#noneedforsuspicion

“There.”

   Gnarled hands meticulously placed the wreath into position, shifting it until it sat just so.

   “Nice.” Mayor Hancock gave a low whistle as he admired Kent’s work. “Pretty as a picture.”

   “You really think so?” Kent smiled bashfully down from the stepladder. “I know it’s not a patch on the ones we had before the war, but…”

   It meant a lot to him, Hancock knew. He’d seen him, these past few weeks, creaky fingers weaving scraggly wasteland conifer into rings, carefully handling tattered ribbons, baubles of bent and painted scrap, as if they were delicate treasures. His eyes shone, and that was a rare enough thing in these wastes. Lotta people drifted into Goodneighbor with hollow eyes, looking for Jet or booze or Irma’s pods or whatever took the edge off life for a time; was a breath of fresh air to see a man made so happy by a couple of twigs and some dolled-up hunks of metal.

   “‘Course. Really brightens up the old place.” He grinned, and looked Kent up and down, nice and slow. “Ain’t just talking about the leaves, either.”

   He could’ve sworn he saw a flush creep across Kent’s scarred cheeks as the ghoul carefully stepped down from the ladder.

   “You really think they’ll come?” he asked, and Hancock caught the uncertainty in his eyes, the worry conflicting with hope. “I mean, I know it won’t mean much to them, except maybe Daisy, but, y’know… I-I was just thinking…” He trailed off.

   “Sure they will,” Hancock reassured him, clapping a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Goodneighbor don’t usually pass up an excuse for a party.” He paused, and added: “Come to think of it, we don’t usually wait for an excuse in the first place. And you’re handin’ one out with a pretty little bow on it. It’ll be fine, Kent. You’ll see.”

   “Thanks, Hancock,” Kent flashed him a little smile. “It really means a lot to me.”

   “Anytime, love.” Hancock returned fire with his most charming grin (and that was pretty damn charming, if he did say so himself), and gave Kent a peck on his wrinkled cheek before drawing away. “Now, let’s get this party started, hey? Guests are gonna be here any minute, and I got a reputation to maintain as the best goddamn host in town.”

   ***

   Snow was falling in Boston, the Commonwealth caught in the grips of a nuclear winter. Hancock had to admit, it looked kinda pretty in the dim glow of the lights strung over the square, even if it did end up as a layer of radioactive slurry on the cracked cobblestones.

   Kent whistled happily as he busied himself with dinner, scurrying back and forth between pots at a makeshift cooking station in Hancock’s quarters. Hancock laid out a festive spread of Bobrov’s and Day Tripper - because this was a Goodneighbor party, after all - and couldn’t help but smile at how cheerful the man seemed, for once.

   Kent had always looked a little more down around this time of winter, Hancock had noted through the years, spent most of his days cooped up in Irma’s memory pods. He’d always been a little curious, and this year they had a good kinda thing going on, so he decided to ask Kent about it.

   Kent was hesitant to speak, at first; he always was, when it came to the things important to him, as if he half expected the listener to mock him for his thoughts. A little bit of patience got him to open up, though, and Hancock finally found out the reason behind Kent’s funk.

   He missed Christmases with his family, before the war, he said; the whole big Irish clan huddled around a table, eating something called a “ham” (presumably, thought Hancock, not the taciturn bouncer of the Third Rail), drinking brandy and putting gifts under a tree and generally having a hell of a time. It had been one of the highlights of the year, for him, right up there with the start of a new season of the Silver Shroud. But now the end of December just felt lonely, a reminded of all that he’d lost when the world got blown to shit. People in the Wasteland didn’t mark the old holidays so much; seemed like after the bombs, folks were too busy just struggling to survive to celebrate anything, so things got lost. Goodneighbor threw one hell of a New Year’s bash - at least, when there was anyone around sober enough to remember what the date was - but that was about the only Old World party they recognised. Wasteland had made its own since then, ‘course, but as far as Kent was concerned, it just wasn’t the same.

   So Hancock had had an idea. Goodneighbor was almost kinda like a family anyway - a big, dysfunctional family that always bogarted the Jet, but hell, he’d take it over his own asshole of a brother any day - so why not cheer Kent up with a little wintertime shindig of their own? Seemed to be working, too; Kent had been actually peppy these past few weeks, planning food, decorations, presents, with a kind of spring in his step that, on anyone else, would make Hancock think he’d been into the Day Tripper.

