, ain't you one of them that follows him around all the time? Like those fuckin' dogs he has with him.”

Everyone knew who MacCready was. Everyone except those that didn’t live or were regulars in their settlements. It’s not like he and Asher hid their relationship in the towns or in front of the folk that lived in them. Plus, it was no ones business but their own, frankly.
He looked the man up and down and determined he was just like any other drifter down on his luck; busted boots, threadbare jeans, tattered jacket, not too dissimilar to how Mac was from before he met Ash. The man, hardened from living in the Wastelands as he was, also had some visible scarring disappearing down his neck and silvery lines from knife fights on his hands.

“You been in the Commonwealth long, pal?” He asked plainly.

He sniffed hard through his nose before spitting sideways into the street, “All me life,” his accent stated otherwise, “moved to this here town a year ago.”

“Oh? Which side do you live on? I’ll walk you home and we can talk more about getting these caps back for you.”

“Huh?”

Mac tilted his head, beads and silver glinting in the sun, “Covenant or Boathouse? Which side?” The man glared and shuffled his feet before pausing as Mac’s hand shifted to the knife tucked into his belt where it rested beside the radio he carried with him, “Think you’d better get out, don’t you?”

“You said you didn’t have that power!”

“Thought I was one of the General’s bitches? Want me to get the other bitches too? You can meet the whole pack, if you’d like.”

If looks could kill: MacCready would be dead. The man grumbled as he passed by, “You ain’t heard the last of me.”

“Sure. Don’t let the gate hit you on the way out.”

He breathed through his nose and moved down a nearby alleyway to continue his patrol. The one time he wasn't shadowed by Cait or Piper was apparently the one time he'd end up in a proper argument. He pressed a hand to his stomach where it lay hidden beneath his layers against the oncoming late summer chill, “Phew, didn’t fancy getting into a knife fight, huh, bug?” There was, obviously, no reply, so he continued his walk down the narrow passage that was lit in string lights and sheltered lanterns that the runners of the town kept lit at almost all hours of the day.

He was just nearing the end of the alley when he heard a shuffle behind him and the slight clink of an errant can being knocked. Every hair on the back of his neck rose as he turned his head to look over his shoulder whilst still keeping his back toward the passage. He wouldn’t turn and put his front at risk unless absolutely necessary.
The alley was empty but was deep set with shadows where the lanterns and lights didn’t quite reach. He pulled his knife, the rifle being almost useless in this tight space, and took another step toward the open street barely ten feet ahead of him.

A scuff of a boot from higher up had him flicking his eyes skyward to check the roofs and ledges the building either side of him had formed during their construction. Nothing was there.

“Hello?” He pulled the radio out: ready to call Cait or Deacon to him if needed, “Who’s there?”

No reply so he took another few steps.

Clink.
Fwish.

“Fuck.”

He could feel eyes on him but couldn’t see his possible assailant - someone with the ability to blend into almost invisibility through stealth or they were using a Stealth-Boy.
He brought the radio up to his mouth as he slowly turned to be better able to defend himself with the knife drawn and ready to strike. He clicked the button on the walkie and opened his mouth to speak -

“Roberrrrt Josepphh MacCreeeeadyyyyy…”

“Oh, for fu - Deacon!” He dropped his hands and reattached the radio to his belt, “What the hell man?”

Deacon and Hancock shimmered into existence with manic grins on their faces and snorting at what MacCready was sure was his paper white face, “Look like you’ve seen a ghost, pal.”

“Frick you. Why can’t you just be normal?” He turned to continue his walk with them coming up to his sides, “I thought you were some loser coming for revenge.”

“Which loser?” Hancock asked as he casually strolled with his arms behind his head.

“Just some guy saying he’d been cheated out of cards and then pretending to live here. Called me a bitch. Y’know, usual drifter stuff.”

Deacon hummed and pushed his sunglasses further up his nose, “He was pretending he lived here?”

“Yeah, dunno what his deal was.”

“Whatever,” Hancock linked his arm, “wanna come Goodneighbor with us?”

“Now? I dunno…I’ll have to ask Piper if she can have Duncan whilst Ash is gone, and -”

“Nah, we’ll go when Sunshine is back.”

“Daisy doesn’t know about the baby yet and Asher can’t go. You can, though. Stretch your legs before you get too huge to get past the gate.”

He shrugged, “Sure. Be good to get out again.”

“Excellent. Be like old times!” Their old times consisted of getting drunk and high in the Third Rail before Asher started dragging them to every nook and cranny of the ‘Wealth. So, it wouldn’t be exactly like old times. Not on MacCready’s part at least.

Asher was tired when Mac found him on their couch after another patrol run late. He'd been back from Zimonja and the Slog for a few days and then Desdemona had turned up with Glory for talks and negotiations. Whilst, technically, Asher did work for the Railroad as a heavy every now and again, when it came to the Institute he was the boss. No one went in or out without him knowing exactly what they were doing and it usually took a few days of hard diplomacy for common ground to be settled between him and the Railroad's leader. Mac had decided to stay firmly out of their way, not wanting the intense women to know about his condition yet. It's not that he was ashamed or embarrassed. He simply didn't trust them.

Asher was cross-legged on their couch and sewing. A great swath of patched together fabric was draped over his knee and his tongue was poking out as he furrowed his brow with another stitch from the needle. It looked like a strange uneven square with long pockets sewn in.

“What you making, Ash?”

“A swaddle.” He shifted the fabric and started sewing a new section where there were strips of Radstag leather dangling from it.

“A…swaddle?”

“Uh huh. For the baby. It'll be winter when he's born and it's traditional for him to have a proper swaddle.”

Mac sat beside him and let his fingers trail over the fabric: it was soft and thick with little beading lining the seams, “Yeah? What else is traditional for you? Normally, we just have the kid and fight to keep them alive nowadays…”

Ash frowned at that but shrugged as he spoke, “Well, they have a swaddle and a box to sleep in. And, for nine days, you don't say their name.”

“Nine days!?”

“Hmm,” he continued to sew, “before they're born, the family used to sing for the mother to beseech our gods and ancestors to protect them during the birth. Then, once the baby was born, you had nine nights before the father publicly named them to the village. Before that, the baby could be given up, but after that, it is the father's responsibility to keep them healthy and safe.” He placed the half done swaddle into a nearby basket of fabrics, “It's a bit deeper than that but I'd like to do it if that's okay?”

“Nine nights? What do you do for those nights?”

He laughed and pulled Mac to his side, “Help you heal, bond with the baby, let Duncan play with little tiny toes. Usual new baby stuff. I'm not just gonna ignore them until they're named, you know.”

“Oh. Okay then, I guess that'll be fine.” He scratched at the side of his nose as he thought, “You know it's kinda weird, even after all this time, learning about all the little things you did before the bombs dropped.”

“Yeah,” his hand moved down Mac's chest to lay over his stomach, “I miss some of it. The only other person who gets it is Daisy and she won't leave Goodneighbor.”

“We can do more of it, if you want? More than the braids and baby stuff.”

“You don't have to, Rob. It's not really something you can force on someone if they weren't raised with it. It's fine.” The way he said it made Mac feel like it wasn't fully fine.
Asher now lived in a world where the cultures and religions of the past meant very little unless you were a patron of the All-Faiths chapel in Diamond City. Ash had checked it out once but wasn't surprised when his particular brand of old religion and steeped in beliefs weren't displayed amongst the Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism memorabilia. The priest, Clements, hadn't even known what Asher was talking about. 

“Well, tell me more about it and I'll decide if it's something I can handle, yeah?”

He huffed but smiled down at him, “Well, my name is Asher, or Ash, right?” Mac nodded, “The great world tree, Yggdrasil, is an Ash tree and my mum wanted me to be big and strong and important like it is.”

“...the great world tree.” His thumb brushed over his soulmark, the bare tree within a sunburst, “Like our marks?”

“Yeah, I guess it does kinda look like that. And we had all these temples and religious sites that the people from the village would go to on special days. We'd rebraid our hair as we prayed by candlelight and wear traditional clothing and sing the songs and poems. We'd dance and eat and play.” He wrapped his arms tighter around Mac as he reminisced, “When my dad called for us to come to America, he was born here and met my mum in our village when he'd been posted there, we kinda fell away from the traditions a bit.”

“How come?”

“My dad's family were technically Catholic but didn't really go to church much or follow it but my mum adapted to make them more comfortable. There wasn't anything they could do about us being here, her and Dad being Soulmates and all with two kids already, but they disapproved of the little ten year old boy with long braids and weird words.” He grinned but it was a little sad, “She kept us braided and kept up with some stuff though, the language and prayers and the such, but our holy sites are across the world now, if they're still there.”

“Kinda words do you still know?” He'd heard him grumble some words that sounded like swearing when he was really annoyed and some little phrases would slip out when he was lost in thought. He spoke English the vast majority of the time even though no one had asked him to.

He started talking rapidly in his mother tongue: some thick accent seemingly coming from nowhere. It wasn't necessarily a guttural sounding language but his voice sounded deeper and impossibly more alluring. It sent a shiver down Mac's spine as he sat there enraptured by it. It sounded important and, after a few moments of silence, Mac tried to copy the sounds which made Ash laugh and call him a dork.

“So, you spoke to Hancock and Deacon?”

“Yeah, I want to go. Stretch my legs a bit while I still can.”

“Hmm.”

“I don't have to go, Ash. If you'd rather I stay here -”

“No! No. It's fine. Just…hang on a sec.” He didn't sound like he believed his own words as he disentangled himself from Mac and bounded up the stairs two at a time, hair jingling and rattling the whole way. Mac waited and listened to the thumps coming from their weapons room; a soft curse as something big dropped to the floor, and then more shuffling.

After a few minutes, Ash came down the stairs with a large piece of armour held precariously in one hand and both walkie-talkies in the other. He placed the radios on the table and then motioned for Mac to stand. Mac did so and Ash wasted no time in strapping the large piece of chest armour to him. It was one of Asher’s that he'd made for himself years ago: a large piece of fitted black metal lined in padding and leather that covered Mac from shoulder to hips where it only reached Ash’s middle abdomen when the bigger man wore it. Ash looked critically at it before adjusting the straps to make it as tight as he could get it and frowned, “Gonna have to put another hole in the leather for the buckles. Forget how little you are sometimes.”

“I'm not little!” The only reply he got was a snort as Asher made marks on the loose leather straps to punch the new buckle holes through.

They were silent for a while as Asher continued to adjust and fiddle with the chest piece as though Mac were a living mannequin. Mac watched his dark brows furrow and his mouth move into a thin worried line. He wasn't even measuring the leather anymore, just poking at random points and huffing beneath his breath, “Ash,” his eyes flicked up with a grunt to show he was listening but he continued to fuss with the armour, “I'm going to be okay. We've done this walk countless times and I'll have Hancock and Deacon with me. Be gone a week at most.”

Asher sighed through his nose and then finally stopped with the armour as he helped Mac wiggle out of it, “I know and I know John and Deek won't let anything touch you…”

“You can radio at any time.”

He placed the armour on the table to be adjusted in the morning, “I know, Robbie.”

“Then, what's the problem, Asher? Just let it out before we go to bed.” He sat back onto their couch and said a small thank you as Ash handed over a drink.

He took a short while to answer and MacCready sat patiently and sipped at his drink as he waited for him to get his thoughts in order. It was cosy in their little house with the softness of lantern lights and the soft snoring from a handful of dogs scattered throughout. He could hear Duncan in his room and the settlement around them going about their night. The sound of the water from the nearby lake is always soothing and calm and even better when Asher sat beside him and carded his fingers through the tangle of his curls and braids.

“I'm worried, love.”

Mac snorted, “I can tell.”

Asher shifted and sighed with his eyes squeezed shut for a moment before he leaned back and stared at the ceiling, “When we didn't know what was wrong with you and Duncan called me home…”

“That was ages ago, Asher.”

“...yeah…I was scared that you were dying. I ran all night because Duncan sounded so upset and I -” he swallowed thickly and he trembled slightly before he straightened himself up and set his jaw to fight whatever turmoil was going on inside his head, “I can't lose anyone else, Robbie. I can't lose you or Duncan or them,” he lay a hand on Mac's belly, “I can't lose another like we lost Shaun.”

Mac's breath hitched and he tangled his fingers with Asher's where they had settled on him. They so rarely talked about Shaun and even rarer did they discuss his death. Asher had shot his son himself before emptying out the Institute of every single person living there. The synth boy version had been shut down and hidden away in the great silo's depths where Asher wouldn't stumble across it. Switched off and reset. Mac still shuddered to think about it, “You won't lose us like Shaun.”

He kissed his forehead and pulled him in close, “I don't like it but it's not fair to keep you cooped up forever. Just…keep the armour on and stay back if you need to shoot something, please.”

“Promise. We'll be fine and I'll check in every night, okay?”

“Okay, love. You'll have to bring something good back for Duncan.” He took his hand and began to lead the way to their room. He was due to set off in a few days or so and, even beneath the worry for Asher's anxiety, he felt excited: it had been ages since he'd stepped out and gone wandering and he hadn't seen Daisy for months and months.

“Sure, I'll bring him back some chem-heads hat or something.” Asher snorted and they fell into bed. Ash quickly dropped his hand to the soft small roundness between his hips and drew idle patterns there, “Love you, Ash.”

“Love you too, Robbie.”

He heard the clamour on the edge of town; dogs barking, people laughing, calls of well wishes and come back soons.
He rolled his neck and shoulders with a frown before standing from the table he was clustered around with Desdemona and Glory and began to move to the door.

“Charmer, we aren't finished -”

“I'll be back in a moment, some of my people are leaving.”

She snorts and Asher fought to not roll his eyes, “And? They'll be fine without you.”

“Not your decision, Des.” 

He stepped out the door and shook his head. She had no idea. No clue about how important this particular mission was. Yes, the Minutemen and their settlers knew just how important MacCready was to the General. The people of Boathouse and a few towns beyond knew of his status and condition but everyone else? None of their business. 

He didn't fully trust Desdemona. He loved Deacon and would help the Railroad where he believed for it to make sense but Desdemona was a snake. She'd do anything to help a synth even at the expense of another flesh and blood human. Man, woman, child? It didn't matter, she'd sacrifice anyone for the greater good. Except herself, of course.
He'd made it very clear to everyone that, when it comes to the Railroad and the Brotherhood, their private lives remained just that. Private. Anyone caught gossiping unduly to a member of either faction in regards to anyone would be removed from service or the settlements in general. Even Deacon kept mum and only provided Desdemona with information she needed to know for the Railroad and they all knew Deacon's loyalties had shifted away from the stern, almost too fanatical, woman a long time ago.

He walked down the street towards the noise surrounding the main gate that opened out onto the roads that led south. Deacon and Hancock were loaded up; red coat, sunglasses, armour and weapons strapped tight, as they scratched the dogs ears and said goodbye to their little family and a few of the settlers.
And, then, there was Robbie; heavy armour over his chest and belly, legs covered in black metal, rifle slung over his back, and face glowing in the morning sun. He was listening to Duncan and his friends with a hand in their boy's hair, twirling a bead between his thumb and forefinger. He looked up and grinned as the crowd parted for the General.

“Ash -”

Asher pulled him into a hug and ignored the jabs of sharp armour pieces, “Be safe, love. Do you have everything?”

He nodded against him and shifted the bag over his shoulders, “Yep. I'll be fine, Ash, promise.”

He stepped back and looked him up and down; everything strapped tight, satchels filled with Stimpaks and his meds, extra bullets in his bandoliers and knives hidden in boots, walkie-talkie fastened snug to his belts. He'd be fine.
Asher breathed out through his nose, “Okay. I'll see you in a week, yeah?”

“Sooner if we're quick, Sunshine.” Hancock came up to his side and pat his back, “Me and Deek have got this, Asher, and we'll keep in touch over the radio.”

Deacon looped an arm over Mac's shoulder and tugged his green hat so it sat awkwardly over his face. They laughed at the squeak of disapproval from the Merc as Deacon said, “Don't let Des talk shit to ya, Charmer. She wants to go into Robotics to run more tests on the blood pool.”

She hadn't mentioned that in their negotiation yet so Asher nodded at Deacon and filed the information away to spring on her. Duncan had a hand on Asher's belt as he looked up at Mac, “Bye, dad, don't worry, I'll look after dad.”

“Sure you will, bud. Be good.” He kissed the top of his head and all Asher wanted to do was call this whole thing off and take Mac home. It wouldn't be fair though to keep him cooped up. He was capable, scrappy, and a crack shot with his guns, “We gotta get going if we wanna make progress before evening.” He bobbed his head at Hancock and Deacon and all Asher could do is watch them go.

He, his family, the dogs, and some settlers kept saying goodbye until the gate closed on the redcoat, sunglasses, and green hat.
He pat his pockets and nodded at the feel of the walkie-talkie there and began to move away from the gates to continue his talks with the Railroad.

Duncan tugged on him, “Can I go play?”

“Sure, buddy. Be home when the lights come on and, if I'm not finished, have dinner with Piper, okay?”

“Okay!” He sped away with his friends on his heels.

The dogs wound about his legs as he moved back through the town and he clicked his tongue to bring them to heel. There were nine of them including Dogmeat and a variety of colours and breeds; German Shepherd, Rottweiler, Doberman, Old English Sheepdog, Mastiff, and mutts, he wasn't sure where the trader that came round with puppies every now and again got them, especially the breeds, but he always wanted more. In all his time here he'd always had dogs just like he had before the bombs dropped.
He and Nora had had three: Rufus, Molly, and Dingo, but the Vault didn't allow pets so they had to be let out into the woods when they'd ran for shelter as the bombs fell. He didn't like to think of what may have happened to them and he hoped that they'd survived the initial blast and, maybe, were the ancestors of some of the dogs around the ‘Wealth seen today. Since having a pack, rigorously trained and honed over those first few months, he'd only lost two in battles; Sky - a black mutt, and Jangles - a black and white Collie, and hadn't had the heart to replace them. But, now, he felt he could take a few puppies off that traders hands again when he was next spotted. Maybe he'd teach Duncan how to train them.

He stepped back into the room he and Desdemona had commandeered for these negotiations and directed the dogs to settle about the space. They yipped and huffed as they had minor disagreements about who was allowed which comfy corner and Dogmeat and Jekyll, the Doberman with his pointed clipped ears and scarred muzzle, came and settled nicely over Asher's feet.

Desdemona looked around at the dogs with a cocked brow and a down turned mouth, “Are you trying to intimidate me, Charmer?”

“Of course not, they just needed their dad, is all.” He scratched behind Jekyll's ears before finally turning back to the issue at hand, “So, Robotics, tell me what you want with the pool.”

Chapter Text

“Jeez, my feet are killing me.” He kicked off his boots for some relief against the heartbeat feeling in his heels and toes. The fire of their little camp was hot, the food tasty, and the stars twinkled about the three of them like glitter scattered haphazardly all above them. Even still, he wasn’t looking forward to a second night on the road and missed his own bed.

Hancock smoked a cigarette and bat Deacon's hands away from the almost full pack before laughing and handing the spy one anyway, “This time tomorrow, we'll be reacquainting ourselves with the lovely people of the Rail, eh?” He waggled his brow at Deacon even as Mac rolled his eyes.

