#33occupant

hand flies to his brim with startling reflex,  pulling the leather down secure around his brow and patting the high crown for good measure.  his head turns over his shoulder,  warning apparent in his feature’s unaffected composition,  and vision rakes her over from flyaway ponytail to scuffed brahmin - hide boots and back again.  the girl’s got a point. she’s already too pink in the cheeks,  mouth chapped by the high mojave winds,  and that youthful old world beauty of hers has begun to turn sallow in the sunlight.  though whether it’s from exposure or just the combination malnutrition and rad - poisoning,  ghoul cannot say.  (  he hasn’t traveled with a smoothskin in decades,  maybe closer to a century if he accounts for the years in dom pedro’s captivity,  and he’s forgotten how this world pecks at them  ).  regardless, the heat will take her down long before anything else can sink its fangs into her,  and he really doesn’t want to break camp again  –  not this early,  not this exposed.  if they’re going to make it to the next settlement before dinner bell,  he’ll have to give the brat something.  if only he wasn't still missing the last personal effect she claimed off him.

@33occupant sent: taps the ghoul on the shoulder, then walks in the opposite direction like nothing happened.

He can hear her approach. Boots are gentle on Mojave sand, but still too loud to catch the Ghoul completely off guard. He knows it's her. Head turns only slightly, hand raising to draw the brim of his hat down and he smiles when her finger plants itself on his shoulder.

"You know it's real dangerous sneakin' up on an armed man in the dark like that., I coulda riddled ya with bullet holes."

There was something endearing about that outlook, however naive she might've thought it. Her lips curved just a fraction. The barest of smiles.   ❝ ———— you're practically an oasis in the desert, Lucy Maclean. ❞

Something in the Courier beats with a ferocity: it's not her heart, long gone and replaced with something much more sinister. It's her spite; gnashing, gnawing, and ever knowing. Your face does the thinking - two the skull, yet one gets up. Two to the skull... she thinks. If you can survive two bullets to the head, what's a few cuts and bruises?

"You're very sweet, but I'm very fine." There's a pause. Leather-clad hand wipes the blood that adorns her suntanned face. Her riot mask remains off while she catches her breathe. "It's just a scratch."

“ that’s me, lucky lucy! ” a laugh escapes as she reaches her hand up to brush stray hairs away from her face. however, despite her cheery disposition, the younger girl doesn’t feel as lucky as she claims. her stomach is in knots as she tries to keep herself from visibly shaking. she knew the wasteland to be dangerous, but this place was something altogether different. she never expected to find rodents as large as the one that came after her or to see them with bombs strapped onto their bodies. she doesn’t know which is worse: the rodent’s size or the inhumane treatment of the animal. if she must guess, she guesses most ignore the size & the treatment, but she can’t ignore either of those things. the image will forever be burned into her brain. shakily, she sighs before looking down at her arm, the scratch has cut through the fabric of her vault suit. annoyance bubbles in her chest as she shakes her head with a laugh. “ would you happen to have any spare bandages on you? i – they don’t have to be clean, just something to stop the bleeding. ” she cringes at her own words. a dirty bandage would only lead to infection, but from what she’s seen so far, no place on the surface has anything clean. / @33occupant

nora stands still for a moment, taking in the sight of the younger girl before her. it isn’t every day she encounters another vault dweller in the wasteland, and seeing lucy in her blue jumpsuit brings back a flood of memories. nora remembers her own first days after leaving vault 111—the unsteadiness, the fear, the overwhelming reality of the world outside. no matter how lucy tries to shake it off, she clearly seems shaken.

as lucy speaks, nora raises an eyebrow. a dirty bandage? “ sure, ” the general replies, her voice calm and steady. she sets her pack down, minutemen sigil on the flap, and begins rifling through it, her fingers brushing past a variety of items she picked up in her travels. after a moment, she pulls out a clean bandage—and then a spare stimpak.

“ here, ” nora offers, handing the supplies to lucy. straightening and throwing her pack back over her shoulder, nora takes a moment to study her more closely. she looks shaken, but if she's made it this far and isn't dead yet, that's something. “ the stimpak should help with the cut, so you may not need the bandages. you're welcome to keep them. ”

injury/hurt prompts / accepting

lara pauses for a moment, her hand gripping her side as she hisses slightly in pain. she lowers herself to the ground, hitting the dirt hard. "yeah, i just -- need a moment," she replies, taking slow and deep breaths. she knows that they need to move along, but she wasn't exactly a superhero. she pulls her hand away from her side, the crimson red bleeding caking her skin, before placing it back to try and stop the blood. although it wasn't deep enough to kill her, it was enough to make her dizzy.