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Fallout: Familiar faces 31

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Coming awake the next morning was an easy thing to do, as Ash blinked into what seemed to be a pillow. She turned a bit, frowning at the roof, feeling a bit funny all over. She recognized the place almost immediately, even if it made her wonder how the heck she had gotten to Henry’s office. The last she recalled was… her and Dean avoiding a bighorner.
Ash sat up, reaching to rub the back of her head almost instantly, as the headache came over her like a wave.

“Ow…” she muttered afterwards, lifting her head to look around.

Speaking of Dean, where was he? Or anyone else for that matter.

Groaning, she got up from the bed, feeling a bit stiff and cold oddly enough. Even her skin seemed to itch a bit. Scratching her bare arm, since someone had removed her jacket, probably to treat her, she walked out of the doctor’s office. There were some mutants nearby, though none paid her any particular attention as she leant on the doorframe, sighing. She felt really out of it and she hated that, especially in a place were weakness could be frowned upon; even if she was welcome among the mutants.

Someone moved next to her suddenly, grabbing her right arm where she had been holding her hand already. She couldn’t hide the sigh of relief when she realized it was Dean who quickly put his other hand over her shoulder, as if steadying her in her surprise.

“About bloody time you woke up,” he frowned, though his gentle grip told her that he wasn’t exactly annoyed over anything.

“What? You missed me?” she teased him.

“Even your company beats… these brutes,” he replied after a few moments. He was very relieved to be honest but he’d rather the girl didn’t know that. He guided her back into the office and made her sit down on the bed’s edge, since she didn’t seem entirely steady and he’d rather she didn’t faint and fall again.

“What happened to me? Did that bighorner get to us or what?” Ash asked, grimacing as she touched her face, feeling the soreness.

“You promptly walked off a slope and hit your head,” Dean explained drily. “Barely managed to get you here before you fainted again right outside Jacobstown.”
He paused, looking towards the hall for a moment.

“That’s when your friend Marcus appeared with a guard,” he continued. Ash arched an eyebrow, pausing with feeling over her face.

“Did you know…?” she asked slowly.

“I did not. Luckily they explained things quickly; else I would probably have shot them. They brought you to Henry. He suspected you had a concussion and an… allergic reaction. You’ve been out for over a day.”

“Wait, back up. You were going to shoot at mutants? With your pistol?”

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned about the allergy?”

“No, you possibly getting yourself killed shooting at mutants with a pistol is more alarming.”

“Well, what was I going to do? You were to no help, knocked out cold by my feet! Someone had to protect y- …me. I mean me.”

That stupid girl really brought out the worst in him; he huffed to himself after that obvious blunder. Ash had arched both eyebrows at him now but she had no chance to reply when a nightkin stormed inside the room.

“Grandma came as soon as she heard you were here, dearie!” Lily Bowen called loudly, her straw hat tilted to the side more than it usually was. Judging by the dirt on her she had probably been herding bighorners somewhere the last days.

“I’m fine, Lily,” Ash smiled briefly in hope to alleviate Lily’s concerns.
“Grandma…?” Dean asked quietly as he made a confused face.

“Dean here brought me here safely,” Ash continued, gesturing with his head to the ghoul. She had barely finished the sentence when Lily abruptly lifted up Dean from the floor in a tight bear hug, threatening to break his back no doubt.

“Gah! Let me go at once, you barmy… beast!” he shouted in between choking for breath and generally coughing and throwing a fit. Ash had backed up in the bed in a hurry by now as if to avoid the mere proximity of the hug; first shocked and then bemused as Lily was just expressing her gratitude to Dean. Whether he liked it or not.

“Lily… you’re choking him,” she finally said out loud. Lily gave her a quick look before she dropped Dean as abruptly as she had grabbed him, giving him a chance to regain some much needed air as he clutched his chest, almost bent over. Ash got back up from the bed, touching Dean’s shoulder until she got a reassured hand wave from him as he straightened up again, brushing off the dirt that Lily had basically planted on him.

“Good man that! Is he your husband?”

“What? No. No, he’s not!” Ash protested quickly.

“Good to know the very idea seems less pleasant to you than having a shotgun in your face…” Dean remarked coolly, as Ash glared at him, as flustered as she was.

“Such a shame, you’d make a nice couple,” Lily continued thoughtfully. “Heavens know you could need a man to look out after you, dearie! It would save your grandma a lot of concern.”

“Are you going to explain the grandma thing?”