“You two will be, I'll be holed up in your room with frickin’ water and comics.” He'd have loved to have been getting wasted in the Rail with Hancock just like the old days but wouldn't risk even stepping a single toe in that place right now: you never knew when a bar brawl would break out and the alcohol and cigarettes were simply too tempting at the moment.

“Don't be like that! You've had a good time so far, yeah? We'll find something for you to do in Goodneighbor.”

Hancock huffed, “Place ain't exactly known for being family friendly, Deek.”

He flopped back on his bedroll with his hand coming to rest over the slight swell of his belly, “Who knew having a kid could be so boring.” 

Sure, over the last couple days or so he'd had the chance to take out a few raiders and ferals but that wasn't exactly fun. It was exciting and got the adrenaline pumping, it kept his skills sharp and helped make the Commonwealth just that little bit safer for a little while, but it wasn't fun.
Fun to MacCready was sharing a drink and stories around the fire with his little family. Fun was winning at cards and modding weapons for no other reason than the satisfaction it brought at the end. Fun was wrestling and rough-housing with Duncan. Fun was playing stupid games with Hancock and Deacon on the road.

He didn't know any other pregnant person who dealt with it the same way he was right now. The people he knew who had done this, including Lucy, went about their lives in much the same way as how they had before they'd found out about a baby; drinking, smoking, chems, fighting, working, until the baby was either born or, sadly, lost. It was the harsh reality of living in this time and, if this had happened to him before he knew Ash and Curie, he'd probably have done the same. It wasn't as if prenatal and antenatal care was a common practice anymore unless you lived in a Vault or near a ghoul doctor who knew about these things.
As it was, he had Asher and Curie and their vast Pre-War knowledge on how to keep a parent and fetus healthy. He was incredibly fortunate in comparison to how Lucy had had to go through her time with Duncan; fighting, working, travelling, hungry, homeless, with a partner who knew nothing about pregnancy.

What would she think of him now?

MacCready had always known what to do with a baby or child though. His life in Little Lamplight has left him unusually prepared at a very young age for the care and attention a new person needed to survive as people abandoned their babies and children at the mouth of the cave for the community of kids to raise and keep safe. Sometimes they'd have names pinned to them like he had and, sometimes, Little Lamplight's residents would have to name them.

There had been one time during his stint as the mayor when one of the girls of their little surviving community had gotten pregnant after a night with one of the boys. She'd been scared and embarrassed but, with the support of the other kids, the baby had been born and, as far as MacCready knew, had been a toddler in Big Town by the time he'd left the cave.

His thoughts drifted to Asher as he drew little patterns into his belly as the new tentative flutters made him grin. It'd all be worth it to feel them grow stronger: those flutters turning to kicks turning to newborn stretches turning to the patter of tiny feet as she learned to run.

He eased himself into the night surrounded by Hancock and Deacon's low voices as they chatted. Asher had already been thinking of names but he hasn't given MacCready any clue to his choices yet and MacCready wondered if that was to do with his homelands tradition for new babies.
He wasn't sure how he felt about it. Would he get to have an opinion in the name as the ‘mother’ or would Asher just present the kid to the town and declare the name without his input? He doubted it but the way he'd talked about it had a trickle of frustration and nervousness winding its way around his brain. He wanted Ash to have connections to his beliefs and faith, even though Mac's faith started and ended on whether his rifle was loaded or not, but names were a big deal. Names determined someone's soulmark and having a boring mark could be embarrassing. What if Asher wanted to call the kid something weird and then their soulmark would be something ugly. 

Apparently, Duncan meant dark warrior and MacCready worried about what that would mean for his mark if he ever met his person. Would it be a weapon? A smudge of black? Or something so abstract you couldn't even tell what it was. Names were huge and he wanted his second born to have something good with a beautiful meaning. Maybe it was a little selfish and a weird issue to get hung up on but, nevertheless, it bothered him.
The flutter in his belly let itself be known again.

“Hey, guys?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you have soulmarks?” His own was pretty: the bare tree back-lit by a sunburst.

Hancock laughed, “Yeah, why?”

“What do they look like?” A rude question but one he felt he could ask of them.

“Mines a full set of T-Sixty Power Armour.” Deacon said with a wry grin. He wouldn't share and Mac hadn't fully expected him to. No one even knew Deacon's real name except for Asher, as far as MacCready knew, and no one pushed after Asher swore to keep it secret. If Deacon wanted people to know, he'd tell them himself.

Hancock rolled his neck, “Why you asking, Mac?”
He simply shrugged and Hancock squinted at him even as he unbuttoned the top of his shirt. He pulled the hem down and showed off a warped and twisted soulmark that dipped and flowed with his scarring: a cross with a crown sat atop it. It was bold and stark against Hancock's mottled skin just beneath his clavicle and the ghoul brushed his fingers over it. It wasn't a pretty mark but it wasn't an odd shape or weird animal or something, “You thinking of names?”

He nodded, “Asher is. He has this tradition where the kid isn't named until the ninth night after they're born and you're not allowed to say it before then.”

Deacon laughed, “Ah, you're worried it's gonna be an ugly name. Asher isn't gonna suggest something bad, Mac, I'll bet all my caps it'll be something overly cute.”

“And it's not like you won't have a say.”

“What if he wants something weird? Something that means a wonky nose or small dick?”

“Ha! Nah, Mac, I bet the little bug will have something that means something bigger than that. Like ruler or God or somethin' knowing Ash. I wouldn't get too twisted up over it, pal.”

He nodded again. Realistically he knew Asher wouldn't name their kid something stupid; his and his siblings names all had a pretty meaning, like Daisy, but this was all new territory. 

His hand moved to his pocket where the walkie-talkie sat waiting to be used. He could just ask him. He wouldn't be able to sleep until he spoke to him anyway. He pulled the radio out and turned it over in his hands a few times before finally pressing the button in their pre-agreed pattern: one-pause-two-pause-one, and waited a few moments before the pattern was repeated back. It was a longer wait than usual but he shrugged it off, Ash was a busy man.

“Ash?” Deacon and Hancock stopped their quiet conversation to listen.

“Hey, Robbie, you doing okay?” His voice was crackly and tinny but it made Mac smile regardless.

“We're fine. Just near the south bridge to the ruins. Mostly a quiet day, just a few raiders and ferals earlier on.”

The pause between them was a bit too long for his liking and he frowned at the thought of how far away from home he was, “Good. Goodneighbor by tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yeah…I have a question if you have the time.”

“Always have time for you, love. Duncan is here too - hi dad! - ow, Dunc, don't screech.”

He laughed, “Hey, Duncan. You told me you were thinking of names, right? Would you tell me some?”

That pause was deafening and he was very aware that this was not a private conversation as he heard either Hancock or Deacon open a can of water for the pot, “Oh! Sure, if you'd like. I was thinking things like my name.”

“Oh.” That didn't sound too bad, “Like what?”

Deacon snorted out a quiet told you so as Asher responded, “Sylvan? Hazel? Things like that. But, if you don't like that kind of thing, we can think of something else.”

“I like plants..?”

Asher laughed down the radio and warmth bloomed in Mac's chest. He could imagine him sitting on their couch with Duncan between his legs as his hair was done up for the night, “We can talk about it properly when you're home. So long as it stays between us for a while, yeah?”

Until the ninth night. He rolled his eyes and felt dumb for worrying about it. Of course he'd have a say in the naming of their kid. He just had to keep it quiet until the baby was declared to their family and the town as a whole, “Yeah, I don't know many plants though, Ash. Unless you like Bloodleaf?”

Another laugh echoed by Hancock, “Good thing I know loads then. Feel better?”

“Yeah. I'll talk to you tomorrow when we get to Goodneighbor.”

“Okay. Night and love you.”

“Love you too.” he was about to flick the radio off before sitting up quickly with a rushed, “Wait! I felt them, Ash. Like a little bug wriggling about.”

That pause felt like a lifetime, “That's the best thing you've ever said to me, Robbie. Means they're strong, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You're doing so well. Goodnight, love.”

The radio went silent and Hancock gagged, “You're so fucking sappy it's disgusting.”

They were just packing up their little camp when they heard it. Loud in the quiet misty early morning: great thuds of heavy stomping feet.

“Shit.”

The fire was doused quickly, the steam dissipating into the light grey around them, and they moved as one unit to a small copse of trees a little way past the road. Hancock squatted in front of MacCready and tightened the straps of his full chest armour before whirling and cocking his shotgun. They breathed quietly as they squinted through the mist as those thudding footsteps grew closer.

“Super Mutants?” Mac whispered as the barrel of his rifle came to rest over Hancock's shoulder with Deacon getting his own gun ready next to him.

“Nah, Mac, not Mutants.”

Underpinning the stamping footfalls was the subtle hiss and whir of hydraulics and actuators as little hardworking contraptions pushed the solid weight of Power Armour to move.
The squad of Brotherhood Paladins and Knights, five in total plus a scribe, rounded a nearby corner and Hancock felt Mac relax ever so slightly against him even as Hancock tensed further. Their tentative alliance with the Brotherhood was strained at the best of times and the knowledge that the Meatheads had been flying close to their towns had been concerning the General weeks before they'd set out from Boathouse.

Mac started to stand but Hancock gripped his wrist and pulled him back down, “Let them pass, we don't need to say hello.”

Deacon cocked his gun, the click almost too loud in the quiet, and whispered, "Doesn't Ash have a meeting with Elder Knobend soon?”

Mac shrugged and stayed quiet.

The squad found their little camp and Hancock frowned as they drew their weapons and looked around the immediate area. He couldn't hear what was being said but a Paladin, distinguishable with their personalised armour, started motioning with a great metal clad hand in various directions. 
He didn't know why they were looking for whoever had left the camp, it felt like a waste of time, but he didn't want to find out. Maybe they were looking for a deserter. Maybe they were looking for scavvers hiding tech. Or, maybe they were simply looking for a fight.

“Deacon, do you have any Stealth Boys?”

“No.” Came his short and clipped answer.

“We should try to move,” Mac suggested, “they'll look in these trees if they're hunting someone.”

Hancock nodded and, together, they started to shift towards the back of the copse furthest away from the camp and the meandering suits of Power Armour. Even if the squad recognised them as Minutemen and thus not an enemy he didn't want to risk the chance that they wouldn't.

They exited the trees and stayed low as they started to ghost over the plain still covered in thick dew-mist beyond. Hancock felt the skin on the back of his neck shiver and his muscles tensed. He could see the bridge to the ruins and jerked his head towards it. The others nodded with tight frowns on their faces and began to loop around to get there. Once over the bridge they could disappear into the dilapidated and crumbling buildings with little problem.

“Fuck, Hancock!”

He felt the ground beneath him vibrate a moment before a great blunt force collided with his side. The pain was almost blinding as the ground rushed up to meet him as he tumbled over only to be caught up in a great fist grabbing the front of his coat. He blinked past the flickering spots clouding his vision only to be met with the helmeted head of a Knight. He scrabbled and growled as he snapped his head to one side as he heard Deacon call out for MacCready. They had their own Knights to deal with; Deacon ducked beneath a sudden swing of an arm that moved with the force of a small speeding car, MacCready rolled backwards away from a heavy metallic foot coming down to step on him.

He gasped as all the air was pushed from his lungs with a metal clad fist and shouted, “What are you doing!? We're Minutemen!”

The Knight sounded robotic through the speakers in his helmet, “An abomination like you and your little freak fucking friends? Doubt it.”

He heard Mac cry out and looked over with a great sweep of panic flooding his chest and churning in his stomach. The Knight had him pinned to the ground with the boot of the Power Armour pressing into his chest. The Merc's heavy chest plate creaked as he kicked his legs and tried in vain to push the leg away.
Deacon shouted and raised his gun. The bullet pinged harmlessly off the armour and Hancock heard the Paladin leading this squad laugh.

“Kill that one.”

He felt the bile rise in his throat as the last Knight raised his laser rifle at Deacon and pull the trigger. Deacon flew backwards in a great stream of red light and curling smoke. He hit the ground and didn't move again.

“Deacon!” Hancock kicked at the chest of the armour still holding him off the ground, “Deacon!”

“Stop! Stop, please! You're crushing me! Stop!”

Hancock saw the armour encasing and protecting Mac's belly crack and the Merc screamed. Blood curdling. Piercing. His legs scrambled as his face went deathly pale.

The Paladin laughed again, “Take the freak and the boy. They say they're Minutemen? They can answer some questions.”

The last thing Hancock saw before his world went black was the armour and bags falling away from MacCready as he was dragged to his feet and his whole body slumping as he was cracked over the back of his head.

Asher stretched languidly as he stood from his bed. Today was going to be a long day but at least talks with the Brotherhood tended to be quick affairs.

Maxson and his retinue had arrived late the evening before, just after he'd spoken with Robbie, and got settled in one of the guest houses a little ways down the lake. He wasn't sure what the Elder wanted to discuss fully but planned to use this time to try and avoid an argument and solidify their alliance. They didn't fight for each other and never called for assistance from one another, but they traded in the towns and Asher used to allow the Brotherhood into the Institute for the scribes to record and study the remaining available technology. They hadn't asked for access for a long time and they'd have to wait a few weeks anyways if that's what they wanted with the Railroad currently on their way there.

I need a diary or something.

He made breakfast for himself and Duncan before allowing the boy out to play. He got the bowls ready for the dogs; meats, eggs, a few cooked vegetables, and watched the pack scrabble for the best bits. Dogmeat came over for some well deserved pets with Jekyll hot on his heels, “Who’s my best fluffy boys, hmm?”
The rest came over after they'd eaten their fill and Ash enjoyed the quiet moment of wagging tails and wet dog kisses, “Come on, time to start the day.”

He opened the door and the dogs flew out as one great big unit to make their way to the woods just beyond the main gates to disperse their hyper energy and to do their business. No doubt they'd bring back a couple squirrels and the like for one of the many communal stew pots.

The morning dew-mist  was still curling low around the edges of buildings and clinging to the various plants scattered around. It coated the top of the calm lake like a shroud and Ash simply stood to enjoy it for a few moments. He chuckled at the sight of some of the plant life clinging to the shore: Bloodleaf, ha! 

Bloodleaf Ashersen. At least it was a name that instilled a certain kind of feeling into enemies. It felt a bit raiderish but he didn't outright hate the name either.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. In the grand scheme of things, they didn't have much longer to go before the baby would be here. Already, the leaves were changing and the air was cooling ready for autumn and the baby was due in the early winter. By Christmas, or what counted as Christmas these days, they'd be a family of four. Early January at the very latest according to Curie. He checked the date on his PipBoy: September twenty-three. Not long to go at all.

Maybe a seasonal name would fit well? Holly or Thistle or something of the like. Fir didn't feel right and something like Noelle didn't fill his heart with rightness. 

He shook the thoughts away and turned his brain to the day ahead. He followed the porch around before slapping his own forehead in sudden remembrance and rushed back into the house to scoop up the walkie-talkie to clip into his belt. Robbie wouldn't be getting in touch until later that afternoon but he didn't want to miss it if he was still talking with Maxson. He also grabbed up his baggie of dog treats for when the pack inevitably came sniffing.

He wished he could see Daisy's face when Robbie told her but he's sure she'll visit when the baby is born.

He started to make his way to the building normally used for meetings and gatherings for official Minuteman business and nodded to the various settlers that were starting their day early. The harvests were due in the fields and he had no doubt that Preston would be there already ready to tally the influx of foodstuffs to go into storage. With any luck, winter would pass by as smoothly as the last with the provisions provided by the likes of Greygarden and their great greenhouses. Smaller settlements would be provided for when their crop went into hibernation and the abattoirs in Murkwater and Abernathy would be busy getting salted meats ready. The Covenant side of Boathouse, the Lighthouse, and the Castle would provide salted fish and other lake and seafaring products, and Sanctuary could output tinned produce now. 

In comparison to that first year or two of being in this time: things felt much easier now. He'd had to claw for survival whilst looking for Shaun and had to fight for every trade route and scrap of food before the Minutemen finally hit their stride and became a proper force to be reckoned with. Along with the Railroad, they were the primary faction of the ‘Wealth and the majority of settlements belonged to them.
There were a handful that, whilst tolerant and friendly, remained independent; Diamond City, Goodneighbor, Bunker Hill, County Crossing, and the majority of Far Harbor, but they all allowed trade and places for Minutemen to resupply if they were in the area. He wouldn't force his influence on those places and would help them out if asked simply because he knew the folk that lived in those towns. Ellie and Travis in Diamond City, Fahrenheit and Daisy, Longfellow, Stockton, on and on it went and he wouldn't leave them struggling if they needed assistance. He was of the firm belief that the world wouldn't get better if people simply didn't help each other out every now and then.

He grinned as he remembered MacCready's past aversions to his penchant of helping people with very little reward in return. He'd believed him naive, some stupid Pre-War idiot who simply didn't understand how the world worked nowadays, and had been very vocal about it. Now, though? He begrudgingly admitted that it had all worked out to everyone's benefit. The Minutemen helped out at a minute's notice in exchange for trade and loyalty. 

He had his conditions, obviously, and folk very rarely went against him.

He pushed into the meeting space and sighed at the sight of Maxson and one of his Paladins already waiting at the table lit in the warm lantern light. The Elder looked up at him and cocked his brow at Asher's mostly casual appearance of cargo pants and a soft shirt in direct juxtaposition to his crisp, heavy, uniformed battle coat and the huge polished Power Armour standing at parade rest.

“General Lilysen, you're late.”

Ash tilted his head, the beads and cuffs in his hair jingling, and sat opposite Maxson, “Didn't realise you had a set time to start, Maxson.”

“Well,” he sniffed in annoyance, “I would've thought that diplomatic talks with me were a bit more set in stone than whatever you talk to the Railroad about.” He said their name like a slur.

“My dealings with the Railroad have no bearing on the Brotherhood. Do we have to hash this out every time?” He was already tired of this: if Maxson wanted an argument straight away he was ready to call the whole thing off, “What did you want to talk about?”

“We require access to the laboratories in the Institute and I also have a proposition regarding Nuka-World.”

A headache was already forming, “You'll have to wait a while for the Institute, the Railroad has already requested some time there -”

“More synths?” Maxson interrupted as he leaned forward in a sudden flurry of irritation.

“They've never built new synths, Arthur. They make parts for existing ones.”

“That's bad enough! They are an affront to nature! They should be purged.” The Paladin behind Maxson nodded in agreement.

Asher briefly rolled his eyes to the ceiling and let out a calming breath. Every time he spoke with the Brotherhood it always looped back to purging. Synths, ghouls, changed people, the Brotherhood didn't tolerate anything less or more than human.
But, Maxson wasn't stupid, he wouldn't start a war in the Commonwealth whilst the Minutemen and Railroad were as strong as they were. He knew that, if push came to shove, the General would use his rarely activated mortars that dotted the larger settlements in the area. Boathouse didn't have use of this ordnance but the Castle, Starlight, Sanctuary, and Somerville did. Those four settlements alone could reach most corners of the Commonwealth and Quincy were building new ones along their walls even now.

The Brotherhood were strong but their blimp was highly flammable.

“Maxson, you know my stance on this. Whilst I run the Minutemen: every peaceful ghoul, synth, and mute has a place in my towns. Don't you yourself make use of those who can blend into the shadows or those strong enough to lift a car?”

