Chapter Text
Some wounds close. Some.
Others fester and bleed, every movement of muscle, sinew, and bone causing the breach to widen, the expanse of injury to grow. Red and raw. In quiet times, in sleep, in dreams, maybe the trauma tries to mend, edges of flesh stitching back together. The body wants to return to a state where it isn't perpetually seeping. It wants to be whole.
Vishnu Weiss stands in front of the thawing corpse of his husband, not knowing which type of wound his will prove to be.
There's not much to his brief, scattered memory of what transpired. Only that he woke to the sound of Nate screaming, the grotesque tableaux of Nate dying. The man with the scar on his face and someone dressed all in white, like a Christian angel, taking the baby away. He can't remember if Shaun cried too. But he remembers Nate screaming.
Nate’s body stands upright, frozen-hard, drooping slowly as he flash-defrosts. His brown eyes start to dull. There's no tension in his body to hold it straight. The corpse pitches forward, but doesn't fall from the pod.
Weiss takes Nate’s left hand, sliding his wedding ring off his thick finger. He only intends to keep it close, in his pocket or around his neck, if he can find a string or cord. He needs it now more than Nate does. Because Nate is gone. He hopes Nate is with his God. He doesn't know where Shaun is.
Staring at the gold in his palm, Weiss’ chest seizes, making everything around him faint and dull. He never notices the heaviness of his own band, too accustomed to the feel of it on his finger. But it is heavy, dense. Putting Nate’s ring to past his lips, he holds it between his teeth, then pushes it further back onto his tongue. Inert, it tastes like nothing. Weiss thinks about swallowing it down, feeling the scrape of it moving down his throat. Running his tongue against the edges, they are sharper than he expects. Five years, Nate wore this ring. If Weiss had been a better man, he may have worn it for longer.
He wonders if he would choke on it, if he tries to swallow. If he could die that way, esophagus wrapped around Nate’s wedding band. Or, if he doesn't choke, whether Nate would always be inside of him this way, melding in with his internal organs, lodged against his ribs. Every time he breathed, the ring could remind him of his failures.
Weiss swallows his saliva, but not the ring. He doesn't want to die, not really. Reaching into his mouth, he pulls the ring back out. Moist with spit, the ring stares back.
Going for Nate’s neck, Weiss finds it bare under the collar of his vault suit. Of course, Nate stopped wearing his tags at all upon discharge. Even before, he wouldn't wear them at home, unless Weiss asked, still chasing that hint of perversion that got them both in trouble at 18. Got Weiss kicked out of the army, but he persuaded the inquiry that Nate was blameless.
The morning of the bombs, the tags would have been tucked in with Nate’s socks, top drawer of his dresser. He never intended on putting them on again.
Weiss sits on the vault floor, knees bent, before Nate’s corpse, and undoes the laces to his left boot, pulling the strands through the eyelets, two holes down. He puts the ring on the lace, then threads them through the holes again, knotting the bow firmly in place. This way, he runs no risk of losing the ring from the pocket of his vault suit.
He doesn't know today's date. Or what will come tomorrow. He knows Nate is dead and Shaun is gone. He knows the vault smells of sparks and decay. The other pods hold nothing but corpses. There’s a sharp pain at his temple. Reaching into his pockets, he finds them empty. Shit. Shit, right.
“Nate. I love you. I'll find Shaun. I promise,” getting up, he touches the side of Nate’s face. It's cold, but still soft. Nate had shaved that morning. Weiss hadn't yet, waiting for his husband to finish getting ready first. He draws in a ragged breath. “I'll find him.” And in another moment of desperation, he kisses blue-tinged lips, without thinking how morbid he must be.
--
Codsworth chatters about buffing the floors as Weiss rips through the remains of the bathroom. Fuck, fuck. All the cabinets, or rather, what remains of them, are empty. Broken glass and shattered porcelain. Their house is in shambles; Sanctuary is a ruin. The year is 2287, according to the pipboy now on Weiss’ wrist. Weiss feels ready to vomit and his head is an overripe fruit threatening to burst.
Frantically, he tries the bedroom next. His bedside table is smashed, but he picks through the wood debris. Nothing, just a burnt out copy of Dostoevsky that he had been reading through the night before. There's no tin.
“I remained vigilant, Sir! I promise. But I could not keep my sensors on every “new door” of your home while you were away,” Codsworth apologizes.
