Chapter Text
"A traveler that passed through here not long ago told everyone he met that there's some kind of plant paradise to the west where food is abundant. All the people foolish enough to listen to him and head out that way never came back."
-Rotface
“Where’d you pick up that scraggly ass thing, darlin’?” Cooper asked from his spot tending their campfire, keeping it at a low burn.
Dinner was eaten and a very early rise was due for them both where they camped a few hours’ walk from the New Vegas strip. The next day would be one of reckoning in some form or another, but first on the agenda was as good a night’s rest as they could manage.
“Marcus gave it to me when we were leaving,” Lucy answered. She was wrestling with a faded blue woolen blanket that barely fit in her travel pack but was in decent repair—if you ignored all the rat holes chewed into it, anyway. “And it’s not scraggly. It’s just a little…weathered.”
Lucy snapped the blanket to shake it out, creating a plume of greenish dust that went straight into her nose.
“ACHOO!”
Cooper chuckled and shook his head.
Dusting his hands off on his pants, he pushed to his feet to give the perimeter of their campsite another once over, testing their various noisemaker traps and snares until he was satisfied with their placements. Around the same time he finished his inspection, Dogmeat finished her own patrol, trotting up, tail swaying expectantly. The sight of their four-legged companion always made him crack a smile, even now with the looming presence awaiting them.
“There’s a good girl.” He bent over to ruffle the fur between her ears and slipped her a piece of jerky from his duster pocket. Animal, not human. He was pretty sure it wasn’t human, anyway. Not that Dogmeat minded either way but Lucy still made faces about it even if she was too polite to voice her thoughts out loud.
“I thought you were going to stop feeding her after-dinner dinner.”
“It ain’t no after-dinner dinner,” Cooper murmured, pointedly insulted at the implication he was going against his word while he slipped Dogmeat another, bigger, piece of jerky from his pocket.
Dogmeat snatched it away, running straight towards their dwindling campfire to flop beside it and started tearing into it with gusto. Cooper nodded after her before turning a lopsided grin Lucy’s way.
“That there’s an after-dinner treat. Maybe if you ever acted like a good girl, you’d know the difference.”
Lucy paused in messing with the blanket and flashed him her best sultry look: dark lashes framing those big, enchanting eyes, one corner of her bottom lip was tugged up between her teeth, and she quirked a neatly arched brow in invitation.
“I can be a good girl.”
Cooper scoffed.
“Now, that’s the biggest crock of shit you’ve dropped in a while, sweetheart. Why don’t you hurry on gettin’ yourself ready for bed now before them lies get you struck down?”
Lucy’s slinky smile melted off her face in favor of an exaggerated eye roll and some muttered snark tossed in his direction, although Cooper caught the smallest of smirks creep back in as she turned back to her bedtime routine.
. . .
Lucy had long since lost count of the number of days they’d been traveling together since the Observatory. It must have been a few weeks at the very least that brought them to this point, but the time felt like an eternity and an instant all at once.
One moment, it was as though her surly companion only just extracted her from the mucky, irradiated pond he’d strung her up by as bait, and the next, she could vividly recall their animated yelling match that changed their relationship forever. Truths were laid bare, trapped in their makeshift shelter against the backdrop of an electric green sky. An understanding formed then and they’d become actual partners on their journey that day. It was a fundamental shift that made the trials of the wastes all that much easier to bear.
The sex after all that yelling was exceedingly helpful too.
Reflecting on it now, their trajectory was obvious. Too many fights with denizens of the wasteland, too many close calls with blood pumping and heart rates up in close proximity, too many times where they found each other in the middle of it all—one inevitably the anchor for the other, keeping each other from slipping into whatever darkness threatened them that day.
Falling for each other made as much sense as anything else did up here and no matter how they got there, Lucy was grateful for it. The coming day might be the worst day of her life after so many worst days leading up to it and to have Cooper—the Cooper Howard, thankyouverymuch—at her side gave her the courage she needed.
The devil from her thoughts flopped down onto his bedroll next to hers beginning his own bedtime routine.