“Useful mutations are vastly different to those twisted by the radiation beyond recognition. Ghouls aren't even human anymore and let's not forget the raiders evolved to survive on cannibalism.”

“Ghouls are human and cannibalism has been around for millennia. So what if someone has a third arm or can breathe underwater? It doesn't affect you or your life.” 

Every. Single. Time.

He was getting fed up with the same circular arguments with this man over and over again. He reminded him of the Commanders in the army before the bombs dropped, so fanatical and twisted that they didn't even see their enemies as people anymore, “They're abominations, Asher, and our tolerance is wearing thin. We came here initially to investigate the Institute, yes, but our cause remains the same all throughout the Americas.”

“So, what? You've come here to warn me? You gonna start razing my towns and gunning down my people?”

“Of course not. However, my people are getting irritable.” An awkward gaping pause filled the space before Maxson continued, “The Enclave is on the move again and I came to assess your readiness.”

“My readiness for what? The Enclave are after the Brotherhood and, if they start in on the Commonwealth, they'll have to get past our forces in Nuka-World. Porter won't allow those sycophants into the area.”

“You put too much faith in that raider. Do you have enough soldiers for a full scale war against those more technologically advanced than you? I recommend gathering garrisons into the towns along the western edges of the Commonwealth along with squadrons of my own Knights and Paladins.”

Asher cocked his brow. His soldiers and militia along with their numbers remained nebulous to everyone except himself and Preston. They were scattered throughout the towns, often in plain clothes disguises, to keep raiders and slavers on their toes. They patrolled the roads with caravans and linked up with Railroad operatives to disperse into the areas that most needed their presence. The Brotherhood didn't know their numbers and didn't need to just in the same way as the Institute hadn't needed to know.
He remembered Shaun asking a similar question before he'd sent X6-88 and a horde of Coursers and synths to take on the Castle. The battle had been hard won and it was after that that he and Preston started to be more incognito with their army.

He hummed thoughtfully before asking, “Is the Enclave on its way here? Do you have proof or is this all just rumoured?”

Maxson uncharacteristically shrugged, “I had a warning from our brothers in the West and from a contingent in DC. The Enclave are moving but we don't know what their goals are.”

“I see. Well, you don't need to worry about my people, Maxson. The Glowing Sea is to the south and Nuka-World to the west.”

“They have Power Armour.”

“Yes,” so did Asher. Suits and suits of it dotted and hidden strategically in various towns where the people could use it if needed, “I don't understand why you're so invested in the Minutemen's survival if the Enclave does invade. Don't you want me out of the way so that you can begin your purging?”

Maxson then did something that Asher simply wasn't prepared for. Something he'd never imagined the man doing in his wildest musings.
He reached out and placed a gloved hand over the top of Asher’s and brushed his knuckles gently with a thumb, “I don't want you to die, Asher. I admire your drive and resourcefulness. I believe we could make a great team and I wish you'd have seen this the first time you came to the Prydwen with Paladin Danse.”

Asher pulled his hand away with his mouth drawn into a thin line, the slight pinkness there turned white with the force of his tension, “What the fuck is this, Maxson?”

The younger man with that scar on his face seemed almost coy as his slate grey eyes flickered over Asher's face. It made his skin crawl with revulsion. Maxson leaned a bit forward in his seat and Asher wracked his brain as to whether this was a weird sick joke or not, “You lost your family, if my understanding is correct, we could be that for each other.”

What the fuck is going on?

“Have you lost your goddamn mind? How dare you bring up Shaun like this and to fucking…flirt as though nothing else is going on?” He stood very suddenly and the chair beneath him screeched out its protest, “You can have access to the labs in a few weeks. Otherwise, I believe we're done here.”

“General Lilysen -”

“Leave. I'll send a correspondence when the Railroad is finished with their work.”

He stomped out of the building and blinked into the noon sun. He waved over a guard who trotted quickly to his side, “Make sure all the Brotherhood are gone in the next hour. Do not answer their questions and do not offer up supplies.”

“Yes, sir.” He went to gather more people to escort the squadron and their leader out.

Asher shook off the crawling goosebumps and took up a light jog to find Preston. His second in command would either be busy in the farms or storehouses so turned himself towards that area of his town.

There was no way that had just happened. Of all the people in the Commonwealth, he would've pegged Maxson as the least likely to ever try something like that. He wouldn't have classed himself as an expert on other people's sexuality: it was a too personal concept and varied from person to person dramatically. People like Cait simply didn't do monogamy, people like Hancock or Deacon could care less about what was between someone's legs, some people had a long running relationship with a whole group. Maxson had always given him the assumption that the man was straight or not at all interested in relationships at all. He'd never had an inkling that the man had had a significant other or had found his Soulmate and it wasn't as if the topic had ever come up before.

He was open with his relationship with MacCready and it was an obvious situation to all that lived in their settlements. They were a singular unit and people very rarely got one of them without the other; they lived together, had a son and, a bit more on the lowdown, had another on the way.
He wouldn't be surprised if Maxson wasn't aware of his relationship status but, even then, the sudden interest from the Elder felt wrong. Forced. Weird. He let his mind tick over every interaction he'd ever had with him in the past and came up short on clues that he'd ever been interested in him.

He frowned at a sudden and glaringly obvious revelation:

Maxson wasn't interested. He never had been and he never would be. He wanted information and Asher would bet all his caps that the man thought luring him into some weird pseudo-relationship would get him that if simple diplomacy didn't work. It left a stone in his stomach just behind his navel. The Brotherhood were planning something and he bet it wasn't anything good for the Commonwealth.

He found Preston on the edge of one of their razorgrain fields that bordered the edge of the wood. He could hear the dogs barking and howling at something vaguely in the distance. His friend looked up at him with a tired grin and a tip of the hat, “Asher, all going well I hope?”

“About as well as a bull in a china shop, Pres.” His dark brow furrowed in confusion but Asher continued on, “Did you find anything out about the Vertibird flybys?” 

He shook his head, “Nothing solid. Marowki reckons they're counting but that feels a bit combative. Why would they do that if Maxson was here for diplomatic reasons?”

They both watched as the Vertibird that Maxson had arrived in lifted up into the air way in the distance beyond their main gates, “He wasn't here for a friendly chat.”

He filled Preston in on what had happened in the meeting and his second in command tensed further and further the more he talked.

“The Enclave?”

“I doubt they're actually on their way here. It was a ploy to get what he needed.”

“You didn't tell him, did you? After the Institute -”

“No! Of course I didn't say anything. It's none of his business where or how many people we have. I'm confident that if the Enclave did try to invade, they'd be stopped on the border.”
Porter Gage was a force to be reckoned with on his own, never mind with the backup of the joined force raiders-turned-mercenaries and Minutemen teams stationed in the area, “Send word to the Castle. I want the mortars loaded and ready just in case Maxson tries anything.”

“I don't think he's stupid enough.”

“No, but he's planning something and I don't like it. Send scouts to find out how many Brotherhood patrols are wandering the roads and we need to get word to Goodneighbor -”

One-pause-two-pause-one 

He checked the time on the PipBoy. It was later than what he'd thought it would be for Mac to check in but maybe he'd just got chatting to Daisy or Magnolia. He pulled out the radio and repeated the pattern back to let him know that he could talk.

The voice on the line was not Mac:

“Asher..? Ash…”

“Deacon?” That stone behind his navel twisted in his nerves and coiled like a writhing snake in his chest, “What wrong? Are you okay? Where's Robbie?”

The pause was painful and felt like it lasted innumerable hours, “Asher. The bridge…bring…dogs…”

“Deacon!?” He waited before jamming his thumb to the button again, “Deek!?”
He shoved the radio away and felt the panic surge through his veins like a destructive wildfire, “Fuck!”

“General -”

“Get everyone ready. Put Duncan with Piper. Right now.”

Preston ran off and Asher looked to the woods. He placed his fingers to his mouth and let out a loud, shrill whistle that carried like lightning over the quiet air. The dogs howled and barked in reply and it would be under a minute before they were by his side.

He turned and began to run back to the town; armour, weapons, supplies, medicines.

Robbie.

Chapter Text

“Ha ha ha!”

“Shut him up! Jesus, he gives me the creeps.”

The hard slap across his face made him laugh harder. His black tar-like eyes sparkling with mirth from where he dangled by his arms from the ceiling: toes barely scuffing the ground.

The Brotherhood meathead who had hit him stepped back and wiped his hand on his dumb orange onesie and it, again, made the ghoul laugh harder. If he could double over, he would have. He tipped his bare head back to relieve some of the pressure in his neck and shoulders and tried to keep himself composed into his usual over-confident arrogance. He couldn't really recall how long they'd been here or where exactly they were. It has been a while, he was sure, if the pressure of his bladder and overwhelming dryness of his throat was anything to go by.

His chest, strained and sore after many hours of rough handling, stretched and heaved as he tried to get his breathing under control as the laughter spilled out of him. A different Brotherhood man grabbed him by his jaw and jerked his face up with a glove, as though his condition were catching. The right side felt very badly bruised and his tongue picked at a small new crack in one of his back teeth.  His eyes met the Knight's and he fought to keep the lazy off-putting grin on his face. It was hard. He was sore and tired and desperately wanted to go home. He wanted to sit in the grass with a beer and some mentats with his family and listen to their excited stories or Curie's out of pocket random remarks. He wanted to laugh at the overbearing sweetness of Ash and Mac cooing over the Merc's belly as the baby fluttered.

“What's so funny, freak? Once we're done getting what we need out of you and your freak fucker of a man, you'll both be purged. You should be praying to whatever God you worship.”

He flicked his eyes over to his friend where he'd been tied up to an old radiator. As always, he looked gloriously defiant. Lip split and bleeding, curly brown hair roughed up but still held back at the sides with his intricate braids and beads and metal links. Even immobile and hurting, he looked dangerous. Beautiful.

Hancock laughed again, “What's funny, brother, is that you think we know anything and that you think you're going to get the chance to purge us.”

A fist met his stomach so hard it pushed the air from his lungs. He dangled by his straining arms and gasped like a fish out of water as the Knight continued on, “We know you run with him. We've seen you and that group all over the ‘Wealth.” Another punch and he heard his friend hiss from behind his teeth, “All that time with that traitor and you're saying you know nothing? Guess what, freak,” he was grabbed by the jaw again and forced to look up, “we don't believe you.”

Knight two, Hancock decided to call him idiot-fucker from now on, stepped closer to Mac, “Poor guy. Lumped up and trapped forever with an abomination. No one deserves a fate that bad.”

MacCready glared up at him even as he curled slightly forward to cover himself, “Eat shit, fuckface.”

A heavy boot made contact with Mac's ribs and Hancock strained at the chain holding his arms in an attempt to get to him. Mac gasped and curled forward as much as he could, arms pulling against the radiator and knees trying to come up to protect himself, “Get the fuck away from him!” He wasn't laughing now.

“Oh? Is this how we get you to talk?” Knight one, his brain helpfully called him dead-man-walking, pulled a long leather strip tipped in metal links from somewhere on his person, “And here I was thinking I just had to make you bleed some.”

Hancock looked away from Mac as Idiot-fucker held his face up by his scalp, fingers digging into his scars hard enough to bruise, “You're so fucking dumb. If you weren't such a stupid fuck, I'd feel sorry for you.” The leather strap came down and Hancock felt it bite into the skin of his chest, just over his soulmark, “Poor stupid fucker.” He groaned out. The strap came down again and he felt the trickle of blood it left behind.

“Get off me!” Mac shouted and Hancock snapped his head back round and thrashed against his bindings as the Knight cut away Maccready's jacket and the shirt beneath it. The knife slid through the fabric like butter and the Merc curled ever forward, straining against the hand in his decorated hair, “No! Get the fuck away!”

“Leave him alone!”

It was the Knight's turn to laugh now. Their sick cackles filled the space as Mac was pulled up straighter so that they could see his exposed skin more fully. A wiry pale chest mottled with various scars tapering down to narrow hips. His soulmark was dark on his forearm but the Brotherhood dickheads didn't seem to link the differences between his and Hancock’s. They'd made the assumption that MacCready was his and, if that had the chance of keeping him alive a bit longer, Hancock wasn't about to point it out. His lower belly was rounded slightly and Hancock groaned when the Knight squatted down to Mac's level.

“Well I'll be. Would ya look at that, Richie. Little bitch is a carrier.” Hancock shook with rage as Idiot-fucker’s bony hand grazed over MacCready's belly, “Does it hurt, freak? To know that your little Soulmate has been fucking someone else so often to carry his spawn?”
The man looked old and worn but his voice was younger than expected. His face stained and puckered by the over use of chems, “Didn't I tell you, bitch? I told you you'd see me again.”

Mac tried to flinch away, “You! You didn't fuckin' lose at cards.”

Dead-man-walking laughed loudly as the strap bit into Hancock's skin again, “What you say, huh? Want us to cut the whelp out of him? Make him just yours again?” Another bite of leather that left more blood trickling down and soaking his pants, “Well, all yours again after we've finished with him, that is.”

“Nah,” Idiot-fucker held the knife that had cut Mac's shirt away close to the small swell of his stomach. He tried jerking away before his wide blue eyes met Hancock's, “I wanna keep him. He's feisty and Maxson will be pleased that we've found a little breedable cunt to help swell the Brotherhood's ranks.”

“Hmm, yeah. Special little incubator for the Elder. Ad Victoriam.”

The knife pressed dangerously against his belly, leaving a small bead of blood blooming at the hard steel point “No! No, please. Anything but this, please!” He was pulling and twisting in an attempt to get away, “I'll tell you anything! Just don't hurt them!”

“Damn, freak, that must really hurt huh? More concerned about some bastard kid than he is you. Don't it make you wanna cry?”

Hancock heaved at that small bead of blood bubbling out and trickling a sick trail of red over Mac's pale skin, “What makes you think it ain't mine, brother?”

Dead-man-walking punched him, “We ain't stupid. We all know ghouls are sterile. Good thing too, can you imagine little tiny ghouls running around? Poor fucks would be the first to have their heads popped like ripe melons.”

“Hey, little bitch, don't cry.” MacCready had a tear falling into the scruff of his facial hair, “Why don't you tell your abomination who the daddy is? That way, he can die at peace, yeah?”

Hancock couldn't help the bubble of laughter again then which made the Knight with the leather groan, “Laughing again? You broken or something?”

“I just can't get over how fucking stupid you are. You hurt the baby and you'll have much worse than me to worry about.”

“...please, take the knife away…please…”

“Yeah, fuckface, take the knife away and you might survive. Or, at least die quickly.” God, his arms were hurting. His head was hurting. His chest, his stomach, his feet. 

The knife was pulled away only to be brought to Mac's hair, “What's with the jewelry, anyway? You have little girly sleepovers?”

“Yeah, actually,” The braids and the ornaments decorating Mac and their family had been a gift but he wasn't gonna let Idiot-fucker know that, “we have hot chocolate and talk about boys and braid each other's hair. Why? You jealous?”

Idiot-fucker shrugged and quickly cut away the braid that dangled just in front of Mac's left ear. It had a singular coloured bead entwined in it: black for Asher. Mac took a breath and held back his protest, at least the knife wasn't pressing to his stomach anymore and the braid could be replaced. Hancock had toyed with the idea of having Deacon loan him a wig for Asher to braid a while ago and snorted at the memory. Instead, Ash had sewn a few little beads into his hat.

Idiot-fucker held the cut hair up to the light and the bead glittered at the end of the braid. MacCready hadn't cut his hair in a long time, “Fucking weirdos.”

Then, fast as lightning, he stood and collided his boot with Mac's belly. Hard. He cried out and curled as far forwards as possible as Hancock roared with rage. He kicked out at Dead-man-walking who simply stepped back with a smile, “Can't have no freak fuckers bastard kid running around, can we? Now, tell us what we wanna know. Tell us where the General has the bulk of his forces and what he plans to do with them.”

Hancock screamed as a gunshot went off and the pain bloomed in his leg like a roaring fire. He shook and tried to gain purchase on the floor beneath him. All he could hear was Mac's  gasping and crying from where he stayed curled up, “You're gonna fucking die. I'm gonna take your ribs out one by one and use the - hey! Get off!” The knife flashed and cut into the skin of his face. The Knight with the knife pulled away a bit of his scarring and held it up with Mac's braid.

“What are you doing, Marcus?” Dead-man-walking asked.

The other shrugged, “Trophies. Maybe see if the doctor wants the spawn for one of his creepy jars, too.” MacCready was still curled forward, gasping and groaning, tears dripping from his nose, “Damn, must hurt real bad to feel something die inside you, huh?”

Hancock ground out from between clenched teeth, “When he comes…you'll wish you were dead…you'll wish and regret and pray…”

“When he comes? Ha! No one knows where you are. And I ain't scared of some jumped up little civilian.”  The knife flashed again and Hancock cried out against the sudden agony of the stab wound to his side, “No one can hear you scream, freak.”

“He's gonna tear your faces off first.” Mac moaned, “Then take your scalps. You'll be alive for it…our medic will keep you going just so he can take your skin off.”

Another kick to MacCready's side had his arm bending at an awkward angle as it pulled against the chains, “Like he gives a shit enough about the abomination and the freak-fucking cheating bitch.”

Hancock laughed again even as Dead-man-walking said, “How's he gonna find you, hmm? The Commonwealth is a big place. No one's coming for you or your whelp.”

Mac gasped in pain as he righted himself, his arm still bent awkwardly as though something had broken and a bruise forming low on the slight swell of his belly, “You've not met our dogs, have you?”

Hancock cackled and began singing, even though the words came out slurred and weak as he slowly lost blood for the wound to his side:

“You are my Sunshine…
My only Sunshine…”

One of them hit him across the face again, a red hand print blooming over his ravaged bruised skin:

“You make me happy…
When skies are grey…”

“Shut him up!”

Mac barked out a pained laugh, “You'll never know dear…”

“How much I love you.
Please don't take my Sunshine away.”

He gasped out as that leather strip bit into his back and he heard Mac almost scream as he was kicked again. He was laughing a mirthless laugh, verging on the edge of hysterics, and it made Hancock's skin crawl. He didn't want to think about his belly. Didn't want to see the dark bruise slowly spreading where their family was growing.
Mac should've stayed home. Hancock and Deacon could've made the journey to Goodneighbor on their own. Why did he put forward the option of him going to go see Daisy? Stupid fucking idiot.

He'll be here soon.
He'll come.
And he'll burn it all down.

He wished he could see outside. He wanted to know what time it was or to get an idea of where they were. He wanted to rush to where they had been taken from and check on Deacon’s body before anyone else could get to it. He didn't want to think about him curled up on that plain with wild animals picking over his bones. They should all be at home. They should all be together.

He couldn't hear anything beyond the walls of the building but knew that there were more Brotherhood in the vicinity somewhere. Their laughter and stomping feet could be heard through the wooden door to this little grim room. Stupid idiots. 
He wasn't sure if Elder Maxson had authorised this abduction and didn't know the man well enough to determine if he'd do something so absurd. Why, after all this time, would he disrupt the tentative peace they'd established. They weren't allies as such, but they weren't outright enemies either. Not after all the tech the Minutemen had allowed to be handed over to them after the Institute. 

After today, though, they would be. Hancock will see to it himself if he had to.

“...John…” It was barely a whisper but it pulled at Hancock’s heart as Mac's head fell forward.