“Lily, why don’t you go tell Marcus I’m fine, in case he also worries?” Ash said slowly.

“Oh, don’t worry! I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.”

Lily marched out from the room, leaving Dean and Ash in an uncomfortable silence, as the latter sat back down on the bed, sighing in annoyance. Lily’s honesty and lack of subtlety had never made her this embarrassed before.

“So…” Dean started, folding his arms across his chest. The whole situation had him more amused than anything else. Which concerned him, he was more and more forgetting Ash’s gold theft and he wasn’t sure he should just drop it altogether or not.

“I think I remind her of one of her lost grandchildren, that’s why she insists on calling herself grandma near me,” Ash explained before Dean could expand on whatever question he had. “She’s very… protective.”

“And impulsive,” he added, rubbing his back momentarily. “Among other things.”

“…Yeah, I need food,” Ash said suddenly, getting up again and leaving the room in a hurry. Dean followed; he had nothing better to do anyway and frankly he didn’t want to bump into Lily somewhere again, alone.






While Dean and Ash ate the food they had brought with them from New Vegas, both Marcus and Henry stopped by the main hall where they had decided to eat. Marcus mostly to make sure Ash was in fact alright now and Henry to make a quick check up before confirming that everything was fine and the allergic reaction, if it had been that, was mostly gone. He had left again with the advice to avoid needlessly running into the plant life until she could find out which plant had caused the problem. Unless it had been an insect responsible for the reaction in which case she just had to be lucky to avoid it again.

“You know, when you get back to New Vegas you should get a proper doctor to look you over,” Dean commented drily shortly after Henry had left them.

“Perhaps. It’s only ever happened here and once… I don’t come here too often,” Ash shrugged, too busy wolfing down the food to really bother talking.

“Feels a bit ironic to be taken down by a plant or bug when I survived a gunshot to the head though,” she chuckled.

“That’s what I said too. You are one lucky human I guess, dearie.”

“No, Dean. Just no,” Ash warned him. “So… what have you been doing while I was out for the count? Avoiding the mutants I guess?”

“As much as I could; difficult in a place swarming with them. I had enough with God… or Dog, whichever. I did, however, get a chance to look around a bit. There’s some very old things here, before the bombs even.”

“Oh? Anything related to you?”

“Some posters… few holotapes. An old magazine titled ‘Stars’. That time’s… worst gossip provoker.”

“Really? I need to see that!”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No.”
“I’ll fetch Lily.”

“Argh, fine.”

“That’s settled then, come now.”

Dean sighed, but went to lead her to the right room; a large one with several sofas and chairs. There were remains of a fireplace by one of the walls and shelves with old books. He pulled out some things from one of the shelves, tucked in between the books, before dropping them off on one of the sofas.

Ash was fast with grabbing the magazine he had brought out too, sitting down on the sofa to read it. Dean was slower, since he was more bothered by the whole situation as opposed to Ash’s amusement. She flipped through a few pages before pausing to read.

“’Dean Domino, a star of our times or a menace?’ I see you were just as charming back then as now,” she noted amusedly.

“Hardly mattered. I entertained a lot of people and those that saw my talent wouldn’t waste time commenting on my… methods,” he frowned.

“And look. Already back then you threatened people! This interviewer was told to ‘take a hike in hell’. And this one-“

Dean yanked the magazine out of her hands, narrowing his eyes at her before unfolding it to read himself.

“How about ‘this devilishly charming singer will live on in our hearts for years to come’?” he asked.

“Disgustingly nice. How much did you pay them to say that?”

“She wasn’t paid anything.”

“A she, huh? I don’t want to know what you did then.”

Dean rolled his eyes, before glancing at Ash as she grabbed one of the holotapes.

“Old songs?” she asked.

“I think so.”

She flipped between the holotapes, although it did her little good since they weren’t marked with names. She put them back down again, except for one that she looked at for a bit.

“Would you mind if I kept one?” she asked him as he looked back up from the magazine.

“Why would you?” he asked.

“You won’t sing for me so I’m grabbing the next best thing I can,” she shrugged.

“Fine.” If she wanted to listen to him even when he wasn’t there, that was her prerogative. Although a bit of him felt some nostalgic pride at it.

“Thanks. And stop hogging that magazine, you’ve already read it, no?” she smirked, as she yanked it from him again. The magazine itself wasn’t all about Dean, but other artists and actors as well. How simple things seemed to be for them back then. Their clothes were beautiful and elegant, not to say clean; clad with expensive jewelry. One picture in particular stood out, one of New Vegas… or Las Vegas rather, as it was named back then. The glitter and glamour was clear; the colorful lights seemed twice as impressive as they were now. The city was about as big back then as it was now, just more whole and more populated.