Weiss punches at the nearest wall, hoping for a jolt of pain that will dull the throb in his head. The wall shakes in response, but doesn't break. “I'll have to try the other houses.” He grabs his temple, “shit, shit.” Inside the vault there had been a single tin, two pills, one standard dose. Barely one dose for a man as large as Weiss. But that was three hours ago now, and trying to play kick-the-cockroach climbing out of the vault made Weiss burn through the mentats faster than he would normally. The edges of withdrawal keep closing down on him.
Searching four houses, he finds one tin. A full one, with the clear sticky tape still intact around the pack, That's twelve pills, six doses. The kind of thing nice, suburban families keep around the house in case they might need it. Emergency use. Not enough for someone like Weiss. Someone like an addict.
Codsworth suggests heading to Concord. That there might be aid there, and people. Yeah, and at least the pharmacy. But fuck, fuck. The world is in ruins and everything has been looted. Two hundred years of broken, while Weiss slept. But Weiss has got to try, because he can't keep his promise to Nate otherwise.
Nate.
Before leaving Sanctuary, there's one last thing. He goes to Nate’s sock drawer, pulling it open, Weiss rifles through the contents. He finds Nate’s tags on a ball chain at the bottom. Pulling them out, Weiss doesn't realize until he has them in his palm that there are two sets tangled together.
LAVENDA
NATHAN
834-70-2391
RH NEGATIVE
JEWISH
WEISS
VISHNU
821-70-1873
RH NEGATIVE
NONE
Swallowing, he splits the sets up, putting one tag of his, one of Nate’s, back onto the ball chain. The loose tags he shoves back into the drawer. The chain sits heavy in his pocket as he walks back up the hill to 111. Cigarettes, he's found plenty of cigarettes. He lights one on his way, sticking it between his lips. Before Shaun came, he’d given up smoking. For now, it seems pointless to deny himself. It does enough to calm his nerves.
He keeps his hands in his pockets, one wrapped around the tin, the other around the tags. Weiss walks all the way back to Nate’s undignified grave. One day, he’ll make it back, take the time to bury his husband.
The vault is getting warmer. The bodies will start to rot. Unhooking the chain clasp, Weiss steps towards the pod. He slips his hands around Nate’s neck, fastening the clasp before tucking the tags into Nate’s suit, pressed against his chest.
--
Before he can leave for Concord, Weiss has to be able to defend himself. Without being able to dose, he can barely see straight. There’s this white light at the back of his skull that just won't fade.
He wears Nate’s ring on a leather cord knotted around his neck. Standing at the back of the house that used to be his home, Weiss re-learns to shoot. All he has for practice is a rusty 10mm and a few dozen rounds he swiped from the vault. He shoots, and shoots, his aim only marginally improving. Fifteen years ago, no, two hundred and twenty-five years ago, he wasn't such a terrible shot. But that was with laser and young eyes. That was without this searing pain.
“I'm going, now,” he barks at Codsworth, throwing down the pistol in the dirt.
“But, Sir!” Codsworth floats behind him, the gears inside him obnoxiously loud in the stillness of the setting sun. “It is nearly nightfall. Traveling now would be ill advised. Perhaps in the morning?”
Weiss snaps his head around, ready to tear Codsworth’s spindly arms off, if that's what it takes to get the robot to shut the fuck up. “Wait for what?” He seethes, “there is nothing here for me. I'm going, I'm fucking leaving.”
“Sir, this will always be your home.”
“No. This is not my home,” he bites. He's not sure this ever was his home, even when it was white and blue and red and new. Filled with flowers and smiling children with scraped knees. What idyllic bliss. Even then, Sanctuary wasn't his home. Nate was his home. He'd come here so he and Nate could play fucking house. Because everything was supposed to be perfect now.
Codsworth doesn't follow Weiss over the bridge. Good. Fucking great. Weiss will be fine without the domestic assistant. He’ll stick to the shadows and work his way to Concord. It won't matter that he doesn't have a fucking gun at his hip. And the darkness means he won't be quite so blind.
It should have been him, who died inside the hill. Had Nate lived instead, he wouldn’t have woken crippled. Nate is about done with PT. Nate can shoot, Nate can run, Nate can punch through a fucking wall. Nate’s a big fucking war hero with new legs who just wants to come home and play house-husband rather than putting fucking bullets into fucking Communists. Nate isn’t crippled by a shoddy addiction to pills that were so easy to procure before the bombs fell. Used to buy them at the pharmacy. Made Weiss more alert, more attentive to little details in long rambling cases.