He had to come. He had to come now. Why was it taking so long!? Surely they knew that they were missing by now. Hancock was almost positive that word would've made it back home by now that he and MacCready had never arrived in Goodneighbor. Fahrenheit and Daisy had been expecting them and would have surely chased them up. 

“Shit, the little whore is crying again, I hate it when they cry.” Dead-man-walking bent close to Mac, “What's wrong? Missing a good dicking? Don't worry about your spawn, I'll put a new one in you. How's that sound?”

Mac cringed away as Dead-man started to unbuckle his belt and Hancock saw red. He pulled and screamed and thrashed at the chains holding his arms high, “Stop touching him! You filthy sick fuck! You've done enough!”

There was a rapid knock at the door before it opened. The man standing there had Hancock bursting out into a manic laughter once more; tall, broad, handsome, and obviously not happy, Paladin Danse stepped into the room. He sniffed and narrowed his eyes at Hancock's laughing form before turning his attention to Dead-man who still stood beside MacCready with hands on his belt, “This is an interrogation, not a torture session, Knight. Get the information we need so that we can leave.”

“They're being tight lipped, sir.” The Knights took a step back from their captors to stand at attention before Danse.

“It's a boy and a ghoul: pay them for the information and be done with it.”

Hancock laughed harder, “You've got nothing worth nearly enough for me to even consider that.” He felt woozy. Too much blood was seeping and he'd been hanging by his arms for much too long.
Mac didn't say anything. He stayed curled forward with his head down as much as he could with slight tremors erupting through every muscle. Hancock wasn't sure if he was crying or if he was simply fighting to stay conscious.

Danse sighed, “Take a break. Let them stew for a while.”

The Knights nodded and followed Danse to the door. They extinguished the dim light as they passed the lantern, throwing them into near complete darkness in this dank stinking room. 

The door shut and Hancock sagged against the chains keeping him held aloft, “Mac?” He whispered into the dark, “Mac, you okay?”

He heard a shuffle and a deep intake of watery ragged breath, “No.” He replied simply even as the word felt like it weighed a tonne.

The dogs found Deacon before Asher spotted his curled up form at the base of a tree. They yipped and huffed to get his attention as Dogmeat placed his weight over Deacon's legs.

“Curie!” He called out as he rushed forward.

“Oui!” She followed hot on his heels with her bag of medical supplies.

Dogmeat extracted himself from the spy as they approached and the dogs backed off to start sniffing around the immediate area. Ash fell to his knees and grimaced at the state of his friend; bruised and dangerously pale, lax limbs with blueing fingers barely touching the walkie-talkie he called with the day before, and an awful gaping hole to the top of his chest that was partially cauterised.
They'd travelled, practically sprinting, all night and morning to make it to the southern bridge that led into the ruins. They'd found their camp and Asher sent the dogs out to find his people. Now, here he was, staring dumbly at Deacon’s too still form with no sign of Hancock or Robbie nearby.

He was gently shoved to the side as Curie began her assessment. Her gentle fingers brushed Deacon's skin before pressing into the soft point beneath his jaw. She stayed there for an agonising few moments before nodding, “Get ‘im lay down.”

Asher grabbed Deacon's legs and dragged him so that he was flat on his back. Curie was quick to cut away his stained white shirt and the bits of leather armour covering him, “He's alive?” Asher whispered out.

“Barely.” She replied and he felt his head fuzz with relief. If anyone could fix him, it'd be Curie.

“General!” He heard the thick accent of Cait from somewhere behind him so stood to leave Curie to work her magic, “Ash! Over here!”

She was standing beside Nick as the synth squatted by a vague dark pile of something with his chin held in his skeletal metal hand. He jogged over and that brief flicker of relief he'd felt with Deacon vanished into panic once more as he drew closer.

There, gently being picked at by Nick, was the heavy chest armour that Mac had left home in. It was badly dented with a clean crack splitting the front of it in two. Scattered around nearby was his rifle, his hat, a few satchels, and his bag. He scooped the hat up and held it out to one of the dogs to sniff at.

Preston approached from nearby with Hancock’s red coat and hat carefully draped over his arm. He shook his head. They weren't here.

He desperately spun in a slow circle, dark eyes tracking everything he could see nearby. Nick stood and pat his shoulder, “Something or someone big attacked them by my reckoning.” He pointed out a few large divots in the ground left behind by some heavy weight, “Won't know for sure until Deacon wakes up.”

He nodded and swallowed around the clawing tightness in his throat. Hopefully, the dogs would pick up their scent and lead him to where they were. Maybe they were hiding or wounded someplace close. 
He walked through the tremors in his legs back towards Curie and Deacon. She had a blood bag hooked up to him and clean bandages covering his wounds. He was still pale: lips very vaguely blue at the edges, but Asher could see his chest rising and falling with laboured breaths.

“How's he looking?”

“‘E is very lucky that the laser cauterised most of the wound. ‘E would've bled out quickly otherwise.”

Cait cracked her neck, “He was shot with a laser?”

“Oui.”

Many people had access to laser weapons; The Minutemen, the Brotherhood, the very few remaining rogue synths and robots. Hell, even some raiders had them, “How long until he wakes up?”

She pressed her hand to Deacon's clammy forehead and hummed, “I'm not sure. A few minutes? A few hours? Even when he wakes, he'll be weak.”

“Fuck.” He sat down in the grass and put his head in his hands, “Get a fire going. We can't move on until he can tell us what happened and it'll give the dogs time to scout the area.”

“Aye, sir.” Preston and Nick moved to gather dry wood and kindling as Cait sat to carve out a little fit pit. She pulled out rations to heat up but Asher didn't think he could handle food right then.

In no time at all, a small fire was going, and he was staring down at the little toy soldier that lived in his pocket.

“...Charmer…”

Asher bolted awake from a restless nightmare fueled sleep. Images of finding Hancock in a gutter and Robbie cut open from hip bone to hip bone filled his mind and he held back the shocked gasp as he quickly wiped the fevered sweat from his face. 

It was full dark and the fire had burnt low where they'd all huddled around it to keep warm in the chill autumn night. Nick was on watch with the pack following him around and around the impromptu perimeter they'd set up.
He shuffled and looked over at Deacon where he was laying close by with another blood bag slowly pumping life fluids into him. 

“Hey, how're you feeling?”

He winced as he shifted on the bedroll they'd managed to get underneath him, “Have you found Rob and…John?”

“...no.” Deacon's blue eyes were feverishly bright in the fire light, “What happened?”
The others stirred at their conversation and shifted to hear. Preston lay a blanket more fully over their spy and Cait held up a can of water for him to sip at, “We ran here as fast as we could, Deek, and then the dogs found you…I thought you were dead.”

He grinned sardonically at the night sky above them, the stars twinkling and uncaring at the strife of the world they shone on, “My magic apocalyptic Rapunzel. Like a fucking guardian angel.”

Asher snorted, “If you say so. What happened?”

“Fuck,” he shifted up onto his elbow and accepted the cigarette held out by Nick. Curie tutted her tongue but didn't say anything as the cig was lit and Deacon took a deep drag, “shit, it happened so fast, Ash.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. One minute, we were packing up camp, chatting shit and listening to Mac bitch about sleeping on the ground,” his heart twisted painfully at the mention of his partner. The toy soldier now rested back in his pocket with that little box he'd also taken to carrying around with him everywhere, always waiting for the perfect moment, “Then, Hancock heard them and bustled us into the trees. We were gonna just say hello and move on but they didn't feel right, man.”

“Who?”

Deacon huffed out a heavy breath laced with tobacco smoke, “The fucking Brotherhood, Ash. They chased us down. Whole fucking squad of them!”

Asher glared at nothing, “That fucking bastard.”

“Right!?” Deacon continued, “They grabbed Hancock and held him up and then one of them pinned down Mac. Crushed clean through his fucking armour.” He threw the cig into the fire and met Asher's eyes, “They shot me for trying to get him up, Ash. Next thing I know, they're being carried away.” He pointed with a shaking hand towards the bridge nearby, “That way.”

Asher thought that if he wasn't so angry he'd probably faint. He cracked his neck and stood on only marginally shaking legs and let out a low whistle. The dogs wove their way around the fire and between his people and clustered by his legs in various shades of browns, blacks, and whites, and Asher once again held out MacCready's hat for them to sniff at. He tutted his tongue with one sharp sounding click and pointed towards the bridge where they all flicked their ears forwards and moved to scout the area. 

The ruins were vast. The buildings and hiding places are many. But, even if he'd have to take apart every brick, he'd find Hancock and Mac and he'd kill those that took them.

“Can you move, Deacon?” He barely whispered into the suddenly heavy space around them all.

“I'll have to.” Came his simple reply.

They packed up camp quickly and efficiently and Asher was vibrating with rage. This had either been planned by Maxson or the squad that had taken  two of his most important people hadn't realised who they'd grabbed.

It didn't matter. They were dead men walking.

Moving through Boston at night was dangerous: it was a boiling pot of traps and ambushes, but Asher quite simply didn't care right then.

They followed the dogs as they walked in tight loops before circling back to sniff at the hat or Hancock's red coat. They'd pause every now and then as Dogmeat led the search with his uncanny nose and then he'd yip to alert them to a new direction.

The dilapidated and crumbling buildings yawned at him as he passed by their shadows. Mocking him. Taunting. Screaming at him that he should be searching and tearing apart every nook and cranny to be one hundred percent positive that his people weren't held captive inside.

They're in here.

You're leaving them behind.

Your brother.

Your partner.

Your baby.

He tried to shake the crawling feeling away from his skin. He trusted his dogs. There was a reason they came with him when a settler was kidnapped or when he had to find a very particular thing. A reason why he trusted Dogmeat in particular after the pup had led him to Hagen all that time ago.

In the past, back when he'd trained the canine units in the army, it always started in easily controlled areas to not overwhelm the dogs. They were rewarded with treats, pets, and comfortable safe places to rest afterwards. Those that didn't have the penchant to search and fight, or those that simply didn't have the right personality, were adopted out into nice families or retrained into therapy dogs.

Here though, if they didn't get good, they died. He'd seen it many times with the packs of feral dogs roaming the land. He hated putting them down but they were simply too violent towards people and no doubt carried rabies and other diseases that would affect his own dogs. He's only lost two and he planned to keep it that way.

If a fight with a Brotherhood squadron was on the horizon he had half a mind to keep the dogs back for it.

They moved in near silence with Deacon taking turns leaning his weight from one person to the next. When he got to Asher, the General simply lifted him onto his back and allowed him to rest properly. He was healing quickly with the Stimpaks and blood provided by Curie but he definitely wouldn't be ready for a fight in the next few hours.

Deacon chuckled and whispered in his ear as they followed the dogs around the next dark corner, “A girl could get used to this, Charmer.”

“Flirt.” He whispered back and grinned at the rumble of his almost silent laugh.

“They'll be fine, Charmer. Hancock won't just sit back and let anything happen to them.”

“I'd feel much better about that fact if I didn't currently have their weapons and armour in our bags, Deek.”

They were looping steadily south and Asher grumbled at how close Hangman was to them. He had a brief prayer and hope that the dogs would turn their tails in that direction because Hancock and Mac had escaped and had made their way there. As it was, the dogs turned distinctly away from Hangman and began to follow the river deeper inland before taking a sharp left back into the ruins. The Brotherhood had been moving in a vaguely zig-zag pattern and he bet it was to lose any possible tails.
They obviously hadn't considered tracking dogs.

He felt the strain in his mind as they passed out of the ruins to the south and the land opened up to sparse buildings and scraggly trees. They'd pass the Castle if they continued and would eventually hit Quincy on this road.

The dogs turned right, noses pointing towards the plains and woods, and they continued to follow. He had little hope of making it to wherever they had been taken to before the sun rose and was debating attempting a full assault lit by the daylight or waiting for evening again where they could hopefully catch the rogue squad unawares.

He was distracted by the dogs suddenly becoming agitated a moment before the mangy large form of a Yao Guai erupted out from some nearby brush. It was foaming at the mouth, its ribs clearly visible beneath its rotting and sparsely furred flesh, with a blood curdling yowl of desperation as it swiped at the pack.

He hefted Deacon with an order for him to hold on tight before he pulled his shotgun forward and cocked it. Deacon’s hands held fast to his armour straps and his thighs tightened on his hips with a dry laugh coming from him. Preston and Nick sped past him with Cait hot on their heels and he flew in to shoot at the soft underbelly of the bear-like creature attempting to grab at the nearby Rottweiler trying to lock his jaw on the beast's swinging arm. Hot red splattered the ground and the Yao Guai roared. Cait sent her wire wrapped bat at its jaw as a laser burn crackled over its shoulders.

Deacon whooped as Asher ducked beneath a swing and cheered as the General's shotgun boomed out again. He hadn't thought to bring his Power Fists but couldn't lament too much about their absence. Nick brushed by with his .44 aimed with deadly accuracy  and blew out the bear's eye. It fell back onto all fours and charged toward Curie who had stayed behind to ready her medical supplies in case of injury. It was cut off sharply from reaching its goal by three dogs launching themselves into its broad side where they latched on with sharp teeth sinking into its muscle and locking up. Asher adjusted his grip on his gun and began using it as a club, unwilling to accidentally catch his pets in the spray of a shell.

Preston fired his laser rifle, the echoing crank sound of it loud in the wood, and the back leg of the Yao Guai caved beneath its weight. It wouldn't be much longer now and the bear was slowing dramatically. 

He whistled, sharp and piercing, and the dogs backed up away from the beast. He swooped in, swung his shotgun, and then pulled the trigger almost point blank into the side of its head.

The leftover silence was only broken by heavy breathing and the panting of the pack. He quickly assessed them all and, apart from some bloodied muzzles, no one was hurt, “Well,” he said, “a nice warm up before the main event, hmm?” He tried for levity to distract himself from the gnawing ache in his chest and the prickling heat of his soulmark.

Deacon laughed in his ear as he slowly climbed down from Asher's broad back to give the guy a break, “Is that what it means to be a passenger princess, Charmer?”

He laughed as he shook his hair out of his face and let the braids and beading fall down his back. Even twisted and decorated, it brushed his waist and lower back. 
The dogs pulled off into a large circle to try and pick up the trail again. They followed and Nick hummed by his side, “What's the play when we actually find them?”

As much as Asher would like to just run in and kill everyone: he knew that wouldn't be wise. If the Brotherhood were holding them hostage, he didn't want to give reason for them to kill Hancock and Mac before he had eyes on them, “We find Hancock and Robbie first. See what state they're in and decide on what kind of fight we have ahead from there. Priority is to get them safe.”

“And...if they're not safe?”

He shrugged, “Then everyone dies.”

As they continued this tense trek through the brush and trees, rations were handed out to help settle stomachs and ease adrenaline. He tossed bits of Brahmin and Radstag meat to the dogs as they continued their snuffling and yipping. They'd been on long tracking missions before and, as long as there was a trail to follow, they'd keep on it. 

Curie kept checking on Deacon and was satisfied with his healing progress. They paused for a brief few minutes so that he could strap on some light armour carefully over his chest and Asher helped to pad it with strips of cloth against the tender new flesh. He nodded his thanks and they continued.

Every second felt like a minute. Every minute became an hour. Innumerable unknowable grains of sand in an hour glass slipping through their fingers in this search for their family. He wanted to run. The muscles in his legs tensed and bunched with every step. His nightmare played over and over in his mind: Hancock with broken limbs in a puddle of his own blood, Robbie cut open with their baby still attached by their cord abandoned by his side. Too grey and too small to live outside yet. He tried to shake it off. He really tried. But it played like a stuttering film every time he blinked.

Don't fucking cry.
It won't help.
You shouldn't have let him go.

It's your fault.

They're dead.

How would he tell Duncan? How would he be able to look at the boy that looked so much like his father and not break down every single day. Would Duncan even want to stay with him anymore? 

The clicking and jingling of the beads and cuffs in his hair mocked him. He may as well cut them off now. He'd failed and didn't deserve the protection they posed to him now. Duncan could do it. He'd let his son shave him down to his scalp in payment for this. 

“Asher.”

“Hmm?” Or, maybe Preston should do it? His lieutenant had the authority to judge him as such.

“Calm down, Asher.”

He hadn't even realised that his breathing was coming in sharp pants of pain. Everything felt too hot. The mark on his arm a searing live wire as his mind turned to Mac over and over again.
He felt a hand on his arm pull him to a stop and he looked into the big brown eyes of Preston, “Take a breath, General. We'll find them.”

His breath got stuck on the ever growing stone in his throat, “Cut my hair, Preston.”

“I'm not gonna cut your hair, Ash,” he said with his mouth drawn into a thin line, “you've not done anything wrong.”

“I let him leave.” He couldn't breathe, “I should've found the time to go with them. I should've sent for Daisy to come to us so that he didn't need to go. I should've -”

Deacon pat his back, “He wanted to go, man. He was doing great, y’know?” He pulled on him to get the General's legs to move again, “He stayed back from every fight and was just as much of a deadly shot as always! It's no one's fault but the Brotherhood's that this has happened, Ash.”

Nick rattled as he stepped over a long abandoned skeleton. They were entering an old destroyed neighborhood bordered by caravans and a thriving population of ferals, “Do you have an idea of why they've done this, doll?” He asked even as he blew away a shambling zombie.

The dogs spread out once more to rout out the ghouls hiding beneath cars and trailers, “Maxson came asking for access to the Institute but that wasn't really why he was there.”

“Oh? Ah, feck off!” Cait shouted as a ghoul managed to grab at her armoured leg. Deacon, much more recovered but still hanging back, raised his rifle and took it out for her.

Asher huffed as he shoved a ghoul away before obliterating its head with a boom of his shotgun, “Yeah, he was asking about our numbers. Bringing up the Enclave and shit.”

Nick skidded beneath a low hanging beam erupting from a dilapidated shack to avoid the withered being chasing him from catching hold, “Our numbers? Sounds like he's planning a fight.”

“Yeah,” Preston blew another ghoul into ashes, "I'm wondering if this squad has been told to kidnap Minutemen to gather intel.”

“Sounds likely.”

The horde stopped coming and the dogs returned to his side. He had to Stimpak one and frowned, they were getting tired, “We need to rest for a while. There's not much more this way so hopefully we're close. We can wait till sunset before continuing.”

They all nodded and commandeered a nearby caravan to settle in for a few hours. As always, the little toy soldier found its way into Asher's hands where he smoothed the worn wood and flaking paint with his thumb.

Sanctuary was the same as it always has been; purifiers, farms, buildings, people, clamour and noise. He hadn't been here for a long time and couldn't remember why they had come. Was it to check on the supply lines? Had they forgotten something when they had moved out?

It didn't matter as he stood beneath the great tree that had somehow survived the war and the centuries of radiation after. It was like a great time capsule. A branch had broken off once and they had marvelled at the rings within the bark: hundreds of delicate lines marking the passage of this great organisms' time. Halfway through those lines was a darker mark that spread and warped into those around it. The rings after showing that that was precisely when the world and life had ended as he knew it but had found a way to carry on anyway. The great world tree had changed to survive like all the flora and fauna it sheltered beneath its great leaves.

He spun on the spot between the erupting roots, the sunlight shining through in dazzling God rays that highlighted the floating motes of dust and tiny winged insects that buzzed and hummed their music.