   Daisy was the first to arrive, bearing a parcel wrapped up in old copies of the Boston Bugle and tied with a frayed blue ribbon. As another pre-war ghoul, she was one of the oldest residents of Goodneighbor, and one of the few who had any more than a vague idea of what Christmas was. A Diamond City mainstay until his goddamn brother had kicked all the ghouls out, Daisy was an old friend. She had been the one who calmed him down and taught him what to expect when his own skin started peeling off and his hair falling out in clumps. He greeted her now with a broad grin and a quick hug around the shoulders.

   “Thanks for doing this, Hancock. Means a lot to Kent, I know.” A smile passed across her face as she stepped inside the Old State House, taking in all the decorations which Kent had so lovingly crafted. At pride of place in the old hall was a raggedy old pine tree, decorated with strings of lights and whatever shiny things Kent and Hancock could get their hands on - old, scavenged baubles and ornaments; bits of aluminium foil shredded into makeshift tinsel; even a handful of spit-polished caps hanging in the upper branches where no one (not naming any names) (MacCready) could pocket them. Atop the tree was a star long snapped off an old neon sign, some chain diner in the ruins around them. Daisy looked the tree up and down, a faraway gleam in her eye. “Huh. Haven’t had a Christmas since my husband passed, you know. Didn’t feel right, without him there, and then the war happened and no one felt much like celebrating. Takes me back, I gotta say.” She placed the present carefully under the tree, and gave Hancock a wry look. “You’re a regular old Saint Nick, Hancock.”

   “Heh,” Hancock chuckled as he pried the cap off of a Gwinnett Pale with the buckle of his boot. “Probably the first time anyone called me a saint.”

   A cheerful cry of “Hancock, you old bastard, where’s the booze already!” erupted from the door, and Daisy laughed.

   “Well, Mayor,” she waved him off with a smile. “Your adoring public awaits. I’ll see if Kent needs a hand with anything. You go press the flesh, or whatever it is you politicians do.”

   “Get stinkin’ drunk, mostly.” Hancock waggled what was left of his eyebrows before heading to the door to greet the family.

   ***

   The party was just getting into a good little swing - helped in no small amount by Fred Allen’s liberal stocks of “party favours” - when Kent gave a hesitant rap on the door jamb. Barely audible above the chatter, but Hancock noticed anyway, and waved him over.

   “Erm…” Kent looked uncertainly at the increasingly rowdy crowd, and cleared his throat. “Dinner’s all ready, everyone! So, ah… come with me and, well, eat up!”

   The hubbub did not even waver. Hancock saw Kent’s shoulders sag; he looked dispirited, and worse, unsurprised. No, this would not do at all. He took a gun from the hands of an on-duty Neighbourhood Watcher, climbed a few steps up the spiral staircase, and fired off a short burst into the brickwork. The talking cut short, and all eyes fell upon him, though among them, only Kent actually looked shocked. He didn’t go to enough of the parties, Hancock thought; poor guy didn’t know the Goodneighbor way of getting a room’s attention.

   “All right,” he tossed the gun back to the guardsman, who caught it after some fumbling. “Listen up, you lot. Kent here’s cooked us all a great fucking dinner, so we’re gonna eat like kings tonight, ya hear? Follow me!” He was met by a round of cheers and laughter (and one smartass comment from MacCready about “home-cooking from Hancock’s hubby”) as he led the people up the staircase.

   Kent slipped through the crowd of merrymakers to Hancock’s side. On some sudden, sappy impulse, Hancock took the man’s hand in his own. Kent started at first at the sudden, public contact, but smiled and did not pull away.

   “They really respect you, huh?” Kent sounded almost wistful in this.

   Hancock shrugged.

   “They’re good folks. Just gotta know how to talk to ‘em.”