“How do you stand it?” she asked suddenly, waking up Dean from his thoughtful state, as he looked at her and then the picture she was referring to.

“Las Vegas?” he asked puzzled.

“How it looks now. Your world seemed much better than mine. How do you stand it?” She could see his eyes behind the glasses from her position, how he looked at the picture for a long while before glancing back at her.

“No choice. Besides, after the Madre, I expected the world to look a lot worse than it seems to do. And after all that time, I wasn’t about to just lie down and sulk at what once was anyway.”

“No, I bet you plan to conquer Vegas as the best entertainer,” Ash smirked amused. He chuckled briefly, looking back at the picture.

“Well, this time isn’t without its perks,” he shrugged amused.

“Oh?”

“Very little competition regarding entertainment for instance.”

Ash shook her head with a smile, before flipping pages in the magazine. Dean was thankful she hadn’t pressed the issue, because the truth was there were few perks. The fact she was one of them wasn’t something he could voice without admitting to several things.
When she flipped to a page that showed his own picture, a notion of nostalgia seemed to stab him. She was right really, sometimes he could not stand how the future had turned out for him but there was precious little he could do about it. But it was at times like this that he felt the least comfortable with being what he was. Granted without that, he would have died long ago too.

“For that matter I have sung for you,” he stated after a while, making her look at him.

“Humming doesn’t count,” she replied.

“Last night when you were still out of it. Granted I was taking the chance to keep my voice in check but you were in the room so,” he shrugged.

“That doesn’t count either, I wasn’t awake!”

“Not my problem.”

He ignored her glares, sitting back in the sofa properly, stretching out his arms along its back, one knee over the other. He did throw one look over his shoulder towards the door, in fear that Lily would appear again. Beyond that, he found the whole situation oddly relaxing. Until he realized that if he stretched out his hand a little, he could basically touch Ash’s hair. His fingers flexed briefly after the raven black hair, before he fisted his hand, recalling himself even over the increasing temptation.

Again, he questioned his own reaction as he pulled back his arm, pretending to be scratching the side of his head with a finger. Instead he reached for her arm and the pip-boy, activating what he knew was the radio channel by now.

“Better,” he commented at her look, as some old song started playing, leaning his head on the sofa’s back. Would it really have been so bad to give in? It felt like he’d lose too much if he did. The respect she had for him, his own pride… not to say a lot of awkward situations no doubt. The knot in his stomach said otherwise, that there was a lot more to gain.

Ash was still looking in the magazine, although she had reached the end of it by now, showcasing some large gala that looked like it had been quite interesting.

“Hey, I recognize that dance,” she said suddenly, pointing down to one of the pictures.“It’s the one you showed me.” Dean lifted his glasses briefly to look before snorting amused.

“I seem to recall I mostly dragged you around,” he noted amusedly.

“Well. You did.”

“I had to! You moved with the grace of… mole rat, is it?”

“Excuse me?”

“What, you got a better term for what you were doing?”

Ash gave him a downright sour look, before getting up on her feet, dropping the magazine on the sofa. He arched an eyebrow under the glasses, as she pulled him up as well.

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Ash. You’re still… recovering,” he pointed out as she pushed him out over the floor, the pip-boy sounding with calm soft music.

“Beyond a few itches and fatigue, I’m fine,” she frowned. “Besides, you’re insulting me. Now teach me this dance… again.”

Dean rolled his eyes, although he quickly realized this wasn’t a good idea for him either. Still, he complied with her request, wondering how serious he should take this. Probably not too much since she was biting her lip, keeping an eye on their feet already; not a good sign in other words.

As expected the first move, although slow, still ended up with him basically dragging her with him, even if she moved fluently enough to make it look like it was on purpose. He continued the lead for a good few moments, realizing that it was very different from the first time. Ash in general seemed more relaxed and a lot less awkward with the idea. Not to say focused.

“You know, I can show you this ten times and you still won’t learn it,” he told her coolly. “And before you hit me, it’s because dancing is an art and it takes time to learn it. Nothing you do in an afternoon.”

With that he purposefully made a complicated move with his feet, almost tipping her over.
“Yes, I could take your words for it, thanks,” Ash said drily, as she steadied herself.




“How adorable.”