His mark burned. The tattoo-like brand harsh against his pale skin like a mirror to his surroundings. A tree back-lit by the sun.

Him back-lit by the sun.

His cold fear and desperate loneliness warmed by the smile of another.

Like light shining into an old ruin and warming its bones after a wall had finally fallen.

“...sher…”

It was a whisper on the breeze and the trickle of fear skittered down his spine. He knew that voice and wasn't ready. He knew that shape standing in the shadow of his tree and wasn't ready.

It had been such a long time.

“Asher…”

She stepped into the light with a bullet hole between her pretty brown eyes. Her hair cut and cropped into severe angular shapes with no beads or cuffs in its tresses. Her hands with nails painted red held onto her strong, sharp hips covered in one of her many tailored power suits. She was beautiful and calculating. 

His best friend.

The mother of his son.

“Nora…”

She didn't smile and he briefly wondered if he was high. She frowned and those nails dug into her hips, “Shaun.”

“I know.”

“Shaun.” She said again as she took a step forward. Her joints clicked with frost as it glittered over her power suit and skin. Even in ice, she was a vision.

“He's dead, sweetheart.”

Her head tilted to the left and in the briefest of blinks, there Shaun stood: ten years old and blinking up at him with his own dark eyes. His black hair too short and too neat. All three of them black and white like crows and magpies, “You're both dead.”

“Everyone around you dies, daddy.” 

He could only nod in reply as he tried to will himself to wake. He knew it was the truth and, spoken from the mouth of babes, how could it not be law.

Nora, resplendent and dressed for court, looked sad as the blood dropped from her forehead to the roots beneath their feet.

"Your gods take their due, Asher Michael Lilysen. You pray and you struggle but you are their harbinger. A little toy soldier. Collecting souls and coating the white in red…” the blood pooled and flowed about their ankles before it began to trickle off into the distance. His path. A path of blood and violence that had grown larger his whole adult life.
Sacrifices and killings and the death of his family.
Over and over again.

“You killed our son.”

“...yes.” It was the truth and it was pointless to try and deny it. To try and justify it. She was a lawyer and a good one.

“Are you going to kill my brother, too?”

He didn't want to say yes but isn't that what he had done already? 

The road of red got bigger and bigger and he turned to walk it.
He'd never be clean again.

The pathway was sticky and slippery at once; a mix of new and old blood, it would get bigger and wider before he'd finished. His hair trailed in it. Every bead and cuff of silver becoming tacky and stained. Coagulated.

There is a razor in his old house. In his old bathroom. In a cabinet above a cracked porcelain sink.

He looked back over his shoulder at the great tree and shuddered on this cold path. Ropes swung from its sheltering branches. And people swung from the ropes.

Piper.

Nat.

Nick.

Curie.

Preston.

Deacon.

Cait.

…

…

Hancock.

…

…

…

Robbie and Duncan.

Faces purple and swollen. Limbs limp and swaying as they glowed in the sunlight.

Nora and Shaun, crows and magpies, stood beneath them all encased in those erupted roots and waved with happy smiles.

Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.

He continued down the red path. A Harbinger of Death for God's who no longer listened. His hair a trophy of all he'd thought he'd won. A beacon for all the spirits who watched over him. Who tainted and laughed at his folly of trying to change the world. Of trying to fix things.

The path led him to his house: the single storied blue structure with the clementine orange door. The door was open and he allowed the blood to pull him in like a great tide of grabbing hands.
The claws of ferals.
The knives of raiders.
The clubs of Mutants and the sharp sting from the teeth of dogs.

They howled and barked and yipped. Drawing him in with the familiarity.

He stepped over the threshold and felt the canine-like whine bubble at the back of his throat. 
Everything was as it was from before the fallout: clean, shiny, baby bottles and the smell of fresh brewed coffee. Nora's plants were green and swaying on the sunny windowsill, his shelf of comics and books and war memorabilia, the television playing an old musical.

The red path pulled him down the hallway. He caught glimpses of Shaun's old room and refused to linger there. He let the blood take him and the sound of running water filled the silence that suddenly seemed too heavy.

The bathroom door opened and that whine at the back of his throat turned into a sob.

Through the steam he could see him. Naked. Standing beneath the stream of the shower with his eyes shut and hands on his flat belly. Too flat. Not right. He opened his bright blue eyes, bluer than anything else in the Commonwealth had a right to be, and he cried. Great fat tears mixing with the spray that turned from clear, to pink, to red.
Robbie bathed in blood as his fingers scratched and clawed at the flat and taut planes of his stomach.

His hair was short.

His angry crying face glared at him from between the rivulets of the blood of their child.

“You did this.”

His mark burned as the ground rushed up to meet him.

He'd never be clean.
He didn't deserve to be.
He was guilty.

He gasped awake to a soft hand patting his cheek. He blinked up at the heart shaped face of Curie as she worried over him: her hair short but prettily braided like a crown, “Curie..?”

She nodded. Her face not purple and struggling for breath. Her neck free from rope burn, “Et ez time to go. Ze dogs ‘ave found them.”

He sat up quicker than he had ever moved before, boot brushing against Preston and hand knocking against Cait. They didn't mind. They weren't hanging from the tree. His path of red guilt wasn't clinging to their skin.

He felt sweaty as his stomach recoiled. The more he tried to remember the nightmare, the more it slipped away like mist burning away with the morning sun.

“You okay, Charmer?” Deacon nudged him and handed him a can of water and some jerky. Dogmeat whined where he span in a circle, desperate for the humans to hurry up and follow.

Asher breathed through his nose and ran his hand through his hair. Not wet with blood. Not trailing along that path and staining the markers of his family and friends, “Sorry, bad dream.”

“Can't say I'm surprised,” Nick said from beyond the small fire they'd made a few hours ago, “C'mon, let's get this over with one way or another.”

Chapter Text

The three story building the pack led them too was unremarkable but, in the silvery light of the moon, it felt as ominous as a guillotine.

They stayed low behind bushes and rusted campervans as they observed the windows and doors: shadows moved beyond the shoddy boards, slight noises of folk laughing, two guards in Power Armour at the front. It didn't seem like they had a rotation of guard unless they kept it random to throw possible attackers off. Not an unreasonable assumption.

“What's the plan, General?”

Asher hummed as he looked through the scope of Robbie's rifle: ignoring the ache in his chest it gave him, “I think that door is gonna be locked. We need to take those two out quietly and then Nick can pick the lock if needed…”

“Sounds good. And what if -”

He was cut off by a muffled scream that had the hair on Asher's neck rising. The dogs reacted with impatient huffs as the scruff between their shoulders stuck up. 

He knew that voice. Knew it like the back of his hand. His vision spotted at the periphery and he took a deep breath, “New plan.” He heard Cait knock her Deathclaw Gauntlets together, “Full assault.”

Variations of readiness filled the spaces around him for a brief moment and then he heard Deacon counting down from ten:

“Ten.”

Boots scuffed in the dust.

“Nine.”

Guns were cocked.

“Eight.”

Deep breaths were had.

“Seven.”

Ammo was checked.

“Six.”

Asher clicked his tongue.

“Five.”

The dogs crouched. Muscles bunching and ears flicking.

“Four.”

Heart rates spiked.

“Three.”

Shoulders rolled.

“Two.”

Asher bent to whisper into Dogmeat’s ear.

“...one.”

“Sic ‘em”

He was still kneeling with his arms strapped to the old radiator behind him. A pain was sparking from his left wrist up to his elbow where he had felt it crack what felt like days ago.

His legs were uncomfortably wet but numb and tingling with the sting of burning ammonia. He can't remember pissing himself but decided it didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. Everything hurt and he was going to die.

He wanted to die.

How could he not?

Everything hurt but nothing compared to the pain he felt low in his belly. Didn't compare to the shards of broken glass and cramping vices beneath his skin. He didn't dare look down at it. He didn't dare find out how bad it was. He didn't want to know if the wetness on his legs was only piss or if it'd be tinged with the red of his child's life blood.

He hadn't felt their little flutters of movement in such a long time.

He took in a deep shaky breath that caught in his chest like a sharp hook.

He had just wanted to be happy. Was that too much to ask? And now, that peace and pure joy he had been basking in for the past three years was wrecked. Blown away with the force of a nuclear blast. Torn apart and dissipated like so much ash on the wind.

Ash.

Ash.

Asher.

He was going to die and leave him alone. He'd told him so long ago as they'd scoped out a Super Mutant camp that his biggest fear was being alone again. Snakes, thunderstorms, and being alone. He'd broken his promise to him and he wouldn't even be able to apologise. He wouldn't be able to curl up in bed with him again, read over his shoulder, feel his fingers in his hair, hear his laugh, or watch him play with Duncan.

Duncan.

That caught breath in his chest turned into a weak sob. Duncan had been so excited. So proud. Showing off his father's rounding belly and declaring to all who would listen that he was going to be the best big brother a little sister could ask for. Duncan was sure they were a girl.

Now, they were nothing.

He'd lost them. 
Just like he knew he would.
Just like he'd lost the others that he just knows he did.

He was a shit dad. The only reason Duncan was alive was because of Asher and their family. And, now, their baby is dead. Rotting inside him as he became their tomb.

He didn't want to survive this. He wanted to die. Asher was going to hate him; he'd killed their babies, he'd killed Deacon, he'd killed Hancock. He didn't want to live and see the hate and disappointment on his face.

But, oh, he wanted to see him again. Just once. Just one more time. His Soulmate had given him everything he'd ever dreamed of and he wanted to say thank you. He wanted to beg him to look after Duncan in his absence. Wanted to beg him to find him in whatever afterlife Asher believed in. To bury him close by so he'd always be with him even in death. So that they'd always be with him.
Their child who would be named like their father. Who had had so much potential in their short blink of existence. Who had made him so sick and so excited and so happy. So hopeful. Asher would give them a name before he buried them. He would cry and rage and hate him.

MacCready let the pain pull him as he cried.

“..Mac…brother…”

Hancock sounded tired. Weak. Woozy from blood loss as the gunshot and knife wound slowly trickled horrible red to the ground beneath his dangling toes.

“John.”

“He'll come, Rob. Sunshine will come. He'll know we're missing and he'll come.”

“Deacon…”

The flash of red laser fire that pushed their friend to the ground where he lay smoking and limp in the dry grass.
Why had they done that? Why had they killed him? He was just trying to help. Trying to save him and the small life inside.

Hancock choked and twisted on the chains that held him aloft to the ceiling, his wrists chafing and bloodied like the rest of him, “I know. I can't…I can't think about him right now, Mac.”

“A full set of T-Sixty Power Armour.”

“He's a dirty fucking liar.”

Mac lifted his head to look up at his brother; he was bruised, bloodied, his shirt ripped away. The wound to his face where the Knight had peeled away some of his skin glistened, wet and raw, in the dark like his black eyes, “He told me once that he saw Ash come up from the Vault.”

Hancock nodded as much as he were able, “He did. Desdemona had him stationed up that way for a few weeks and then he followed Ash about for months after.” Hancock's face was sad as he tilted his head back to relieve some pressure in his neck and shoulders, “I'm gonna miss him…so much.”

“Thought he was a dirty liar?”

Hancock barked out a pained laugh, “He was. But, he never lied to me, brother.”

A full set of T-Sixty Power Armour.
A cross and a crown.

“Oh.”

“Yeah…”

Mac shuffled a little and winced through the sheer agony now ripping through his chest, “What was his name?”

He was silent for a long while as he just raggedly breathed into the dark silence. Mac assumed he wasn't going to answer and let his thoughts turn inwards once more before he heard Hancock hum and whisper, “Erik. His name was Erik.”

Mac bowed his head once more, “Ash will find him, John. He'll take him home and he'll take us home.”

“Yeah…” he said again before his voice came out watery and strained, “what's the baby called, brother? They need a name before we go.”

He cried again. He didn't know any plants or pretty things like Asher did. Not properly. Asher knew so much about so much: 

He knew what proper parks had looked like, he knew what horses had sounded like, cars and planes and instruments. He knew what real chocolate had tasted like and how to do things like taxes and paperwork.
He knew plants. He liked plants. He grew Hubflower and Carrot flower to make teas and soaps. He knew the names of all the trees in the woods that surrounded their home. He knew what names would fit their baby.

“I…I can't…”

“Anything, Robbie. Give them anything. For yourself. For me.”

He thought as the pain continued to pound down on him. His partner had told him so much; Asher, and Daisy, and Willow, and Rosie, and Oak, “Asher mentioned a flower once. One that isn't real anymore,” he looked back up, eyes puffy and swollen with more water than his body could stand losing right now, “it grew on water but had another type that grew on the ground too.”

Hancock nodded in encouragement, “And?”

“He said it was red. Most of the time. Like your coat, y’know?” Hancock grinned but it was wobbly and sad, “Poppy…it was called Poppy.”

“Poppy.” He said in reverence, “For a girl?”

The pain in his chest ripped open once more. A great chasm of cold and permafrost as the agony low in his belly forced bile into his throat. He sobbed as the name echoed around in his skull like a ricocheting bullet. A name he'd never get to say again, a name he'd never get to call to dinner or to a shooting lesson like he'd planned, never get to whisper into soft black curls as he tucked them in at night.
“Yes.” It came out a strangled hiss, “Poppy Asherdatter.”

“Not MacCready?” Hancock called out through the searing lightning in his head.

“I don't deserve to have her be me.”

Hancock was silent before he barked out a laugh that made MacCready jump, “Poppy MacCready-Asherdatter. Bit of a mouthful but I like it. It's strong, yeah?”

He wanted to agree. Wanted to give his baby this one thing before he couldn't give them anything ever again. Something so simple as a name.

But, the door opened, and he chose to glare up at the intruder to their little private eulogy.

The light blinded him for a moment and Hancock fell back into his maniacal laughter. MacCready didn't mind the laughter and, if he'd had the energy, he'd join in. Anything to unnerve their murderers. Deacon’s murderers. His baby's murderers. Asher would find out who did it and he'd tell the story over their graves like he had told Nora about Shaun.

Maybe Shaun would look after his sibling in whatever the beyond was until Asher could go to them.

Paladin Danse entered the room with a wrinkled nose at the stench and a frown on his face: flanked by the two Knights who had tortured them. His dark eyes flickered over them both before his brows furrowed at MacCready. He blinked in a sudden realisation as splotches appeared on his suddenly pale face, “You.”

Mac tried to flash a cocky grin at him but he wasn't sure it had the effect he wanted. He wanted to appear defiant and strong but the pain and lack of fluttering in his belly made tears spill into his beard before he could stop them, “Me.” He replied.

Danse rubbed his forehead with his finger and thumb, “The mercenary and the mayor. Shit.”

Hancock cackled like a raider on psycho, “Yeah, brother, shit.”

“Do you have any idea what you've done?” He turned his head to look over his shoulder at the Knights standing barely behind him, “Do you have any idea what you've started?”

One Knight, the one who'd cut his hair and murdered his baby, rolled his eyes and shrugged, “What's it matter? It's just a mutant and an abomination. Maxson would want them purged.”

“You stupid fucker,” Hancock goaded, “stupid poor fucker.”

Danse ignored him, “Maxson wanted information. I seriously doubt he'd want the war that this will cause.” He gestured between Hancock and MacCready with a great tired hand.

The second Knight took a step further into the room and closer to the kneeling crying man tied tight to the radiator, “Maxson ain't gonna give a shit, Danse. He's already spoken to the General and got nothing, he'll be happy with what we get out of these two.”

“You could've taken literally anyone else. Anyone from a settlement. You could've tried diplomacy -”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Danse. Respectfully. It doesn't matter! They don't matter. They're not even human.”

Hancock cackled again as Danse shook his head, “You've doomed us all, Knight. We have to warn the Elder as soon as possible.”

“Oh, please,” the Knight that had Mac's braid and Hancock's skin pinned to his chest like a fucked up medal stepped closer to MacCready, “the Minutemen are nothing. Just like this little whore.” His boot pressed dangerously on where his ankle was tucked beneath his thigh. MacCready wanted him to die last.

“Stop! Do not make this worse!” Danse called as the other Knight walked towards Hancock with that damned leather strip raised once more.

His baby's killer laughed, “He's a freak fucker, Danse. Look at him. Not even a loyal freak fucker at that, all round and showy with some bastard spawn.”

Danse shook where he stood, “We’re going to die. You've killed us.” Danse stepped closer, eyes on MacCready's where the kneeling merc could only see fear, “He isn't coupling with the ghoul, you fucking idiot. How can you not see what you've done! Look at his brand!”

The tree backlit by the sun: Asher and Robert.
Not the same as the cross and the crown on Hancock's chest: Johnathan and Erik.

The Knight did look but didn't seem to gather what it meant, “So?” He nudged Danse away as the Paladin tried to step between them, “Now, excuse me, Paladin, but we have a job to do.”

The boot on his ankle pressed down hard and MacCready screamed. He felt the bones crunch against the hard wood ground beneath him. They cracked and shattered under the strain. His head hurts, his arms hurt, his stomach was agony. His chest was empty of feeling as he waited to die.

He heard Hancock cry out as the other Knight jabbed him again with a knife. Danse shouted stop! but the Knights just laughed.

They laughed as MacCready screamed. They laughed as Hancock weakened. They laughed in the halo of dim light spilling in through the still open door.

Then, silence. Darkness. The light flickered out as the howl of dogs filled the air in a great orchestra of blood churning terror. A low deadly whistle sounded from somewhere beyond the dark opening of the door. 

The walls vibrated with a sudden boom as dust fell from the ceiling. 
The clang of heavy Power Armour powering up and the cackle of a red haired menace.
Then the screaming started.

Hancock laughed and whooped as he swung on the chain with his blood leaving morbid puddles as Danse groaned low in his throat, “You've killed us all.” He said again.

The dogs ran in first with his previous misgivings about sending them to fight evaporating at the sound of that scream. It played like a siren in his head as the two Brotherhood Knights on guard by the door that would take him to his family raised their rifles at the sight of the terrible pack speeding toward them.

The pack were distracting and quick as they scrambled in zig-zagging confusing patterns. You couldn't shoot at where something was going to be if that thing kept you guessing. Cait flew in with a roar, her gauntlets raised to protect her face from the laser fire, and the rest of them spread out quickly to cover. He sorely missed his Power Fists now.

Cait closed in, leaping over dogs with an ease that stemmed from years of practiced battle with them, and deftly brought the razor sharp claws down on one of the Knight's arms. The claws cut through the armour with a great screech before the Knight cried out in pain. She pulled out and ducked below more fire with a dog using her back as a springboard to latch into the metal helmet with his teeth.

Asher turned his attention to the second Knight and raised his shotgun. He didn't give them a chance to react before the spray scattered along the front of them. It didn't do much damage but pulled their attention away from Cait long enough for Nick to get close. His glowing orange eyes were eerie in the night and he heard one of them shout out Synth! His .44 was raised, his tattered coat flowing around him, and the glass of one helmet cracked beneath the bullet.

Dogmeat flew around armoured legs, casting the shambling panicked sets of armour into an unbalanced rhythm. Jekyll followed, jet black and ominous with his pointed devil-like ears.

“What the fuck is this!” One shouted as the other called out for help.

Help wouldn't be fast enough for them.