   Hancock’s nose may have fallen off a few years back, but he still had a sense of smell. Normally, in Goodneighbor, this was not an asset. Tonight, however, he was goddamn thankful, because there were some delicious fucking scents wafting from his living room. Kent detached from him to straighten up the plates, looking bashful - not that he had any reason to be. Hancock knew the man liked to cook, when he could muster up the enthusiasm for it, but damn if he hadn’t outdone himself tonight. Each plate held steaming slices of roast Brahmin, heaped with generous dollops of some complex but delicious sauce Kent had been experimenting with the past few weeks (Hancock, of course, has been all too eager to volunteer as a taste-tester). Beside the meat was a serve of roasted carrots and tatoes and a buttered cob of corn. In the middle of the table was a stack of bowls and a tureen of rich tato soup, and two neatly-arranged rows of Gwinnett and Nuka. All in all, it was the kind of spread that would have Wellingham back in Diamond City twitching his multipurpose appendages in envy.

   The Goodneighbor lot fell on the meal like a yao guai on a juicy radstag, giving Kent a few words of thanks and appreciative back-pats on their way. He honestly deserved more, in Hancock’s admittedly biased opinion, but his eyes shone nonetheless at the sight of everyone gathered here, on this important day for him, happily eating his food. This might be what he missed most, Hancock reckoned; Kent didn’t mingle with the others nearly enough, and he’d always thought he must be kinda lonely, manning that radio station the whole day. It was what prompted Hancock to reach out to him in the first place - “a mother hen,” Daisy once called him with a laugh, ‘cause he didn’t like to see people looking down - and that, he reckoned, had been one of the better decisions of his life.

   They laughed and chatted as they feasted. (Well, most of them did, at any rate. “Oh, yes, KL-E-0, please eat with us, with your fleshy human mouth!” grumbled the dulcet tones of an Assaultron.) The plates were nearly empty and the tureen nearly drained when Kent stood up at the head of the table, a big smile on his crinkled face.

   “I’d-I’d just like to say,” he began meekly. “That it really means a lot to me that-”

   Once again, though, the gathered crowd was so absorbed in their conversations and their jokes (and one very intense game of dice that appeared to be going on in the far corner) that few faces even turned to heed him. Kent opened his mouth, once, and then sat down, looking rather disappointed. Before Hancock could call them to attention again, though, Daisy scowled and slammed her bottle of beer down hard on the table, causing a clatter of cutlery (along with a spray of suds over an unfortunate ghoul in a yellow trenchcoat, whose name Hancock had never quite caught).

   “Hey, Kent’s trying to thank you all, here!” Daisy admonished the gathered crowd. “He’s gone to a lot of trouble for this; least you could do is hear the man out.”

   There were a few mutters, at this; MacCready, at least, had the grace to look a bit guilty.

   “Thanks, Daisy,” Kent said uneasily. “But it’s okay, really, I don’t need-”

   “Just ‘aving a good time here, Dais,” Charlie swivelled one eyestalk away from his dice game. “No bloody call to be rude about it.”

   “I don’t know, Charlie,” Magnolia turned from her conversation with Ham. “I think we should listen to the man. He’s been such a dear.” She fixed Kent with a stunning smile, which he returned gratefully.

   “If it’s about the Silver Shroud,” Fahrenheit snorted as she showed KL-E-0 her new gun. “I’ve heard it already.”

   “Hey, Fahrenheit.” Hancock’s voice was uncharacteristically stern as he addressed his bodyguard. “Don’t be like that.”

   “No, no,” Kent looked as if he wanted to slip between the floorboards and disappear. “It’s really- you don’t need to-”

   “Sorry we’re late, sweeties!” A familiar voice cut through what might have been a brewing argument as Irma swept through the doorway, resplendently dressed as usual. Amari followed her close behind, carefully carrying a large tray of pitchers.

   “What you got there, Doc?” MacCready eyed the milky-looking drinks with interest.

   “Eggnog.” The good doctor set the tray down carefully on the table. “A traditional Christmas beverage, or so it seems. With Mr. Connolly’s help, we have tried to match the recipe as closely as possible to that in his memories.”

   “Sorry we couldn’t get it exact, sugar,” Irma shrugged off her fluffy winter coat with an apologetic glance at Kent. “I’m sure Deathclaw eggs will do just as well for taste, though, and go an awful lot further besides.”