“Did you want to share?” Lucy held up the blanket in offering.
Cooper eyed her woolly cover, stare lingering on the ratty “22” patterned into it in a dirt-tinged yellow, not bothering to hide his sneer.
“Not a chance, sweetheart. What you needing that for, anyway? You’re always fussing about being hot when it’s just me wrapped around you, you’ll be sweating buckets an hour into that thing. Besides, I just got you outta wearing that damn Vault suit all the time.” He grumbled, “I swear, you’re allergic to not wearing numbers.”
Lucy’s cheeks pinked as she proceeded to bundle herself into an agitated burrito on her bedroll, the big “22” now emblazoned on her back facing him.
“It’s not about warmth, it’s about being cozy,” she said. “And I will not get too hot—I’ll stick a foot out.” She proceeded to do just that, making a point of lifting her leg so he could watch her wiggle her boot in defiance.
Cooper huffed a laugh and shoved her leg back down.
“You’re awfully squirrelly for someone who needs to be getting their ‘cozy’ ass to sleep.”
“What’s ‘squirrelly’ mean?” Lucy asked, listening to him divest himself of his bandolier and gunbelts behind her. The telltale sounds of him checking his pistol before settling was a comforting one to her ears.
He paused to think about it a minute. Lucy could imagine him behind her tonguing his teeth, searching for another word or phrase that didn’t involve some long annihilated wildlife she didn’t understand the context of.
“Mm… wild,” Cooper said at first then made a dissatisfied noise in the back of his throat, amending it with, “Restless. You’re real restless for someone needing to be sleeping.”
She let out a soft ‘mm’ of agreement at the assessment. He wasn’t wrong. Lucy pulled her blanket up to her chin waiting for him to join her, nose twitching a little at the musty yet oddly perfumed smell coming off the fibers.
“Well… you know, a good way to relieve oneself of restlessness is through sexual intercourse.”
“Sweetie, we already talked about that. Tomorrow’s a—”
“‘A big day ahead,'” she said in a poor imitation of his accent that got her a huff of amusement in response. “I know. But as a counterpoint: my levels of anxiety are quite high due to the impending confrontation and the dopamine rush of a thoroughly satisfying sexual encounter—with orgasm—could be very important for good sleep and my concentration tomorrow.”
“Darlin’—”
“I am merely pointing out that, while I acknowledge your earlier argument had merit—”
“Sweetheart—”
“I happen to think mine is stronger.”
“Luce—”
“I also think that continuing to argue with me is a fruitless effort because we both know you love sticking your penis in my va—”
“Lucy!” he shouted and her jaw snapped shut. “Christ’s sake, woman! You’re the fiercest cockhound I’ve met this side of the last century, but it ain’t like you to be this pushy after I already said no.”
Lucy wilted at that. He was right. She was taught to respect boundaries and they’d talked about it earlier more than once already. Her bringing it up again now was inappropriate by her own standards.
‘We got a dwindling supply of RadX and RadAway, sweetheart,’ he’d said before. ‘We ain’t exactly been using them for their proper purposes and there’s no telling what we’re walking into or what we’ll need. ‘Sides, we can’t both be that distracted so close to the city limits.’
She wriggled around to face him in her woolen cocoon, looking properly apologetic.
“You’re right, I’m sorry.” Lucy sighed. “I’m just… I’m so nervous and my brain’s going a mile a minute and when we’re…”
“Fuckin’?”
“Having sex,” she said with a pointed look before continuing, “it’s easy to forget about everything else. Even if it’s just for a little while. But, I’m sorry. You clearly said no before and it was disrespectful of me to keep pushing you. I won’t ask about it again.”
Cooper reached over her, placing his gun next to where hers was set within easy reach by her bedroll then laid down beside her. With that same arm he scooped her close, the heat of his hand lingering at her back, soothing a long line of warmth up and down her spine.
“Just to be clear, it ain’t that I don’t want to.” His palm slid further south, fingers curling into the cushion of her rear to give it a little squeeze before jerking her hips to his with a snap.
She gasped and stammered when he rolled his hips once. And again.