Deacon, using Asher's sheer bulk as a shield, aimed around him and the hiss of leaking hydraulics fell like a backing track to the noise around them. The leg of one suit became immobile and a warning repetitive beep started sounding. The back of the armour cracked open like a great carapace as the man inside was forcibly ejected. His arm was bleeding from where Cait's claws had cut into him, a bloody streak across his nose where he'd been shaken by the dog. He looked around wildly and Asher met his fearful eyes as he clicked his tongue sharply. Jekyll pounced, the man screamed, and then the pack fell on him.

The second suit of Power Armour was attempting to back away as they swiped at the broken glass of their helmet. As they turned their back, the power core flashed. Asher sped in and punched it with his fist. The armour opened and, before the woman inside could fall out, Asher pressed his shotgun to her spine.

“Where are they?” He demanded as he prodded harder.

She whimpered as all went quiet around her, “...please…don't kill me…mercy.”

“Mercy?” He laughed, “Did you show mercy to mine? How many are inside? Tell me and I'll make it quick. It's more than you deserve.”

“I don't want to die.” She tried to turn her head to look at him but he pushed in harder, “Please, General, I didn't do anything.”

He laughed out a black sound, “You are complicit in your nothingness. Tell me what I need to know.”

“You won't kill an unarmed woman.” She nodded to herself as though that were the truth.

He cracked his neck and narrowed his eyes. She wouldn't tell him anything and he was wasting time, “You don't know anything about me.”

He pulled the trigger and her scream echoed in the open suit. She slumped as she became paralyzed before she bled out into all those little gears and cogs that had kept her safe for so long.

He turned away and nodded at Preston from where he stood waiting by the door, “Make them scared.” He told them all and glanced down at the body jerking nearby as the dogs continued to tug at the dead flesh.

The door banged open as Preston booted it through where he threw a frag grenade into the dim light beyond. He ducked around the wall just as the blast went off.

Asher stood in the coiling smoke and glimpsed the Brotherhood beyond scrambling to meet their attackers. He whistled, low and deep before he brought it up on the tail end. The dogs circled by his legs and he clicked his tongue to bring them to a sudden eerie heel. Like dangerous ghosts they waited as the smoke slowly cleared.

He caught the briefest glimpse of a scope glinting in dim lantern light.

“Sic 'em.” He said once more and the dogs flooded the narrow hallway into the open space beyond.

Someone started screaming and Cait cackled loudly as she flew in once more behind the pack.

He followed like a Harbinger. A deadly crow all in black and white. A clever magpie decorated in shiny trinkets.
The General of the Commonwealth Minutemen: there to help at a minute's notice.

When RJ MacCready first met Asher Lilysen: he thought he was just a kook. He also thought he was going to die. The man walked into the back room of the Third Rail like a strangely decorated black and white crow and casually sat right next to him as Winlock and Barnes ranted about mercenaries and boundaries and straight up murdering him. He sat and leaned toward MacCready with his chin in his gloved palm as his elbow rested on the arm of the chair. A lazy grin on his weirdly clean smooth face.

Now his silhouette standing in the doorway looked like a shadow. There was crying coming from somewhere beyond the door and then the shadow was joined by two others: Curie and…and…

Hancock laughed, weak and so so tired, and it was as if a spell had broken over them.

Asher raised his gun along with Curie as Deacon ran into the room like a spirit escaping hell. Mac couldn't breathe as he watched his friend ignore the three Brotherhood still standing in the room. He ran to Hancock and grabbed him, the chains went slack as Deacon took his weight and Hancock groaned in relief with his legs coming up around Deacon's waist. His thigh was still bleeding but, just then, neither of them seemed to care.

“John…fuck! What did they do!”

Mac sagged in relief only to moan at the pain still spreading over his nerves. Then, like a balm to his brain, he heard Asher say, “Curie, get Robbie.”
He didn't sound like Asher, though. Not fully. He sounded like the man he was when they had taken out the Institute. Cold. Dark. Dangerous. He wanted to cry again: partly through the pain but mostly just from sheer unadulterated relief.

Soft gentle hands were on his cheeks and he looked up into Curie's wide caring eyes. He glanced up over her head to Asher whose dark eyes were narrowed on him with his face like carved marble. His gun was still raised, carefully swaying between the three Brotherhood who had slowly backed away to the far end of the room, “Robbie..?”
Cold. Dark. Angry. Sad.

“Ash…” He could barely speak and that fact alone seemed to jerk Asher back into action once more.

He stepped forward with his bulk between the Brotherhood and his injured family. Hancock was lowered to the ground where he breathed heavily, Mac's arms were freed and he cried out when his broken one tried to straighten. The noise spurred the General on.

“Paladin Danse, I'm surprised to find you here. I thought you were better than this.”

“Asher…I didn't -”

One of the Knight's snorted, “You're a fucking coward, Danse.”

The gun was leveled at that Knight's face, “I wasn't talking to you. Be quiet.” He glanced once over his shoulder to see his partner carefully being laid down on the ground beside his best friend; both covered in blood, both stripped from their shirts, Mac's belly…

He felt the anger and call for vengeance boil in his blood, “What did you do, Danse?”

His voice seemed to snap the Paladin to attention: some deep ingrained training forcing him to pay attention like a dog trained by Pavlov, “General, I tried to stop them, tried to tell them.” He took a steadying breath, “You know I'd never…”

“Never what, Danse?”

“...torture.”

Behind him, Hancock laughed again, “Poor stupid fucks. I told them, didn't I, Mac? We told them…” Curie had stuck him with so many Stimpaks and Daytripper his words barely made it past his bruised mouth. 

Asher looked over the Brotherhood: Danse appeared to be the only one cognisant of the gravity standing before them. The other two were holding on to the cocky aloofness that being in league with someone like Maxson granted them. Above retribution, above the law, above all they believed lesser. 
Asher's dark eyes trailed over them before sticking at a grotesque medal pinned to one of their orange uniforms: a piece of scarred skin beneath a brown braid decorated in a black glittering bead. He looked at the face of this man; rat-like, dirty, nicotine and chem stained, with watery blue eyes, “What did you do?”

“That one's Idiot-fucker.” Hancock whispered behind him.

Asher couldn't spare the grin as he repeated his question, “What did you do?”

The man grinned, so cocksure of himself, “Can't have no freak fucker’s bastard spawn littering the Commonwealth, General.” He said it as though Asher would surely agree with his sentiments even as Danse rubbed his face with a groan beside him, “Kicked the bastard right out of the little cu -”

The man screamed and doubled over as the bullet tore through his lower belly. Asher stepped close and kicked his legs out from under him so that Idiot-fucker curled up on the ground like a sack of rotten tatoes. He bent close to his face, hair falling forward to cover them in a morbid dark sheet that hid them from view. 

The man was gasping like a fish as Asher looked down at him: face blank of the emotions churning his guts, “You killed my son?” The man's eyes widened, “You hurt my partner and killed my baby?”

“...please…”

“Please?” He laughed, “Did he say please when he asked you to stop? Did you listen? Did you show mercy?”

Hancock egged him on through his happy relieved high, “He threatened to put a new baby in him, brother. Poor stupid fuck.”

Mac whispered something but Asher didn't hear.

The man slowly bleeding beneath him grimaced, “Oh, really? To my Robbie? Interesting.”
Asher stood and placed his booted foot to the wound in the man's belly and pressed down. His hands scrabbled at his boot and leg but Asher ignored him as he turned his attention to the second Knight. He was very vaguely aware of more people filing into the room but ignored them, “And, you?”

“Dead-man-walking…” was said from behind him.

“What did you do, hmm?”

Dead-man-walking was cleaner than the first one; stubbled, clear eyed, strong jaw. He flicked his eyes over him and landed on a long strip of brown leather tucked into his belt. It had sharp metal points riveted in at varying intervals where bits of skin and splatters of blood clung to them, “Whip them? Did you shoot John? Tell me what you did.”

The man was shaking as he cringed at the whimpers of pain coming from beneath the General's foot, “I didn't…it was all him! And Danse!”

Asher snorted even as Hancock cackled, “Danse wouldn't.” Danse sagged in relief and Asher's eyes snapped to him, “No. You didn't help either, Danse. Don't fucking relax.”

Asher swung his fist and it connected with Dead-man's jaw with the force of a steel bat. His head snapped back as he stumbled against the wall, “I don't carry a whip, unfortunately, but I'm sure we can work something out, yeah?”

“General.” Preston stepped closer, “We have two downstairs detained for interrogation.”

Asher nodded, “Take Danse. The rest of you? Take Robbie and John to get comfortable.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Curie?” Danse stepped past him and winced as Cait grabbed his arms and shoved them high up his back. The synth doctor looked up at Asher from where MacCready's head was cradled in her lap, “I want a full report of their injuries. Write it down and push it under the door within the next five minutes.”

“Oui.”

Hancock groaned from where he was helped to stand, “Sunshine?”

The crying beneath his foot was grounding, “Yeah, brother?” He hadn't looked at any of them properly. He couldn't bring himself to.

“I’d like to stay.”

“You're hurt, John.”

The ghoul stepped forward on shaking legs but held his back straight, “Yeah.”

Asher nodded and the others started to leave the room, Mac held carefully between Nick and Curie. Deacon paused in the doorway before stepping back up to Hancock and handing him a knife, “Give ‘em hell, John.”

The door shut and the eerie glow of the PipBoy illuminated the dim room in lurching shadows of deep dark black.

Paladin Danse was sat against a wall with his arms and legs bound between scribe Haylen and a young initiate he hadn't yet learned the name of. 
Haylen had tear tracks leaving little clean trails down her face and the initiate was shaking against his arm.

Across the room were the scattered remains of wrecked and dented Power Armour. Blood puddles and bits of flesh still lingered here and there even if the bodies had been taken outside. Beyond the open door that led outside with a long drag mark of red leading up to it like a rug: he could hear the yipping and barking of the General's dogs.

The General's team lay the little mercenary down on a tattered couch and Danse cringed. He was bruised badly; one eye shut with the pressure, his left arm purple from a break or fracture, his chest and stomach blooming in blue. He hadn't fully realised the nature of the General's relationship with the merc until Asher himself had growled out my baby to the whimpering form of Marcus. He knew they were friends and had bumped into them in settlements he'd been ordered to go and trade in, but he hadn't known that they were more than that. He had known that Asher would come for him and the ghoul. Had tried to warn the others that this was a mistake.

Marcus and Richie had started a war they had no hope of stopping now.

The woman tending to the mercenary stood from his side with a slip of paper held in her hand and her face set into a grim mask. She went back to the stairs, glancing over her shoulder once at the others hanging around, and left.
She was back within moments and very briefly met Danse's eyes. She had nice eyes; wide, round, the brown of freshly tilled earth, but they narrowed into a hard glare and he averted his gaze to the other people.

The dark man in the wide hat, Lieutenant Garvey of the Minutemen, was rummaging through a bag and pulling out drinks and rations of food stuffs.
The man in sunglasses was leaning by the stairs with his head tilted to one side and arms crossed over his lightly armoured chest. He was listening for something and Danse prayed it wouldn't be loud enough to make it to their spot by the far wall.
The red haired woman was watching them with Deathclaw Gauntlets strapped to both of her hands. She accepted a bottle of Nuka-Cola Cherry from the dark man and sipped it from between those razor sharp claws. Her green eyes were dangerous. Hair like fire.
The detective, Nick Valentine, was sitting on the couch by the mercenary's head, his skeletal metal hand carefully brushing the blood matted hair and braids off the man's forehead. He was whispering something that had the merc nodding as his none bruised eye shut.

The braids and beading that decorated them all, in their hair or sewn onto various seams of their clothing, should have been the first clue to the importance of the men the others had taken from the road. It was well known that the General decorated his hair though Danse didn't know why. He'd never seen anyone else do so except, maybe, the ghoul shopkeep in Goodneighbor he has briefly met one time during an undercover mission to gather Intel on the town. Goodneighbor had been tight lipped and didn't divulge much about its workings to a stranger, even when offered money.

A howl came from the staircase, trickling through the air like a chilling mist, and the man in sunglasses turned his head very slightly with the corner of his mouth ticked up. A scream soon followed and Danse flinched. It wasn't the same kind of scream he had heard from the merc earlier in the evening. That scream had been the scream of heartbreak and pain. This scream? Agony, fear, terror. He felt the goosebumps tingle over his skin and shuddered as another cry sounded out.

Haylen whispered by his side, “I thought the Minutemen were good?”

“That is naïve, Haylen. What would you do in their place?”

Haylen went to reply as the initiate ducked his head to try and shelter himself from the noise before the red haired woman hissed, “Shut the feck up. You'll wait fer the General. Until then, keep ya holes shut.”

They went quiet and Danse desperately looked around for a distraction against the screaming coming from above. It had picked up in pitch and was piercing his brain like a railroad spike. Whatever Asher and his Ghoul friend were doing to the Knights he hoped they'd at least kill him quickly.

The small woman with the big eyes and hair braided like a crown with white beading knelt beside the mercenary and began to treat his wounds more fully than what she had done upstairs. He gasped as she injected him with Med-X and then he tried to curl in on himself as she straightened his arm out. The synth detective held the man in place as she worked; cleaning, stitching, binding his arm and wrist in a splint. The bones in his ankle crunched and he tried to scream through the hazy effects of the drug. She worked as though she had done this many times before and, he assumed, she probably had.

“Shush, Robbie.” Her accent was as thick as the red haired woman's but distinctly different, “You're doing so well.”

She continued her work and, as she cleaned his skin with cloth damp in alcohol and purified water, his bruising stood out stark against his pale skin, “Oh, monsieur…mon dieu…we'll get you all fixed up, oui?”

“Don't…I don't…”

“Hush, Robbie. It'll all be better soon.”

The screams continued as the doctor diligently worked. She rinsed his hair, finger lingering on a shorter piece by his left temple, before she sighed and moved on.

She went into her bag and pulled out a stethoscope and placed the buds into her ears. She rubbed the end that would touch her patient to warm it before bringing it to his chest, “Deep breaths.” She murmured but the merc remained lax with his head on the thigh of the synth detective.

She shook her head and moved the stethoscope down over his chest, alternating between the left and right side, before landing just below his ribcage.

His hand flew out and caught her wrist as he shook his head, “Please, I don't…I don't want to know.”

“Rob -”

“I don't want to know. I want Asher and I want to go home.” He sounded so young and scared and Danse shivered in his bonds.

“We must know, monsieur. We must.”

The detective rattled as he spoke, “Curie, doll.”

The rest of them had gone still and were seemingly holding their breath as they watched the three of them on the couch. The screaming coming from above continued.

The doctor sighed such a sad and defeated sound as she went on, “Robbie, we ‘ave to know. If…if the worst ‘as ‘appened, I need to get them out.”

“No!” His voice cracked as he shouted.

“We must, ArrJay. If they 'ave gone, it will cause infection. You'll die.”

“Good.” He whispered.

Garvey shook his head and removed his hat, beads and braids held close to his scalp in intricate patterns, “Mac, what about Duncan and Ash? They won't want you to go.”

Danse didn't know who Duncan was but at the mention of the name the merc tried to curl in on himself with a sob bubbling out from between his clenched teeth. The doctor straightened his legs back out and soothed gentle lines up and down his shins, “Robbie, let me. We ‘ave to know.”

He sagged back and covered his face with his hand that wasn't bound in splints and bandages. He was crying and the screaming filtering down the stairs wavered into a parallel whimper. The mercenary eventually nodded and allowed the stethoscope to be brought back to his skin. The doctor whispered out soothing noises and continued her calming lines over his legs. She didn't seem to care that the fabric of his pants was damp in urine and blood and sweat.

She carefully pressed the device over his abdomen, shifting from spot to spot with a contemplative frown on her heart shaped face. The merc, Robbie, Danse recalled, continued to cry as it moved further and further down until, eventually, she gently pressed it over the badly bruised swell of his lower belly.

She paused before moving the stethoscope to the left. Then to the right. It felt like time had suspended around them all and Danse felt like a voyeur to this very private moment. Garvey, the red haired woman, and the man in sunglasses seemed to be pulled into the tense bubble on the couch. Drawn to it as if it had its own gravity field.
The woman's Deathclaw clad hand landed on the back of the couch, Garvey squatted by the synth detective's legs to hold onto the merc's shoulder, and sunglasses placed a careful hand on the man's unbandaged foot where he rubbed the underside with a gentle thumb. The detective kept his skeletal hand in the man's damp hair.
He was shaking through some deep panic that Danse didn't, and could never, understand.

That stethoscope moved and moved for an agonising few moments before it paused over one spot far to the left and just tucked beneath the round hardness of the bruised bump.

“Robbie…”

Hands tightened on the man, “I don't wanna…please don't make me…”

“There's a thrum, ArrJay.”

It was as if a bubble had burst. Hands tightened, held breaths were released, and the merc's hand dropped to his belly so quickly Danse would've missed the movement if he had blinked. The doctor removed the earpieces and placed them gently into the mercenary's own ears. His watering blue eyes were bright as his chin and lips quivered. The sound that escaped him was like shattered stained glass, “She's okay?”

“Their heartbeat is a little too slow, Robbie. You need rest and I need to examine you more fully.”

“She's okay.” He said again as he kept the earbuds in and took over the stethoscope to press it harder against his bruised belly.

Sunglasses nodded as he let out a shaky breath. He pat the merc's foot as he stood and said, “I'll let Ash and John know.”

He turned into the suddenly too loud wall of screams and crying. It had all been tuned out as they, including the three Brotherhood prisoners, had waited for the fate of the life inside the crying man. Danse watched him walk up the stairs, disappearing around a bend, and a moment later, the screams stopped.

There was a clatter above them, a rumble of some deep voice, and then another clatter followed by heavy booted stomping. A brief scream was cut off quickly with a gunshot that echoed through the building and then the rushing of footsteps.

The General of the Minutemen appeared on the staircase like Death himself. He had a knife in his hand that he flicked negligently to remove the blood that splattered on the wall beside him. He rushed forwards and the people who weren't the mercenary or the synth still holding his head in his lap moved quickly out of his way. He slid to his knees and took the merc's face in his hands, small streaks of blood coating his cheeks from the General's fingertips, “Rob? Robbie…”

The shaking, injured, young man looked up at Asher's face and Danse had never seen a look quite like it before; pure, wide eyed, unfiltered, he felt he should look away but simply couldn't. He watched as the merc took the earbuds out of his ears and placed them into Asher’s. The General shook and lowered his head of wild black hair into the mercenary's chest where the younger man's uninjured hand tangled into the braids and beads.

They stayed like that for a long few moments before Danse noticed the ghoul, now dressed in a red coat with hat placed carefully on his head, step closer.

“Sunshine..?”

Asher sat back on his heels and removed the earbuds. He kept a hand on the merc as he looked over his shoulder at the ghoul, “Yeah?”

“What about those three?” John pointed at the three Brotherhood members still bound by the wall.

Asher whipped his head round as though he'd forgotten that they were there, “We bring them with us. The Castle is closest.”

Garvey nodded as he started to pack a bag even as he pulled out a spare set of clothes for the mercenary: a simple ensemble of a soft cotton shirt and loose grey sweatpants, “Aye, sir. Myself and Nick will go on ahead to warn them.”

Asher accepted the clothes and said, “Take the boy with you. Doubt that one had anything to do with this.”

