derived from moribund violas

Blood & Rain

Summary:  

Ivy and MacCready find themselves close to Malden on a Minutemen job. The mercenary suggests the scavenging potential of the local town, especially a certain research building lying at the far end.  Unfortunately they don’t make it that far before a dangerous encounter dredges up memories of a past Ivy has been desperately trying to distance herself from.

Rating:  M

Word count:  7413

Dark thunderheads hung in the sky to the north, still lingering with the threat of the rainstorm that had followed them all the way from Covenant that morning.  The yellow-grey light forcing its way through the gaps in the thick cloud layer created a shifting patchwork that sprawled across the desolate wasteland north of the Mystic River.  Far from sparkling under the dancing light, the river itself seemed to swallow all illumination, growing steadily duller as the morning carried on.  

A small swarm of bloodbugs functioned as a welcoming committee when Ivy and MacCready arrived at Taffington early that morning, not knowing what to expect - much to the mercenary’s distaste - except that the area needed clearing if it was going to be safe for settlers.  Luckily (or skillfully as her cocky companion would have argued), they’d escaped the encounter with minimal injury.  One of the larger bugs had just managed to punch its proboscis into Ivy’s arm, but MacCready’s quick reactions had splattered it with the stock of his rifle.  Thanks to him, her arm wasn’t aching any worse than if she’d had a flu shot.

Ivy stood on the old wooden jetty that wrapped around the once pristine house, lost in thought, or maybe just too tired to think straight after what the day had already thrown at them.  Despite the layers of dust and grime one couldn’t help but accumulate in the wasteland, the blue and gold of her vault suit still made her stand out in the landscape like one of those dreadful lawn flamingos shoved into the middle of a desert.  

She’d have to lose it one day, the suit that to some had already become so synonymous with her.  If she ever wanted to blend in, that is.  Oh, but that in itself relied on her being ready to accept that this was her reality now.  That there was no going back.  She’d have to make peace with parts of her that weren’t convinced this wasn’t a bad dream.  

And from what she’d seen so far, this wasn’t a world where acceptance came easy.  Nobody seemed interested in knowing her .  No, it was all about what she could do for them to earn a place.  Some societal goals never change.  She already felt like she’d lost her name; it had been replaced instead with a series of misplaced titles, nicknames or insults.   It was probably ungrateful of her to complain, most were well meant.  But by this point there was so little of her left from before the war, she didn’t want to become nothing more than a collection of scars and bad memories.  

Water slapped half-heartedly at the jetty’s struts waiting to receive the last of the bloodbug bodies that Ivy rolled into the river.  She watched a moment longer as the bug corpse, still bloated from gorging itself on the boathouse’s former residents, began it’s lazy drift downstream towards the harbour.  

Time to see if she could kick some life back into the old generator.  

Taffington itself must have been a real beauty before the war, the kind of place where city folk with more money than they knew what to do with would retire to after a hard day playing the stockmarket or holding people’s lives in their hands.  Back when the world was green and the water didn’t make people sick.  Now it was a shadow of its former self, half the roof was missing, the doors were hanging off their hinges (or had been until Ivy fixed them), there wasn’t an unbroken window in the place, and there were the remains of a campfire in the middle of the living room.  Some fatcat would be rolling in his grave - or at least wherever the blast from the bombs dropping had deposited him.  

This was a true wasteland home now, and as was tradition with all commonwealth dwellings outside the larger settlements, why keep the weather outside when you could invite it in for dinner.  Whoever came to settle here would have some work cut out for them, but at least downstairs was dry (if you kept away from the windows) and had doors.  It was more than a lot of people had.

The generator finally rumbled into life at well past noon - once she might’ve said lunchtime, but if she still measured the passage of time by the number of meals she’d eaten, far fewer days would’ve passed since the vault.  Ivy shivered.  Any time she thought about that place it was hard not to be taken over by a chilling sensation that started in her extremities before seeping all the way to her heart, the same sensation that came when they turned on the pods.  She swore she’d never fully warmed up since.

[Continue on AO3]

I’d planned to do this in the same style as my Rhys and Haylen portraits, but Unexpected Things happened and I kinda liked the result.

Macabre - Death I’ve always been a wild animal, sweetheart.

I was fighting jitters waiting at the doc’s office, and so my hand slipped and I wrote a little interaction between my Sole Survivor, Charlie, and MacCready about my dear friend @third-rail-vip ‘s Sole Survivor, Ivy, who I just adore.