“Sh-shoot, Cooper…”
A soft whine crept past her lips at the feel of him growing hard against her with every languid movement.
It was one of her favorite things, feeling his body’s response to hers. Before they finally started sleeping together, they’d enjoyed plenty of heavy petting sessions, during most of which she’d found herself sopping wet and panting simply over how his dick swelled beneath the fabric of his pants.
She found it fascinating.
Fascinating and intensely erotic.
She loved how she could see it—feel it thickening under her palm or against a thigh or her clothed slit. Sometimes they’d barely even have to touch each other but she could tell he’d been thinking about her, thinking about all the things he wanted to do with her with how quickly he’d get hard. Sometimes he’d tell her exactly what thoughts it was that got him there—sometimes, like this time, when he leaned close to place a kiss on her forehead so gentle it belied the nature of his next words.
“There ain’t no place I’d rather be than buried balls deep inside you all night, sweetheart.”
His voice was a low rumble that Lucy could feel in her own chest from where they were pressed together.
“If we didn’t have somewhere to be, I would’ve kept you in Jacobstown a mite longer, dirtying up every one of those bunks Marcus got his hands on until we ran out of beds and had to go back to fuckin’ in the sand.”
Lucy grinned, a soft giggle-turned-moan leaving her when Cooper’s hold tightened and he coaxed her in slow, grinding motions against the bulge in his pants.
“Fact is, if I had my way, I’d make a meal out of that prim pussy of yours right now. Saddle you up on my face, stick my tongue past those cute little lips and write out my name. See what part you like best.”
She shivered at the thought.
“Oh,” she gasped. “Yes, please.”
Of all the things she’d learned about Cooper in their time together, Lucy found that he really loved to stick his tongue inside her. Really really loved it. He was ravenous for every opportunity and always wanted her to sit on his face if time allowed. Something about her being one of the few things he could still taste with any real clarity that he enjoyed.
Those were her words, of course.
His had been something along the lines of ‘your pussy is like the freshest honeydew on my tongue, so succulent and sweet, so ripe I leave drunk off the slick. I could eat it every day for another hundred years.’
It wasn’t a one-to-one translation, to be sure, but that’s what she got out of it. What she also got out of his favorite pastime of lingual calligraphy was a clit that was now unofficially claimed as belonging to one “Cooooooooooooooooper Hooooooooooooooooward.”
Her favorite part was the “O”, for the record.
Lost in her thoughts, Lucy barely noticed they’d changed positions until she felt the familiar welcome stretch in her legs that came with straddling his thighs. Even with both of them still clothed and her new-to-her blanket draped around her, she could so clearly feel the heat of his cock pressing against her center. Half on auto-pilot, she reached for his belt buckle only to have him catch her wrists and guide them to brace on his legs where she was perched.
Lucy’s brow furrowed.
“Wha—”
“Big day tomorrow, Vaultie,” he reminded her. Cooper returned his hands to her sides to pick back up her steady rocking motion. “Can’t get caught with our pants down but we can still take the edge off some, like old times. Whaddya say?”
Lucy chewed at the corner of her lip, very much wanting to argue his logic of how this was any less distracting than proper intercourse but she already agreed to stop pressing the issue so she nodded and settled in.
“Okey dokey.” She relaxed her legs, opening them enough to position herself in such a way the rhythmic pressure of sliding over his cock, clothes and all, rubbed her clit with every stroke.
Cooper groaned.
“Go on, take what you need. I’ll keep watch.”
A distant voice in the back of her mind was skeptical.
Watch what? Me or our surroundings?
Lucy ignored it, urging her brain to shut off and enjoy the feel of him. She shut her eyes, focusing on the throbbing ache in her clit and how the thick line of his cock nestled so perfectly at the seam of her lips. His body was so hot, she could feel him clear as day through all their layers. It was good—so good—but she needed more.
“Talk to me, Cooper,” she pleaded, breathless.
His hands roved up and down her sides and he adjusted his legs, bending slightly at the knees to offer her a better support and angle for rolling her hips.