The initiate, who really was just a boy of around fourteen, shivered against Danse and the Paladin finally found his voice, “He didn't! He doesn't deserve -”

Asher glared at him, “Shut the fuck up.” He handed the clothes to the doctor and she began to flutter around the mercenary as the General stood once more to his full height, “You shut the fuck up. You have no authority here. I'll decide what's to be done. I'll decide who deserves what. You keep your mouth closed until I say otherwise.”

Garvey and the synth detective left, the barking of dogs greeting them with growls as the initiate followed with his hands still bound. 

“How soon till he can move, Curie?” Asher asked quietly as the merc dozed in his cleaner clothes.

“I'd rather ‘e didn't move at all, General.”

Asher shrugged and rolled his shoulders, “I'll carry him then.”

In no time at all, Danse and Haylen were on their feet and linked together by another rope strung between their bound hands, and they were led like cattle into the pre-dawn haze of the Commonwealth. He kept his head high even as the dogs growled and snapped their teeth by his knees and even as the prod of a shotgun pressed into his spine courtesy of the Ghoul Mayor of Goodneighbor.

Asher led the way with his partner held in his arms and tucked to his broad armoured chest. 

Chapter Text

They camped on the road and Asher carefully lay his partner down on a hastily padded bedroll, “How are you feeling, love?”

Mac frowned up at him, “Like my ankle and arm are shattered, Ash.”

“Hmm. And them?” He placed his hand gingerly into his partner's still bruised stomach, careful to not put any weight on the tender flesh, “Felt any wiggles?”

“...no.” He shuffled slightly as Asher brought his fingers to the cut section of hair by MacCready's temple, “Maybe they're sleeping? Or hurt. Maybe they've -”

“Hush, Robbie, Curie will come and check in a moment, okay?” He nodded against his palm, “C'mere, sweetheart.” He adjusted them both so that Mac's back was against his chest, “It'll all be okay, I won't let them get away with this.”

Mac snorted and it sounded like harps to Asher, “Think you already didn't let them off. What did you do to those fuc - idiots.”

“Eye for an eye, love.” Hancock made a weird half laughing sound at Asher's comment from across the fire as he sat after tying Danse and Haylen to a nearby tree where they were watched by the dogs, “We got every pound of flesh that they owed. And,” he dipped a hand into the pocket on his chest where the toy soldier rested with the little box and a recovered memento. He pulled the little black bead up so Mac could see it, “this. Want me to put it back?”

His partner nodded against him so Asher got to work carefully sectioning out his hair. He undid the ruined braids, brushed out the remains of dirt and blood that Curie’s quick rinse didn’t take away, and placed the beads and cuffs gently to one side as his brown curls spilled out in various levels of kinking and waves. He calmly rebraided his hair in silence as the others moved around them and redid the delicate braid by his left temple, scooping the jagged cut strands into a new twist, before tying it off with the black bead. He patted it all down and gently tipped Mac's face up to kiss him carefully on his split lip, “There, now we match.” Mac grinned against his mouth as Curie approached with her supplies and stethoscope, “I'm gonna let Curie work, okay? I'll be back as soon as she's done.”

“Okay.”

He disentangled himself from his partner and stood. The others watched him move before averting their eyes as he stepped towards their tied up prisoners. 

Danse met his eyes even as Haylen, a woman he'd only met the once in Cambridge all that time ago, ducked her chin and stared down at the ground. He sat cross legged before them with Dogmeat and Jekyll on either side of him, “Paladin Danse.”

“General Lilysen.” Danse bobbed his head and Asher pressed his mouth into a thin line. He knows more about Danse than he thinks the Paladin knows himself. A knowledge he'd kept hidden away and locked in one of his many drawers of his house: a tiny list on a small holotape with data that could ruin so many people's lives; Amelia Stockton, Roger Warwick, Magnolia, Mayor McDonough, Sturges, and…Danse.

“Is this the better you'd hoped for when you left us?”

“Ash -”

“Is the Brotherhood still worthy? Is Maxson still the fair and magnanimous leader you claimed him to be when you looked down your nose at my friends?”

He scratched the back of Jekyll's pointed ear as the dog growled, “What did I say to you when you left? Can you remember?” 

Danse frowned but nodded as he answered, “You told me to take the stick out of my arse and look around.”

“And? Did you look around? What did you see?”

“I did.” He adjusted his weight and shuffled to get more comfortable against the roughened bark of the tree, “I saw abominations living unchecked in your towns along with synths and mutants.”

“Yes. Living unchecked and free. Non-violent and productive. What else?”

Haylen sniffed and spoke for the first time since they'd left the grim building the Brotherhood squads had kept MacCready and Hancock in, “I'm sorry, General, I saw them get taken and I couldn't stop them…”

“Be quiet.” He said and she clamped her mouth shut with a quiet click of her teeth, “Why did Maxson do this?”

“He didn't order this specifically and I can't say more.”

“Oh?” He clicked his tongue and the dogs around him stood with their ears flicking forward and rumbling growls filling the air between them all. Vaguely, in the background, he was aware of his family watching on in silence, “You'd better say more, Danse. You'd better tell me every scrap of knowledge you know or -”

“Or, what? You'll have your mutts tear me apart? There are worse ways to go, General.”

Asher laughed a cold dark thing, “Not you. Her.” He pointed and one of the dogs began to stalk forward, padded paws silent in the dry grass, “You'll watch and listen to her die just like you were content with watching and listening to my family die, yes?”

Haylen whimpered as the dog's snout, sharp teeth dripping with thick globs of drool, got closer and closer to her face, “D-Danse…”

“Better make the choice quickly, Paladin. I am running out of patience.”

The dog drew closer as she continued to gasp and shake. Danse's eyes flicked from the dog, to Haylen, and then to Asher. What he saw was a completely neutral expression, almost bored, as one hand continued to pet gently at the large ominous black dog, “You're a monster.”

Asher tilted his head, “Maybe. Or, maybe, I'm simply a father.” The dog snapped his teeth beside Haylen's face, “Times running out, Danse.”

“Paladin…please…”

Asher saw the moment when Danse's resolved cracked: a very slight crumble of his eyebrows as his eyes flicked quickly to Haylen and back, “Fine. I'll tell you what I know.”

Asher whistled and the dog backed away with Haylen sagging in relief. He smiled like the Sunshine he was nicknamed for and a shiver skittered down Danse's spine, “Excellent. In return, Haylen will live and I'll tell you some news I'm sure you need to know.”

“What news?”

“Ah ah, it is something I've kept hold of for a long time. Valuable. I'm not going to give it up until I am satisfied.” Asher stood and the dogs wandered away to sniff at the ground and to rout out squirrels, “Shall we do this…diplomatically?”

Asher led Danse a little ways away from the main camp where he settled them on some fallen tree logs, “Is this going to be my grave then?”

Asher laughed, “Hardly. I just figured you'd want some privacy whilst we talked.”

“Asher, I wasn't aware of what they were doing before I went into the room myself. I tried to talk them out of it, I swear.”

“You should've stopped them with force.”

Danse hung his head as he rested his arms by the elbows onto his knees, “I have to be better than them. I didn't know they had MacCready and Hancock until shortly before you came, I didn't recognise them.”

Asher sipped from a beer he'd pilfered from the camp on their way by and shook his head, “It doesn't matter that it was MacCready and Hancock. What happened in that room shouldn't have happened to anyone you decided to pick up from the road. Why did it happen?”

“You tortured two of my men to death and you have the nerve to tell me it shouldn't happen to anyone?”

“They weren't men. They were monsters. Why did they do it?”

Danse took a deep breath and looked into the General's dark eyes. He was still angry, the evidence of it bubbling beneath his skin like a low embered fire, his hair wild and falling to his waist in great black rivers, “Maxson, he gave us the authorisation to…apprehend Minutemen to gather information about your numbers and where the bulk of your forces are stationed.”

“Oh.” He snorted and threw the empty bottle away, “So Mac and Hancock were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Your men nearly killed Deacon. Your men nearly killed my child. Was that authorised too?”

“No! Of course not! If I had been there from the start I would've stopped it.”

“Easy to say in hindsight. So, you would've what? Picked a random person up out of a settlement? Tortured an innocent just doing their job for numbers. For some fanatic's warped ideals? I thought you were better than that.”

“I am.”

“Maxson came to my home with one of his little squads. You know what he tried to do to get what he wanted?” Danse shook his head, “He tried to sleep with me! Can you imagine? He tried to lure me into some weird romance whilst my son played down the street. Does that sound like a well adjusted leader to you?”

“Your son? I thought Shaun -”

Asher clapped his hands suddenly, the sharp sound of it bouncing around the quiet wood and making those still by the fire jump, “You don't get to say his name. Not Shaun, fool, I have another.”

Danse wracked his brain. How old would this child be? How had this information slipped by the Brotherhood's information networks? The boy couldn't be older than two or three, who was the other parent? The Merc? How had he missed this after seeing them on the roads and in the settlements over all these years, “How?” He simply asked.

Asher laughed, “None of your business, is it? But, think about what I'd have done for him if I had found Robbie dead? If my son's new sibling had died in that room? Think we'd be talking now?” Danse shook his head.

“Listen, Danse, I like to think I'm a fair person, yeah? I've helped people that needed helping and I've hurt the people that needed hurting. Look at the towns and settlements me and mine have built: all these many people we've saved and kept alive and healthy.”

Danse furrowed his brow as the General spoke: hundreds if not thousands of people, not including the mercenaries loyal to him in Nuka-World and those across the water in Far Harbor. Asher continued, “All those people we've trained and made strong. All the parents who only want for their children to grow safely and happily.”

“All of them?” Too many. Too many hands capable of wielding a gun.

“I can't let you go back to Maxson, Danse, and, after you know everything, I don't think you'll want to go back. Tell me what else the Elder wants.”

Danse bowed his head again and glared down at the dry grass beneath his feet, “You're going to kill me.” He said it as a fact for how could it not be the truth?

“That remains to be seen. It's out of my hands.”

“Huh?”

His beads and silver cuffs tinkled as he tilted his head, “I'm going to let Robert decide.”

“The Merc?”

Asher grinned, “Yeah, the Merc. You say it with so much acid when you really know nothing about him.”

A long pregnant pause filled the space between them before Asher sighed, “You know, Danse, I used to think that we could've been good friends. We did good work together, made a good team. I went with you up to that blimp willing to learn about your people myself rather than judging them through second and third hand rumours.

"I stayed with you even after meeting Maxson and his weird suck-up seconds in command. I thought that you'd see that the Brotherhood's views on the people of this world, which was still new to me back then, wasn't all truthful. That you'd see that not every ghoul was feral, that they are people just trying to survive like the rest of us. Not every changed person is a catastrophe waiting to happen: a child born with the ability to breathe under water is not necessarily a threat. A man carrying a child won't breed a mutant army.”

“They're not -”

“They're as human as I am, Danse. More human than you.” Danse shifted uncomfortably in his seat and Asher's eyes widened, “You already know, don't you?”

“I…”

“You already know what you are!”

His head dropped even further with a slight nod, “I've known for a few months. How do you know?”

“I found the data in the Institute. How do you know?”

Danse shivered before he began to roll up the sleeve on his orange jumpsuit. There, old and through obvious attempts at being patched, was an unhealed wound. It was deep and ragged: the muscle was gone revealing the silver of fake bone and the wires mimicking tendons. Tubes and steel and copper,  “I was grabbed by a Super Mutant about half a year ago. My skin just…tore away. I didn't notice until I went to bandage it after the fight and saw this. It won't…it won't heal.”

“And you stayed with the Brotherhood? You know Maxson will kill you as soon as he finds out.”

He shrugged and rolled his sleeve back down, “For a while, I wanted him to. I'm an abomination. A freak. Where else could I have gone, Asher?”

Asher frowned, “To me. You could've come to me, Danse.”

It was Danse's turn to laugh: bitter and sharp, “That's not even my real name. I remember everything, Asher: growing up in DC, joining the Brotherhood, my mother and father. How…how did the Institute do that and where's the real Danse? Is he dead? Or hidden away in some dark corner of the world? Was he a good man or would he have helped Richie and Marcus torture your partner and friend?” He took a deep breath and looked back up at Asher who was sitting patiently, “How can you say I could've gone to you after everything?”

“You called me a monster. Do you really think so?”

Asher asked his question quietly as though he were genuinely concerned about Danse's opinion of him. Or, maybe, he was simply afraid of what an honest answer might be. Danse was silent for a few minutes, his grey eyes meeting Asher's black where they simply held each other's stare. Danse had seen all Asher had done since he had emerged from the Vault those years ago. He hadn’t believed his story as the man - who back then had been friendly to him as they walked the roads to ArchJet - regaled him with all he had seen and learned so far:

His arms were spread wide as his hair tinkled in the breeze, “And, Danse! There was this huge fucking lizard thing…what are they called again?”

“Deathclaws.”

“That’s the one. Anyway, I had to take it out to get the others back home, so I just took up this minigun -”

“Ha!” He’d actually laughed, “Someone as green as you took out a Deathclaw alone? I don’t believe you.”

“I’m not green: I was in the army before the war.”

“Which war, civilian.”

He had smirked and his black eyes glinted mischief, “The War.”

“Liar.”

“Scout’s honour.” He smiled, “If the Brotherhood wants to help the world like you say they do, maybe we’ll make a good team? I’d have to meet this Maxson guy before I decide to sign up or not, got a whole other thing going on with the Minutemen and then my own stuff with something else, you know how it is.”

“Of course. For what it’s worth, I think you’ll make an astounding Knight.”

And he would’ve done, Danse had no doubt in that as he tore his mind from the memory. Asher, for all he knew and had observed, was an astounding leader; people flocked to him, he wielded power with fairness and an unshakable resolve, he had taken down the Institute for goodness sake! It was very easy to forget that, along the path of the General’s journey, he had had to make some very difficult choices. Choices that, if given to someone else, could have dissolved into something that will have destroyed the Commonwealth; he had worked tirelessly to give people food and homes, he had led the Minutemen into an near unstoppable force, had assuaged the raiders of Nuka-Worled, saved Far Harbor, kept his family safe. Killed his own son. Killed countless Gunners and raiders and Super Mutants. And, now, was most likely going to go to war against the Brotherhood of Steel.
But, if Danse were in his shoes, he would have done the same. Or as close to the same as possible.

“You're no worse than any of the rest of us.” He gripped his forearm where the unhealed wound remained hidden beneath his sleeve.

Asher bobbed his head with a frown, “True, I guess, when I need to be. I wouldn't have turned you away, like I said, I used to think we'd be good friends: I've taken in some strange people in my time here and now look,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the camp where Deacon was gently helping MacCready to his feet so the man could do his business in some semblance of privacy by the trees, “Do they look like monsters?”

Danse observed the little group for a few moments; the pretty doctor was now tending a little more to Hancock where he leaned against a large black and tan dog, the red haired woman was on her feet with a rifle in her hands as she kept watching for her friends as MacCready and Deacon shuffled into a nearby copse of trees, “No.”

“No more monstrous than you or I. Danse -”

“That's not my name.”

Asher puffed out a breath, “Fine. M7-97,” Danse startled but Asher plowed on, “you and Haylen will come with us to the Castle. Like I said, I can't let you go back to Maxson now, and I'll keep my promise regarding your scribe and the initiate boy.”

“And you'll let the - MacCready decide my fate?”

“Yes.” Asher stood, “Do you think you and Haylen can be civil enough by the fire, or do I have to tie you to the tree again?”

Danse stood to follow with a shrug. He was almost as big as Asher in height and build and a fight between them would be a close thing, he wasn't a Paladin for nothing, but he wouldn't dare risk anything unarmed with the potential of Haylen's life on the line, “We can be civil.”

Danse followed Asher to the camp and the General motioned for Haylen to be let up. The scribe came to Danse's side as they sat on a spare roll laid close to the firelight.

None of the General's friends spoke to them even after MacCready returned with Deacon. Danse watched the Merc settle in the hollow created by Asher's crossed legs and heard them whispering as their fingers entwined together low on MacCready's stomach. Music started playing from the PipBoy and Danse was mildly surprised when he and Haylen were handed water and rations by the doctor woman. He nodded his thanks as she turned away and light chatter began between the General's family.

Haylen sagged by his side as the adrenaline seeped out of them, leaving them tired and overwhelmed. She whispered against his shoulder, “What are we going to do?”

“Go to the Castle.”

“And then?”

“See what comes next.”

Asher carried him on his back and MacCready quickly threw aside any possible embarrassment he might've felt had the situation been any different. The tiny bones in his ankle and foot were still healing and hobbling around on them would just slow the process.

Also, Curie had been very clear with them both about him not doing anything. He was officially on bed rest until such a time the medic decided otherwise and he was checked regularly with her stethoscope and gentle prods and pokes to his belly. Their heartbeat was still slower than she'd like and Mac had a very low-grade fever prickling over his skin.

So, he resigned himself to clinging onto Asher's shoulders with his good arm with his face in his wild hair as Asher kept a firm hold beneath his thighs. He was floating along in a state of disbelief: too much had happened in too short a time and the emotional whiplash had given him a headache. He still felt the lingering tendrils of panic and grief skittering like bugs in his mind even with the knowledge that, right now, he and the baby were alive. Asher and their family had come for them. Hancock was alive. Deacon was alive. But those facts didn't simply absolve the feeling of being torn apart from the inside.

Those that had done this were dead. Brutally and gloriously dead. And now Asher was planning a war. A war that had seemingly been in a slow state of ascension for months, if not years, even if none of them had fully been aware of it. The Brotherhood wanted to move; wanted to expand, wanted to purge as dictated by their rigid doctrine, and the Minutemen wouldn't simply sit back and allow that to happen. So many of their settlers came under the Brotherhood's red list of non-humans: so many ghouls, so many mutant folk (including himself), and the peaceful pockets of Synths that hadn't caused any trouble since they'd escaped their programming.

Asher wouldn't let them die. He wouldn't sacrifice a single soul to Maxson's ideals. Plus, the Elder has now made this very personal to them all. If it hadn't have been him and Hancock tied up and beat in that room it would've been someone else from their community: Preston, Cait, Sturges, an innocent settler, a random Minuteman just on a supply line, Asher would've killed for any one of them and MacCready would've helped him.

“How you doing, Robbie?”

He tightened his hold around Asher's shoulder as he felt his grip shift beneath his thighs, “Hmm? Tired.”

“Rest then, love. I've got you.”

“I have a headache.”

Asher paused in his walk and motioned Curie over. Mac heard him mumble to her and then he was gently lowered to the ground. Asher stood in front of them both, his gun drawn as he swept the area with his dark eyes, and the others clustered in a loose circle to help keep watch.

Curie's cool and gentle fingers were on his temples, “What does the ‘eadache feel like?”

“Like something is pressing on my brain.”

She tutted her tongue and held some water to his lips before helping him take the supplements that they'd recovered from his pack and satchels back on the plain he'd been taken from. She listened to his chest and belly and felt his pulse at the join of his wrist, “Asher,” the General looked down at her but stayed standing, “we need to get to the Castle quickly. ‘E ‘as a fever and I'm not ‘appy with the pain levels.”

The Castle was still hours away but Asher nodded anyway, “Deacon?’

“Yeah, Charmer?”

“Can you run?”

Deacon nodded, “If I have to.”

“Okay.” He bent and scooped Mac up bridal style, “We run. Do not stop until we're at the gates unless we absolutely have to, yeah?”