—

MacCready wore an easy, distant grin that didn’t quite fit with his typical demeanor, like a dream lingering at the corners of his mouth. Any person making an educated guess about that look could have easily assumed the mercenary was in love, his typically sour face all doe-eyed and youthful, gazing out at nothing. He didn’t even notice when Charlie approached him as obnoxiously as she could, and barely even reacted when she snatched his hat and pulled it down backwards on her head. In fact, he didn’t move at all until she tousled his surprisingly clean hair with her fingertips.

“What the heck, Chuck,” he asked, swiping at her in a flustered attempt to snatch his hat back.

She moved out of his reach before he could even stamp out his cigarette and stand from his ridiculous spot in the dilapidated lawn chair, against a sea of faded pink flamingos. Charlie didn’t know how in the hell those, of all things, managed to survive the bombs. Adjusting her newly claimed hat, she smirked at the scowling young man before her. “You washed your hair.”

“So?” MacCready lunged forward for the hat and Charlie stepped backwards again. “I wash my hair sometimes.”

“Twice in a few days?” She clicked her tongue. “Whatcha hiding Mac? Who are you trying to impress?”

“Nobody.” He huffed and crossed his arms, comically similar to a pouting child.

“You were so off in la-la land, you didn’t even notice me walking by,” she continued to tease, “I’ve never had such luck snatching your shit.”

“I was just... thinking, Chuck. Geez. Leave me alone”

“Washed hair, thinking while gazing longingly out into the horizon.” Charlie paused for dramatic effect, slinging an arm around his shoulder “Are you—“

“Don’t say it,” Mac snapped, taking the opportunity to grab his hat back and pull the brim down to hide his expressive baby blues.

“You are!” She couldn’t stop the wide smile that spread slowly across her face.

“No!”

“You’re in love.” Charlie released his shoulder and trotted away to plop down in the lawn chair, kicking her feet up on the table nearby.

“You’re getting on my last damn nerve,” MacCready said dryly, not particularly seeming to mean it.

“Hey! That’s five caps to the swear jar big guy.”

He rolled his eyes. “How many caps do I have to put in the jar for you to mind your own business?”

The words stung and she slouched a bit, letting her legs slide from the table and back down so that her feet were on the grounds. “I’m sorry, Mac. I was just messing around. Didn’t mean to push you.”

He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it, and sat down in the other chair opposite to Charlie with a sigh. “You didn’t. I just.... I don’t know how to talk about these things.”

“Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much...”

A lopsided smirk cracked the edges of his expression. “I think I’m good with the whole birds and bees thing.”

“Oh. Right….well good because things were about to get real awkward.” She winked at him and leaned in. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a girl,” he explained tentatively, eyes flicking between the surface of the table and Charlie. “And… she’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Well, I mean of course she’s drop dead gorgeous,” he explained nervously, clearly beginning with the thing that came easiest.

“Of course,” Charlie remarked as if it were a given.

“She’s got these big brown eyes and freckles, and a dopey smile that, well... I’d do almost anything to see.” His eyes glazed over slightly, dreamy grin tugging at the corners of his mouth again. “I’ve actually done some pretty dumb sh— stuff to make her smile.”

Charlie nodded, chest swelling at the sincerity her friend had chosen to show her. “Been there, done that.”

“She’s also got this way of seeing the best in people.” He shifted in his seat bringing an ankle up to cross over his knee. “Like, when she looks at me it’s like she’s seeing someone different than the guy I look at in the mirror, y’know?”

Charlie laughed, fondly. So many times she’d avoided Preston’s gaze just because she didn’t compare to the person she saw in his eyes. “I do.”

Mac frowned. “Don’t tell me this is reminding you of Garvey. Christ.”

“Nope,” she lied, “Not at all! Completely different. Go on.”

“It’s weird. I’ve not ever felt like this before,” he admitted, “I mean I loved Lucy more than anything, but now... I don’t know. It probably sounds stupid to you.”

“You’re never going to have the same kind of love with two different people Mac.” She glanced down at her own hands, and the ring that still shown brightly on her left, and then back up to him. “But that doesn’t give them more or less value. You can still love Lucy and—“

“Love Ivy too,” he interrupted, jumping up to his feet.

“Oh, her name’s Ivy?” She brought her hand to her mouth. “That’s adorable.”

“I should talk to her, yeah?” Mac scratched at his chin nervously and adjusted his hat again, his collar, his sleeves.

“You look fine, Mac,” Charlie insisted, picking up a pack of gum he’d left on the table and popping a piece in her mouth before tossing the pack to him. “Chew some of this on the way.”

“Thanks, Chuck,” he said quietly.

Mollymauk Tealeaf - The High Priestess Long may I reign.

A different way of settling disagreements, I guess 🤔

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