“You look gorgeous up there, darlin’,” he murmured. “Most beautiful thing in the Wastes, head back, all blissed out, thinkin’ about this dusty old coot’s cock and all the things I’d do to you given the time… all the ways I’d stretch you out and fuck you across every inch of the desert.”
Lucy bit at her lip, finding his hands and guiding them up beneath the layers of her tank top and bra to her breasts. He squeezed and massaged them exactly how she liked, his thumbs rolling each of her nipples against the pads in time with her rocking.
More.
“Tell me the story,” she said.
“Which one?”
“Finger.”
Cooper made a greedy sound, something between a hum and a growl at the back of his throat. He liked telling these stories. His fingers clenched the flesh of her tits then moved to roll her perky buds between them, sending electric shocks straight to her core.
“Knew you were gonna be trouble the second I first laid eyes on you, gun drawn on me like some sorta fool hero,” he began, setting up their favorite story of their early encounters while keeping Lucy moving at a gentle pace.
“You didn’t know how to fall in line. Didn’t know how to back down. Same sense of righteousness out the ass, like all the other Vault Dwellers I ever had the displeasure of meetin’ on the surface.”
Lucy's hips picked up the slightest bit in tempo.
“Not just like them,” she urged.
She heard Cooper draw in a sharp breath at a particularly good grind for both of them and his hands shot down to her ass. He held her there, kneading her cheeks, big hands pulling at the meat of her flesh, managing to open her to him even more. Had they been naked like she’d preferred, his length would be sliding between her lips now, slicked to all get-out. She imagined every little ridge of him trapped between them, the underside of his swollen head butting up against her clit in a way that drove her mad.
“You were different,” he grunted, voice strained. He took another breath, composing himself, loosening his grip so she could resume her rubbing. “Despite steepin’ down in that hole in the ground for some two and a half decades, sheltered from every mean and nasty thing topside, you didn’t have enough sense in you to stay scared of me.”
“You don’t scare me.”
“I used to.”
Lucy shook her head, eyes coming open for the first time since they started dry humping each other like a couple of teenagers. She leaned forward, bracing herself more on his chest now so she could look at him and hold his stare.
“Nuh-uh. Never.”
Cooper slid his right hand up her arm, curled it around her shoulder and pulled so she was close enough Lucy could smell the whiskey and tobacco coming off each of his panted breaths. That hand slipped through the strands of her ponytail falling off her shoulder and she watched him twirl the hairs around the stolen finger grafted to his hand.
“S’why you were so much trouble.”
Cooper watched those brunette strands drop in a tiny cascade and flexed her own finger back at her. When she brought her attention back to his face his eyes were locked onto hers, dark and heated and—holy moly! How the heck was she supposed to not just strip him and seat herself on his cock right now?
Muscles clenched deep between her thighs and she wriggled against him with a whine, feeling his dick twitch in response.
“Like old times?” she asked and was positive the hopefulness that he’d toss that whole idea out was clear on her face.
Much to her disappointment, the question seemed only to snap him back to the present and remember his resolve. His eyes scanned the space around them for immediate threats and though he sadly didn’t flip them over to ravage her right then, he did coax her hands to the buttons of his vest.
Lucy licked her lips, double checking the intent with a quick glance then wasted no time unbuttoning it. She grinned, delighted when she checked again to find him watching her—and most certainly not their surroundings—waiting for her to continue. It took her mere seconds to expose the rest of him, her hot little hands splaying flat over his withered flesh once free with a purr of pleasure leaking from between her teeth.
Cooper had tried to “save her” from his body when they very first stepped over that line so, in terms of this half-hearted roleplay of their “old times” idea, it wasn’t entirely accurate but she wouldn’t give this up for the world.
She smoothed her hands over his chest once, twice, three times over before slipping down his stomach and kneading the corded muscles of his torso. There were patchy textures in some places where chunks of him had been cut off or blown apart over the years only to heal over and mend in whatever ways the radiation saw fit. It might not have been the very same from his movies or what she imagined while she touched herself at night in the Vault fantasizing about her favorite sheriff coming to town to make her come to town, but she didn’t care.