The new voice startled them both, as they stopped to look towards the doorway, Ash pulling away from Dean. She frowned, instinctively reaching for a weapon, which she didn’t have, upon seeing none other than Angryl by the door.

“The freakish couple dancin’ away like the real world doesn’t exist,” he continued slowly, arms folded across his chest as he was leaning against the doorframe.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” Dean asked coolly, using the same tone that he did with anyone who he didn’t think was worth his time. He was hardly surprised to see Angryl and his appearance bothered him greatly. Ash too, considering her rather intense glaring at the man and he smiled inwardly at that; at least he didn’t have to worry about Angryl in that manner anymore.

“Can’t a man visit some old friends?” Angryl asked amused, shrugging. “I had to… ask around to actually find you, granted, but there are many loose lips in New Vegas, so it was fairly easy.”

“You, my dear boy, need to set some new priorities in your life beyond stalking people, before you get hurt,” Dean told him, in all feigned well meaning.

“What are you goin’ to do? Shoot me?”

“I may cough on you.”

Angryl scowled, as Dean just smirked knowingly; he knew what Angryl thought of ghouls and he probably assumed such a silly action actually had a chance of making him into one as well. Ash crossed the room, going to pick up the holo tapes and the magazine, lumping them together in her arms before walking up to Angryl, Dean following.

Angryl reluctantly moved out of the way, allowing her to enter the corridor behind him. Dean paused next to Angryl, looking at him sternly for just a moment before following Ash.
“I can’t believe he’s followed us here!” Ash snapped as soon as they were out of hearing range. “Tempted to have Marcus throw him out, he’s a bigot after all and won’t last long here among the nightkin.”

“You still care about his health? Seriously?”

“Not really. But I doubt he’s a real danger to anyone, his death seems unnecessary… More bark than bite.”

“Stalkers were frowned upon even before the bombs. Also is that expression still around?”

“I read it in a book somewhere… it seems fitting here.”

They reached Henry’s room again and Ash immediately went to stuff the things she carried into her bag.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Dean protested. “I’m not letting you steal those things too!”

“I’m the only one with a bag,” Ash reminded him slowly, as she gave him a somewhat hurt look. She thought he had forgotten that by now, but it seemed he’d be carrying around that grudge for a longer time still.

“Just making sure…” Dean replied calmly, not missing her face but he wasn’t about to apologize for a legit concern. Ash continued with the bag, pulling up another small package that she thoughtfully looked over.

“I knew I had forgotten something…” she said afterwards. “We need to find Henry and deliver this. Mr. House will have my head if I lose it.”

“What is it anyway?” Dean asked, casting a curious eye on the package as well.

“I don’t know, nor do I care. I expect the same from you.”

“Hmph. Curiosity never hurt anybody. But how can you stand not to know what’s in the packages you deliver, are beyond me.”

“Shame.”

Dean gave her a small glare for that one, before she wandered out of the room again, heading straight towards the nearest mutant. The mutant bent down as she poked his arm, in order to hear her better.

“Where’s Dr. Henry?”

“He inside Marcus’s… office,” he replied, seemingly thinking through the reply properly.
“Thanks.”

Dean followed as Ash made her way to the offices, which she apparently knew the way to. Henry was there, as expected, clicking away on Marcus’s computer.

“Ah, it’s you. How are you feeling?” the doctor asked once he spotted them.

“Fine, so far, thanks. Look I came to Jacobstown for a reason, doctor,” she explained. “To deliver a package. Just forgot it in all that happened.”

Henry kept typing for a few more moments before shutting down the computer and standing up to look at the package in her hands. He snagged it from her suddenly to look through it further, before nodding almost excitingly.

“Ah, yes! I’ve been waiting for this one!”

“What is it?” Dean asked, taking the chance and ignoring Ash’s hitting on his arm.

“Important research component,” the doctor replied absently.

“You’d make a terrible courier,” Ash frowned at Dean, who could only shrug, a bit bemused actually. Ash sighed though, not feeling relaxed at all yet.

“Now there’s just Angryl left to deal with,” she said, glancing at Dean, who’s face quickly grew annoyed again.
Part 31 of my fallout story.

Chapter 32 > [link]

Sorry about the delay again, a cold and eye infection plus what I thought was tinnitus for weeks, have been pestering me the last month; plus that this chapter was a monster. It went through a lot of changes and edits before I came up with something. I don't feel fully finished with Angryl yet and this seems like a... workable situation.


I spent the whole evening re reading the fanfic too, which was sorely needed!
© 2013 - 2024 Thren300
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