“Aye, General.” 

They ran. A slow jog at first that built momentum among the group. Danse and Haylen, still bound together by rope, scrambled to keep up as that jog turned into a faster and faster almost sprint.
Asher braced MacCready to his chest and held his head firm against his shoulder to prevent whatever jostling he could. The group formed a ring around them with the dogs flirting in and out as they loped along beside them.
He felt sick again. The pressure building in his head was almost blinding against the daylight and he squeezed his eyes shut against the brightness and movement. He could feel his stomach churning and groaned against the sensation to keep everything inside.

“You're okay, love. We have you. You'll be all better soon.”

“Ash…I…”

He shouldn't have opened his mouth. The bile bubbled and he heaved against Asher's chest. The water, supplements, and what little he'd had to eat that morning, splattered over himself and Ash.

“Let it out. It's okay. I can clean it.” He kept his head braced against him, “We'll be there soon.”

“Asher!”

The shout was the only warning they got before the street before them was suddenly taken up by a sickly pale Deathclaw. It was huge: clawed hands spread so wide it nearly touched the building either side of the road, its long and dangerous tail was whip-like and cracked against the crumbling concrete. It roared and Asher skidded to an unsteady stop.

Mac heard him whisper a quiet shit before he was lowered quickly to the ground behind a rusted green bin. As the others started shooting and as the dogs started crowding the monster, Asher dragged Danse and Haylen to stand in front of Mac. He poised them there like a set of human meat shields with an unspoken order of don't you dare move before he ran into the fight against the giant lizard.

His head was pounding and his stomach churning against the noise of firing guns, steel meeting bone, and the growls and roars that made the ground beneath him vibrate. He tried to keep track of Asher as he dodged and weaved as gracefully as a dancer to keep away from the deadly claws but the light was too bright and the sparks of firing pins made his head swim.

Danse squatted in front of him with a worried set to his jaw and mouth, “You don't look too well.”

Mac wished he could roll his eyes and tell him to fuck off but nothing happened. He just let his eyes shut and willed the pounding in his head to stop.

Dimly, he was aware of someone touching his forehead. Vaguely, he was aware of being moved again. 

Distantly, he heard Asher speak before nothingness overtook him.

I hope you are enjoying this so far! Let me know what you think <3

Chapter Text

Everything felt…foggy. He was warm and comfortable, his limbs slowly tingling as his mind caught up with his thoughts, but he couldn't quite grasp at what was happening around him.

He had tried to squint his eyes open when he first came round but the light was much too bright and had felt like knives jabbing into his brain. Noises were muffled and awkward and, even when he tried to focus, it all shifted through his comprehension. Like smoke or fog or mist.

He wasn't in pain anymore: the bruises and breaks happily numb, the sharp pains in his stomach had abated, the raggedness of his chest easier to breathe through. Just the throb in his head remained when he tried to see.

He was aware that he wasn't alone. He could hear and feel the shuffling around him and, every once in a while, a hand would press to his face or carefully hold his hand. He felt a sharp scratch at one point just to the inside of the crook of his elbow and the flood of crackling heat that spread through his veins afterwards. Something pressed at his stomach but he simply couldn't move to curl away from it. It was a gentle press followed by a soft brush against his skin.

He had thought, when he first became aware, that he was dead: he had died in a room somewhere after people had hurt him. He had died with Hancock - not a future he had ever imagined before for the ghoul had always seemed so unreachable. He had died with his friend after they cried about…someone else?

Who…who was it?

But, then, his mind caught up to the scudding smoke in his brain. They had cried about Deacon, Erik, and they had cried about a baby. His baby.

When the gentle press came back to his stomach it was joined with a jolt of panic scorching up his back. He couldn't move. He couldn't scream at those hands to leave him alone. And, just as quickly as they had come, the hands left him again and he breathed easier.

He had cried about Duncan. Left alone someplace else and wondering where he'd gone.

He had cried for Asher.

Asher!

The jolt of panic was back as he strained to remember. As he strained to hear.

“...how much longer?”

Asher had come for him. They'd all been there; Deacon, Curie, Nick, Preston, Hancock, Cait…and Asher. 

He hadn't died.
He was made safe again.

“‘Opefully not too much longer, Monsieur.”

“Wake him up?”

“‘E ez weak. ‘E needs rest, Asher. Even when ‘e wakes, ‘e might not…”

“What do you need, Curie?”

“Things we simply do not ‘ave.”

What did they need? He could find it, he had been to so many places since leaving Little Lamplight, and had seen so much. He'd bet fifty caps he'd be able to find it.

“An incubator, ideally. Dopplers and steroids. Gases and a CPAP. A ventilator.”

“Okay.”

“Asher…”

“I said okay! We'll go back.”

“You don't ‘ave to.”

“I do and I will. For him. For them. It'll be fine…come with me?”

“Of course, Monsieur.”

There was a clatter and a loud noise of frustration and the sounds came easier, “What the fuck, Piper!?” 

Asher couldn't remember being more worried in his life. Mac lay in the bed in their room of the Castle and looked grey.

Curie fluttered over him constantly, so much so that Asher had given up trying to lay down with him and had, instead, brought an extra cot into the room for him to try and get some sleep. Dogmeat would settle on his chest like a great weighted blanket to pin him down but, every time Curie moved, Asher's eyes would open and track her: hand to Mac's face, fingers on his pulse, stethoscope to his belly. Each time, she'd nod before adjusting the line of fluids slowly being dripped into him.

He had an infection somewhere, she said, something might still be bleeding, she said, his brain might be swollen or bruised. Mights and maybes and ifs. 

He stood, the dogs followed. He hovered over his partner and tried to smooth the furrow between his brows out with his thumb before squatting beside the bed and carefully putting his hand on his chest.

“Asher.”

“Hmm?” He didn't bother looking round to her, he could feel her standing directly behind him.

“If…if ‘e doesn't improve. I vill ‘ave to take the baby out.”

“...I know.” He moved his hand to twine his fingers into Mac's, “It's too early, Curie.”

“Oui. Without specialised equipment, it is much too early. They will…die.”

“How much longer?” He couldn't make this decision without him. He couldn't have Curie do this only for Mac to wake up and hate them. He couldn't have both of them die.

“‘Opefully not too much longer, Monsieur.”

Hopefully. Maybe. If. Perhaps.
We don't know.

“Wake him up?”

“‘E ez weak. ‘E needs rest, Asher. Even when ‘e wakes, ‘e might not…”

Mights and maybe and ifs. All he knew was that he couldn’t do this without him; not the kids, not the house, not the war, not life. He couldn’t move through this world without him by his side, he’d said that they could take on anything this world threw at them if they had each other.
He also knew that he wouldn’t be able to face anything if Mac woke up and knew he didn’t try everything in his power to make it better, “What do you need, Curie?”

“Things we simply do not ‘ave.” She paused as she lay her hand over Mac’s belly and Asher was patient in his waiting for her to continue. She was stalling and he knew that whatever she was thinking, she was trying to spare him, “An incubator, ideally. Dopplers and steroids. Gases and a CPAP. A ventilator.”

The Institute. He hadn’t stepped foot in the place in nearly two years and he knew what waited for him there. Memories and pain. Tight bands around his chest and a fuzziness in his head as his vision blacked out. Like it had last time he tried to help out. There was a reason he sent teams and allowed Desdemona and Glory in there without him.

He knew what waited for him there. Hidden way down deep. Switched off and locked away. 

But he had to. 

“Okay.”

“Asher…”

“I said okay! We'll go back.”

“You don't ‘ave to.”

“I do and I will. For him. For them.” He stood and shook off the goosebumps. Just another mission. Another quest…without Robbie. “It'll be fine…come with me?”

“Of course, Monsieur.”

He nodded and moved to begin the preparations for them to leave. Getting there would be easy: his PipBoy was still linked to the relay. Getting out, again, would be easy, but not if they had equipment to bring back. He’d have to call in more people to cart anything back without damage through the opening they’d made like a great chute from the CIT ruins directly into the relay room. The Institute might not even have what they needed but he had to try and Curie would know precisely what would be useful and what wouldn’t. They’d be able to bag it all to keep it waterproof and tie it with ropes to a Brahmin. Maybe. If. Perhaps.

“Curie, who’s best to watch over him whilst we’re gone?”

Her brow scrunched as whatever processes in her brain whirled through the exhaustive vats of information she had in there: every doctor and medic they knew, every Minuteman, every member of their family, anyone who had a grain of medical knowledge, “Ze closest person at present who I believed to be ze most qualified: Paladin Danse.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

She laughed, “‘E ez not a Paladin for nothing, Asher.”

“He is not a midwife.”

“Neither am I, technically, though I ‘ave delivered very many children by now.”

“He’s part of the reason he’s ended up in that bed in the first place!”

Her head tilted to one side with a frown, “Oui, ‘e ‘vas there, ‘e didn’t stop it…but what other choice do we ‘ave? Robbie can not come with me and you can’t go there without me. We both know this.”

He wanted to tear his hair out. He brushed his fingers through the long strands and huffed when they caught in knots and unwinding twists, “Fuck…fine.”
He crossed the room and slammed the door wide open: startling the guard on duty there, “Get Paladin Danse for me pl - what the fuck, Piper!?”

She was rushing over with her coat flapping in the wind and flanked by Hancock and Nick, “Blue! How is he? What the fuck is going on?”

“Wha - what do you mean what’s going on? Where’s Duncan?”

“Dad!” His son whirled past people and was sprinting down the corridor as fast as his little legs could carry him and Asher wanted to ram his fist into a nearby wall. They were going to war. The enemy across the water with mortar fire trained on their giant blimp ready to fire at a minutes notice. And, now, along with his practically helpless partner and unborn in the line of fire, his seven year old was launching himself into his arms. He scooped him up and glared at Piper.

“Piper.”

“He missed you! You left home so quickly and next thing we know the majority of the guard are packing up to follow. The radio is down and he wouldn't stop crying. Jeez, Blue, what was I meant to do?”

He breathed deep through his nose and out through his mouth as Duncan clinged to his shoulders, “We're going to war, Piper -”

“All the more reason for me to be here then.”

He put Duncan down as the guard he sent off to find the Paladin approached with said man in tow, “I've got to -”

“Daddy?”

He spun on his heels just in time to see Duncan disappear into the doorway that led to Mac, “Fuck. Duncan, wait.” But he was already gone.

He followed him into the room and watched him approach the bed that held his father. Mac still looked too grey and too still; bruising to his face that hadn't quite gone away, his arm still splinted, a leg propped up, his bare chest wrapped tight to keep his ribs steady, his bruised belly on show. 

Duncan saw it all and, as quiet as he were capable, he sat on the bed by Mac's shoulders. Asher continued to watch even as he spoke over his shoulder to the others that had congregated in the doorway, he could hear John angrily muttering under his breath, “Danse, you have some medical knowledge, yes?”

He shifted awkwardly, “Yes…”

“You’re to watch MacCready. Keep him stable. Me and Curie need to leave for a few days.”

Duncan’s head snapped up and he scrambled off the bed, “I’m coming too!”

“Duncan -”

“No! I want to help daddy too!” He moved away when Asher stepped forward and kept moving towards the back wall of the room. There, he picked up his father’s rifle and slung it over his shoulder in an easy practiced motion, “I’m coming too. I can do it.”

He was weak for this boy. It was so hard to say no to him but, usually, the yes that followed his son's demands was reserved for sweets, more time outside, more caps for a new toy a trader brought, a later night or shooting lesson, “Duncan, this isn’t a trip to Sanctuary.”

“I’m not dumb and I’m not a baby!”

He was about to argue back. About to explain that where he was going was no place for a child and, as soon as he was back, he’d be getting Duncan escorted back home to safety, but movement from the bed caught his attention.
Mac was shifting, the furrow back between his eyebrows, and one brilliantly blue eye blinking open. He was by his side in a second with Duncan hot on his heels, “Robbie? Love…”

His voice was rasping and quiet so Asher bent his head to hear, “Take…take him with you. Don’t leave him here…”

“Robbie.”

He was already asleep again and Curie rushed forward to check him over, “Asher, we must go quickly.”

“What did he say, Sunshine? Is he okay?”

He didn’t look around as he spoke into Mac’s chest with one arm coming up to grip Duncan by the arm, “Duncan stays with me.” He stood and kept Duncan pressed to his side, “Danse, if I return and he isn’t here…our agreement is void and the onus moves to my son, understand?”

“Aye, General.”

He grabbed his bag and hauled it up before looking at the rest of them, “Where you going, Charmer?”

He breathed deep and shut his eyes. He clicked his tongue and the dogs scattered around the room came to heel, “Stay with Robbie, lads. Stay.” They huffed; Dogmeat and Jekyll carefully curling up on the bed, the others in various states of readiness as they wandered between legs to find spots to wait. Then, he answered Deacon, “We’re going to the Institute. There might be things there to help. Preston.”

He stepped forward, dark skin as pale as it could be, “Yeah, Ash.”

“Send an ambassador to the Prydwen with terms for their surrender: I want Maxson to give his people a chance to…jump ship, as it were. He can surrender peacefully or face the Commonwealth. Send word to Porter to get the mercs ready and moving. Get the settlements locked down and all the Power Armour here.”

“Aye, sir.” In a flurry of heavy old grey cotton, he left to complete his orders.

“Cait.”

“Yeah.”

“Go to weapons storage two,” She pulled a face, “I know, get the Sentry back online and positioned by the main wall. John and Deacon, go to Goodneighbor and get Fahrenheit and Kleo and anyone else willing to take on the tin cans.”

“On it, brother.”

“Nick, I want you to stay here and watch Danse. He is not to be left alone for a moment with Mac, got it?” Nick didn’t reply but moved deeper into the room with his eerie glowing eyes trained on the Paladin, “Piper: there’s two other Brotherhood members here, put them to work and see what you can get out of them.”

He was about to take Curie's hand before calling out again as everyone started to shuffle away, “Oh, and someone get Longfellow on the line. Send word to DiMA and Avery, see if they fancy a scuffle.” Again, he made an aborted movement to take Curie, but instead moved back to Mac.

He brought Duncan with him as he knelt by the bed and opened the pocket that held the toy soldier. He took the little figurine out and lay it gently above his head and ran a hand through his braids and beads, “Look after him.”

Then, he removed the box that he had carried for months and months: before all this had happened, before he knew about the baby, before Mac had even got sick, he had carried this box. Hancock had come with him to find it under the guise of a mission to take out some ferals: an in and out job, love. Not worth your effort. Stay with Duncan.
They’d gone to Fallon's and, yes, had taken out some ferals merely by coincidence. They had found the remains of the jewelry store and spent a full day combing through every piece of silver and gold and tiny little leftover gem:

“What about this one, Sunshine?” He held up an old silver ring with a scattering of blue gems embedded into the band.

“Hmm, too flashy. He’s actually way more low maintenance than he lets on, y'know?”

“Uh huh.” He put the ring back.

“No, seriously, do you know how long it took for me to talk him into having just stuff?” He placed a chain to one side, “He said ‘why? It’s just more crap to wash.’ and then it took months for him to let me sew up the bigger tears in his duster.”

“He likes looking raggedy.” John hummed and draped himself in some old lady pearl necklace.

They carried on their search, snickering at the more gaudy pieces and cooing at the nicer ones, some were packed away for birthdays and celebrations for the others.
Then they found it, the perfect little thing.

He opened the box and Duncan ahh’d in his ear at the gold and silver wrapped band with a singular line of cut glitter striking through the metal, “You know, Dunc, this isn’t exactly how I wanted to do this.”

“He’ll like it. He’ll see it when he wakes up and swear, I bet you all the caps in the jar.”

He laughed, “You’re on, kid. Okay, help me.”

Duncan gently pulled Mac’s hand closer to them and giggled when Asher slipped the ring onto his finger, “Do you not have one?”

“I do. But, he’s not said yes yet, has he?” He carefully kissed Mac’s face, “See you in a few days, love.” And stood with Duncan tucked back into his side.

Curie held his arm as he flicked the PipBoy to life and started typing in the codes and coordinates he’d memorised long ago. He flicked to the signal that would link him to the relay and then the smell of Ozone filled the air. He started counting down and shut his eyes. Blue-white light flickered, the hair rose on his neck and arms, Duncan squeaked. And, then, the black tightness of nothingness. Squeezing and pulling as their atoms were dissolved to be rearranged across the city. 

He stumbled as his feet met solid ground but righted himself quickly to keep Curie and Duncan steady against him. He blinked in the sudden bright white of the room around him and snorted at what he saw. It was much the same; polished white walls, white floors, shining screens of terminals and tech, but there were additions from the last time he’d be here. Three flags fluttered on the stirred air at their arrival; The blue and grey of the Minutemen, the yellow and white of the Railroad, and, surprisingly, the red of the Brotherhood. The primary colours were stark against all the neutral surrounding them and it made this entrance feel less…awful.

Duncan squirmed and begged to be let down. His big blue eyes were wide with wonder, “Wow, why don;t we live here? This is awesome.”

“You wanna be underground forever, kid?”

He pulled a face as Curie laughed, “Ew, no. We’re underground?”

“Mhmm.”

This was good. It was fine. There was colour, there was Duncan. Distractions against the hair prickling along his back and the tingle of goosebumps.
He’d be fine. He couldn’t afford to let this place affect him right now. Get in, get what they needed, get out.

He moved to a nearby tannoy and picked up the receiver, the crackle echoed through the speakers hidden in the walls and ceilings all throughout the Institute, “This is General Lilysen, please can Desdemona and Glory meet me and my team in the medical wing. Thank you.” He hung up and motioned for Duncan and Curie to hurry along and follow, “Duncan.”

“Yeah, dad.” His head was whipping back and forth as he tried to take in everything as they walked out of the relay room. He ran to a bannister overlooking a few floors below and Asher grabbed the hem of his shirt.

“This place is not a game, sweet thing. Do not wander around without me, you wanna look at something or touch something? Ask, first. Okay?”

“Uh huh.” His attention had been grabbed by a person he could just see way in the distance on the other side of the silo. Hundreds and hundreds of feet away. Hundreds and hundreds of feet below. The Institute stretched like a great chasm all around them; white walls, white floors, white synths scuttling from one place to the next. Green fake trees and plants dotted areas here and there. Scorch marks and bullet holes from a war long finished.
There were no people living here anymore. No flesh and blood, at least, but there were older generation synths still milling around. They were non-violent and continued a cycle that had been set up by their makers upon their creation. The Railroad had tried to reset them but, unfortunately, out of every ten synths able to break through their programming, one couldn’t. It had been decided to simply leave them in this cycle until more progress could be made for them. Desdemona wouldn’t let any synth be simply switched off if it wasn’t a threat.
Any synth except one, that is.

“Dad.”

“Yeah, bud.”

“Why are we here?”

Curie answered for him, “To ‘elp your father. Ve need some very special equipment and we ‘ope that some is ‘ere.”

“For the baby?”

“Oui.”

Duncan nodded and hefted the rifle still slung on his back with a determined set to his jaw, “We got this, dad. Easy.”

No ifs or maybes or mights. Just the simple determination of a seven year old boy. The simple sheer force of a big brother ready to go to war. His hair glinted in the white light: the forest green bead a beacon amongst all the others.

I hope you are continuing to enjoy :)
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