Nate could. Nate was. Past tense. Fuck.
--
Dogmeat, the mutt from outside the Red Rocket, trots by Weiss’ right side the whole trip from Concord back to Sanctuary. On his left, Sturges babbles on about the mechanics of turning cars into homes. How to strip the steel as efficiently as possible, getting reasonably sized pieces that can then be pounded out into flat sheets. They work better as roofs than as walls, but as the years tick by, they have to be less and less choosy.
Garvey, a handsome man with deep lines set into his otherwise young face, leads them onwards. The pace he sets is really the one Mamma Murphy can keep. She’s spry for an old woman, but she is old. Back at the museum, she said she could see Weiss’ future, at least some of the tangled cords of fate. He brushed her off, a little, because he doesn’t believe in fate. He can’t believe in a world where Nate is dead and he’s alive.
He tries to keep his attention on what Sturges says, offering up enough encouragement so that he’ll keep talking. Weiss likes the way Sturges talks with his hands, his excitement at explaining how joints fit together, the other things he could build if only he had the materials. The projects he had in process before they had to leave Quincy.
“I could find them for you? The materials, I mean,” Weiss takes the cigarette out from between his lips, blowing smoke away from Struges.
Sturges’ face brightens in the setting sun. He touches against Weiss’ arm, however briefly. “That would really help our efforts to rebuild. If Mama Murphy is right, and Sanctuary is the place for us, we can really make a go at a settlement. Something that will grow and last. I’ll make you a list, once we’re there, of what I’ll need?”
“Of course,” Weiss smiles, brushing the tips of his fingers across Sturges’ bicep.
--
“We’ll be quiet,” Weiss presses the words to the side of Sturges’ head, just above his ear. He’s already making his way to the floor, kneeling against the broken floorboards, between Sturges’ legs.
Sturges’ arms settle on Weiss’ shoulders. Nodding, Sturges exhales. It’s the loudest thing in the room.
They’ve had to split up across Sanctuary to find enough beds with enough ceilings over their heads. Weiss and Sturges are in the living room of the Joinson’s home. Garvey is in the bedroom. Technically, there’s a mattress in the Gibb’s home that Weiss is going to take. But right now, this is where he wants to be, with Sturges’ ass at the edge of the couch, his pants falling open as he tugs at the zipper.
“You’re just, really beautiful, okay?” And Weiss means that. The world around them is dark, darker than Weiss could have imagined in his old life. But Sturges isn’t. Sturges has dreams and ambition, a plan for what he can accomplish, with the help of others. “Let me take care of you.”
Reaching into Sturges’ pants, he draws out his cock. Half-hard, but lovely all the same. He reaches up to kiss at Sturges’ lips, trying to push back any lingering hesitation. Folding back down onto his long legs, Weiss dips his head forward, throating Sturges’ cock. He doesn’t have to use his hands, planting them instead on Sturges’ still-covered thighs. Digging his nails down, Weiss keeps his mouth soft and wet as he sucks. He hums at the pleasure of it. Of already knowing he’ll make Sturges come.
Weiss pushes Sturges’ cock down his throat until his nose brushes against dark hair at the root. Sturges lets out a quiet, garbled groan. Hands flying into Weiss’ long hair, twining around dark strands. When Struges pulls, Weiss’ hair comes loose from its tie. Yes, yes. Sturges’ cock is thick around his spread lips, and the vocalized edges of his pleasure are sweet. Weiss bobs and bobs, raking his tongue underneath until Sturges shudders, coming in thick, bitter ropes against the back of Weiss’ palate.
Coming up to kneel, Weiss kisses Sturges fiercely as he can manage, letting cum run from his mouth back into Struges, making him taste himself. He keeps their lips tight until Sturges swallows his own cum. He shudders when he does, arms folding around Weiss’ neck.
Weiss twists their bodies against the couch until he lies atop Sturges’ broader frame. Grinding down onto Sturges’ softening cock, he makes his own desire apparent. He keeps his legs spread around Sturges’ hips, their bodies pressed as close as he can manage. Lips and teeth at Sturges’ more docile body. “Can I put my cock in your mouth?” he whispers, “would you like that?”