Lucy found Cooper’s body beautiful.
This battered body brought him across time, across uncounted miles, it carried him over every single hurdle set in front of him to date and it was real, and it was here, and it was his—it was hers.
And currently, it was very willingly accepting her greedy pawing.
Lucy lunged forward to press her lips to his and, while this wasn’t strictly in line with their “old times” either, Cooper welcomed her kisses with a growl, his mouth parting for her tongue. Picking up her grinding once more, her hips stuttered out of rhythm when his hand was back in her hair. It fisted into the base of her ponytail to turn her head and deepen their kiss. Lucy’s fingers curled into Cooper’s chest, some of that weathered flesh flaking under her nails while his dug into the meat of her thighs.
Cooper used the grip on her hair to peel her mouth away, swallowing down her whine before separating them and letting their foreheads rest pressed together. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, trying to control himself.
“When you tried to run from me after breakin’ all my vials, it pissed me the fuck off.”
His voice was gravel, grating the air in the scant space between their mouths.
“I’m sorry about your vials.” She apologized here every time.
This time she punctuated it with what kisses she could dot to the corners of his mouth while he still kept her at bay.
“I know, baby, you didn’t know.”
Cooper’s voice softened as much as it could given how soaked Lucy was, humping him to relieve the ever growing pulse of pleasure pounding in her clit in time with her rising heart rate.
“I wanted to rattle you,” he grit out, moving her in longer, harder strokes against him. “To sh—shit—to show you the kind of monster you were dealin’ with.”
Lucy tried to shake her head but he held her firm in place so she just masturbated herself down onto him even harder.
“Not a monster,” she whimpered.
“Oh, I am, sweetheart. I surely am. You just happen to like it.”
“Cooper,” she whined for him, pulling against his hold in her hair. “Cooper—please, let me just—” Lucy let out a frustrated noise after a few more attempts and she showed him her teeth. “Let me go.”
Whatever he saw there made him bare his own teeth in a smile anyone else might find frightening. For Lucy it sent a shiver racing through her that swept through her entire body and pooled at her already leaking cunt.
“Cut from the same cloth, you and I,” he snarled.
He didn’t let her go. But he did slip the hand not in her hair between them to go for his buckle.
Lucy’s breath hitched and her hands scrabbled from his chest to her own pants.
“Didn’t expect you to fight like you did.”
He managed to get his belt undone, his fly unzipped.
“That was on you,” Lucy growled.
She twisted in his hold, awkwardly ripping at her zip, tearing her pants down her thighs just so.
“Shoulda known better by then,” Cooper growled back in agreement.
His hand dipped into his briefs, hand closing around his dick to give it a few solid strokes and she loved the way his lids fluttered at the sensation.
“Surely didn’t expect you to bite my finger clean off.”
Lucy clawed at the hand fondling himself until he let go and in place of it re-seated herself atop him, tearing a strangled sound from his throat. He finally released her ponytail to clamp onto her hipbones.
“Fuck—Luce, you’re soaked through—”
“Finish the story,” Lucy hissed.
If she looked, Lucy could see his cockhead glistening where it peeked past the waistband of his briefs and opened fly. He was so hard and leaking so much pre-cum onto his exposed belly. Lucy once again began to move.
“Fuck,” Cooper groaned.
With every humping motion, she watched his dick twitch for her heat, watched it release even more of that radioactive slick that she wanted nothing more than to put inside her.
Her pussy clenched at the thought.
She was so empty.
Lucy’s hand moved without thinking, swiping some of it onto her fingers and making to lick it off but Cooper snatched her hand by the wrist and sucked them clean himself. Her eyes rolled back, lids shut at the feel of his tongue and teeth scraping over her skin.
“Tell me,” she moaned when he released her fingers with a pop, hips beginning a shaky, stuttering pace.
A low rumbling snarl vibrated through Cooper’s body beneath her.
“The look in your eyes when you looked at me—”
Cooper shimmied his pants and briefs down his thighs so his cock was freed.
“—looked like you would skin what was left of me and leave me to rot out in the sun. My finger between your bared teeth a fuckin’ promise that you would."