   “And why,” Bobbi leaned back in her chair and tapped her cigarette without bothering to find an ashtray, the ashes falling to the ancient carpet to mingle with all the other stains. “Do we want to slurp down the contents of a Deathclaw nest?”

   “Because,” Amari replied shortly. “It’s got a medically inadvisable amount of brandy in it.” This was met with approving nods and whistles from the Goodneighbor crowd.

   “Thank you, Dr. Amari, Irma,” Kent nodded to the pair, smiling with watery eyes. “You’re always so good to me.”

   “All right, everybody!” Hancock hoisted a glass in one hand, a pitcher in the other. “These two lovely ladies are being so kind as to bring the booze, so everyone better grab a glass and drink the hell up!”

   The cheers from this announcement echoed through the Old State House as the people moved as one towards the prospect of a free alcoholic beverage.

   ***

   The booze (and chems) flowed freely as the night wore on, and soon all were merry, or at least as merry as programming and personality allowed. Magnolia led the crowd in all the carols Daisy and Kent could remember, and when those ran out, they switched smoothly to some popular pre-war hits, the more risque the better. Kent, emboldened by drink or excitement or both, clinked a spoon against a glass for attention.

   “I just wanna say,” he began, his smile broad, his face flushed. “It really means a lot to me that you all came here tonight-”

   “Aw, don’t mention it, Kent, you big sap,” MacCready grinned, Bobrov’s Best spilling from his shotglass as he swayed unsteadily. A few whoops and whistles erupted from the inebriated townsfolk.

   “It’s true, though.” Kent’s eyes looked a little dewy. “Having everyone gathered here today, sharing this with me, really… really takes me back. It’s been so long since- oh, god…”

   He broke off as the tears pooled in his eyes and dripped down his craggy face, eliciting scattered clapping, several cheers, and one derisive snort (probably Bobbi) from the peanut gallery. Hancock wrapped an arm around the man’s shoulders and gave him a comforting squeeze as Irma produced a lacy handkerchief from somewhere deep in the voluminous sleeves in her dress. Kent wiped his eyes dry and blew his nosehole to a soothing litany of “There, there”s before handing it back to her with an apologetic look.

   “Sorry about that.” His face brightened up, and he clapped his hands together. “Now, how about we exchange some presents? It’s not really Christmas until there’s wrapping paper all over the floor.”

   “You heard the man,” Hancock called to the crowd. “Get your asses down to the tree!”

   Like anything else in Goodneighbor, there was no order to the gift-giving. Some people had brought presents for all their friends, some only for one person, and some had not bothered at all. Fahrenheit gave KL-E-0 a hug and a peck on the metal cheek as she unwrapped a shiny new tri-barrel minigun mod for Ashmaker. MacCready sobbed drunkenly into Daisy’s shoulder as he clutched a patched-up toy robot for Duncan. Irma smiled knowingly as Amari gasped at the sight of her very own neuroisotropic cerebrospatulator.

   “I know it’s not much, but-” Kent pressed a parcel into Hancock’s hands. The paper was crinkled and the bow was crooked but damn if it didn’t look beautiful. What was inside wasn’t too shabby either; an intact bottle of a damn fine single malt, one that would’ve cost a pretty penny even before the bombs blew the distilleries to hell.

   “It’s perfect, love,” he grinned. “Here, I got you something too.”

   “Oh, but you’ve already-” Kent’s protest was cut short as Hancock proffered his present with a flourish. Kent unwrapped it, and was rendered speechless by its contents - a collection of comics featuring the Silver Shroud, many of which had been missing from Kent’s own collection.

   “Paid some mercs to go combing the ruins,” Hancock said. “Ain’t all of them, but this is what they came up with.”

   Kent looked up.

   “I- Thank you, Hancock. Thank you so much, for everything. I really can’t ever repay you.”

   Hancock hooked an arm around Kent’s shoulder.

   “Hell, Kent, you just keep bein’ you, and that’s enough for me. Hey, everyone!” He snatched a half-empty bottle of rum from a counter and lifted it up, calling out to his gathered friends. “To Kent!”

   “To Kent!” Goodneighbor cheered back, and held up their own bottles and glasses and Jet inhalers, and the hall was once more filled with noise and laughter. Hancock turned to look at Kent, and found that Kent was already looking at him.