Nodding, Sturges starts to shift his weight, trying to get out from under Weiss. Weiss presses his palms flat to Sturges’ shoulders, holding him down. Under his hands, Sturges is still hard and warm. Sturdy, lovely.
“Stay like this, on your back, okay?”
Even in the darkness, Weiss can make out the quizzical look on Sturges’ face.
“Trust me,” Weiss smiles.
He pulls down the zipper of his vault suit as far as it will go. Struges lifts his hands to Weiss’ chest, dancing fingertips over top of the singlet he wears under the suit. Weiss pulls out his erection, careful to avoid the snag of the zipper, and gives it a few quick strokes to make sure it’s hard. He won’t last for long.
“Hold on to my hips,” Weiss takes Sturges’ hands from his chest, instead guiding them over his pelvis and curling Sturges’ fingers there. “Squeeze if you can’t breathe, okay? Or if you need me to stop. For any reason.”
“Okay,” Sturges keeps his hands in place as Weiss moves up his body.
Positioning his cock over Sturges’ mouth, he angles his hips until he can push inside. The angle isn’t quite right at first, but Struges shifts against the couch, then Weiss does above him, and it’s perfect. Fisting Sturges’ hair in one hand, Weiss starts rocking his hips, fucking into Struges’ open mouth until he starts to gag, then pulling back. He doesn’t push Struges very far, doesn’t test him. But fuck, fuck it feels good. Looking down, he can see Sturges’ wide eyes between his thighs. Weiss pulls again at his hair, looking away. The sight is just too good.
“Fucking gorgeous,” Weiss pants.
--
Weiss likes Valentine. He likes him a lot. Smart, attentive, a real problem solver. The four of them: Weiss, Piper, Valentine, and Ellie, spread out across the detective agency, taking up all available chairs, plus Piper perched on the edge of Val’s desk.
“It has to be Kellogg! So I don’t know what we’re waiting for,” Piper throws her hands up. “We backtrack to Sanctuary grab Weiss’ dog. Get him Kellogg’s scent, follow the trail.”
Val taps off ash. The tray is nearly full. Weiss and Val have been chain smoking through the whole conversation, trying to devise a plan of action that is actually actionable.
“The guy is the most feared merc in the Commonwealth already. Now we’ve got real evidence that he’s on the Institute payroll. We’re going to need more backup than what we’ve got.”
“Then we get Preston too?” Piper suggests.
Weiss shakes his head, “No, not Garvey. He’s too valuable. Which, by the way, you’re too valuable, Piper, you’re not coming either.”
“Oh like hell, is this your fucked up chivalry again? Because I’ll have you know, I was risking my hide long before you showed up, Blue.” Piper looks about ready to deck him at the suggestion.
They’ve been fooling around, a little, him and Piper. Nothing serious, she knows it, he knows it. But it’s been fun. She’s a petite little thing, just breaking 5’3”. He towers over her, and one finger dipped inside her cunt with a string of lewd suggestions in her ear gets her ludicrously wet. He likes the way she clenches around his fingers when she comes. Likes how quickly she took to sticking her fingers inside of him too. He won’t put his cock in her, though. Weiss hasn’t seen a fucking condom since he crawled out of the hill. And he would never put her at risk that way. He’ll lick her pussy until she screams. He’ll ask her to put three fingers into him while he’s up on all fours, ass in the air. But no, he won’t stick his cock in her. She thinks it’s chivalry. He thinks it’s practical.
“It’s not that. We need you tracking additional leads while we work on Kellogg. First and foremost, this is sounding like Val and I need to go find a merc. You know, combat support.” It’s been weeks, but Weiss is no more assured of his own battle prowess. Sure, he’s not dead, and he’s come up with a combination of tossed together ideas (and a laser pistol) that he can execute, given his middling skill. It’s not pretty, but it works. Won’t work against someone like Kellogg, though. “We’ll find the merc. But Piper, I need you to find us more leads, if Dogmeat can’t do this.”
Val has a habit of smoking his sticks all the way down to the filter. Weiss can’t do that. He puts his out just as soon as the heat starts reaching his fingertips.
“We can’t just bring in a gun for hire on this, Weiss,” Val argues. “We need to make sure they can be trusted.”
“Okay, okay,” Weiss skitters, nodding. “So, Piper, how about you look for something, a test. We look for the merc, you look for a trial. Val will make the call on whether or not the merc will work? Yeah?”
Piper frowns, “Fine.”