Lucy tore her panties to one side so she could feel him skin to skin, sliding him between her lips, slicking him up so well it would be so easy for him to just slip inside of her.
“Shit, darlin’ you feel so goddamned good—”
“What did you want to do to me?” she prompted, bracing on his chest again and lifting herself enough as though she might just sit on his cock properly.
Cooper kept her from that goal still, keeping her far enough that he could fuck his hips up towards her but without enough room to get the right angle to sink into her.
“Wanted to fuck the shit outta you.” The words ground past his teeth tinged with an inhuman snarl.
Her heartbeat was in her ears, pounding louder as the climax she chased drew ever nearer, pushed closer with every tantalizing press of his cockhead to her throbbing clit. A pool of pre-cum dripped onto his bared stomach, getting flung higher up his exposed flesh with her more wild movements. She could feel his length twitching, aching for her as she ached for him.
“Cooper—”
Cooper’s hands latched onto her ass, dragging her in rough strokes over his cock, again and again, harder and faster than she could manage on her own as if she weighed absolutely nothing.
“Let you tear into the rest of me just like you wanted—”
The weightlessness was dizzying, taking her higher—so, so high—so close to that peak and that pleasure, until—
“—then make you fuckin' howl.”
Cooper let go of her and on the downswing of her next stroke the tip of his cock caught her soaking, aching hole at the picture perfect angle and with a thrust of his hips and a crash of hers, he sank into her, balls deep.
And she did howl.
“OHHHH! Oh, Cooper! Oh, fuck!”
Lucy’s orgasm hit her like a tidal wave, crashing over her and sending her free falling into an ocean of bliss, dragging Cooper along with her with a garbled shout as her nails gouged pieces of his chest and she rode him to the finish line.
A flood of unnatural heat filled her so very full, his dick spasming inside her and painting her clenching, fluttering walls with his seed. Nothing would come of it but the thought of it was still exciting—thrilling, even, the idea of him fucking so much of his cum into her in an effort for it to take. It sent another shudder through her and her body milked more of his irradiated spend into her womb of its own accord even as she slumped forward, energy draining from her limbs to be replaced with something like warm, wobbly jello cake.
Maybe it was that thought that brought her a little more back to her senses, enough so to retract her claws from the tracks she left in his chest and turn a bleary-eyed look his way.
“I thought you said ‘no’ to sex tonight.”
Cooper’s hands found their way to her butt cheeks, one for each side, kneading and squeezing, occasionally making his own breath hitch when it made her tense or squeeze him where he was softening and sensitive inside her.
“Rememberin’ the look in your eye with my finger between your teeth…” he trailed off fondly, his eyes tracing the lines of her face while a wicked grin curled his lips. “Hard to say ‘no’ to that, frankly.”
His grin faltered for just a second, a shadow of doubt crossing his face in that instant.
“Darlin', you did still want to—”
“YES!” Lucy cut him off with so much haste, Cooper flinched. And then calmer, more assuring after placing a soft kiss to the corner of his frowning face. “Yes. A very, very enthusiastic ‘yes.’”
It eased that look right off his face and, still sheathed inside her, she felt his cock stirring to life again already.
That ghoulish regeneration sure was something.
Lucy smoothed her hands over the marks she’d made in his chest, already on the mend, and gave her hips a little wiggle.
“So…”
Cooper raised one hairless eyebrow, coy as he could manage for knowing exactly what she was about to say.
“So…?” he asked, returning her wiggle with a hip swivel that made her moan.
“Since we’re having to break open another RadAway, may as well not waste it.”
Cooper flipped their positions in a flash, pulling a squeak from Lucy half in part from the surprise and half from how her legs were still bound by her pants down around her thighs with them sandwiched awkwardly between them.
“Your turn for story time, Vaultie.”
Lucy groaned when he pressed into her, feeling him growing harder by the second.
Even if awkward, this angle felt divine.
“Which one?” she asked.
“Ass jerky,” he said. “Tell me what was wanderin’ through that pretty head of yours when we cut ol’ Rog up together.”