The worst part of being a ghoul is the fact that chems just don’t have the hit they used to. Hancock had taken chems of all types for years, always looking for a stronger ride. It didn’t matter what it was, he just wanted the experience. On the day he turned ghoul, the effect of his chems dropped in ways he would never get back.

The mayor thought this as he took a hit of Jet Fuel and let the ride take its course. He suddenly felt like he could get anything accomplished. He was about to get to work on his terminal when he heard a knock at his door. Fahrenheit had just finished shooting some psycho herself before she stood up and walked to the door.

“Hey boss, it’s the Geiger counter repair man,” she told him.

Hancock knew the code and knew what she was alluding to. “Let him in,” he informed her.

As Windowlicker entered the room, Fahrenheit muttered something about work and discreetly left the room. Hancock took a moment to marvel at how good she truly was at her job. He quietly killed any unearned sentiment before turning his attention back to his ally.

“I see all the slaves have been returned home,” Hancock said, gesturing Windowlicker to sit on the couch across from him.

“It took some time, some of them didn’t even have homes to return to,” the spy responded as he crossed the room to join the mayor and sat down.

Hancock remembered instructing Windowlicker and MacCready to bring the people who didn’t have homes to return to back to Goodneighbor. He had a team set up to help find settlements who can take extra members.

“I appreciate the help, did MacCready make it back?”

Windowlicker helped himself to a bottle of Borbrov’s Best. “He’s checking on his friends right now, said he would be up later for his pay.”

“I guess you’re here for your own payment. How much do I owe you?”

“An explanation would be a good start,” he told Hancock. “Why didn’t you let her help us?”

“You can’t even say her name?”

“That woman changes names about as often as I change my face. I knew her back in The Capital Wasteland. I heard about a dozen different names used for her and she accepts them all. My favorite was when I hired her to escort myself and two synths to Ratchet City. I had just changed my face, so she didn’t recognize me. She gave me a new name, and both of the synths were given different names to call her. By the time we got to Ratchet City, I heard her get called five more names, and she answered all of them like it was the name she had all of her life.”

Hancock chuckled at the thought of how confused the two runaway synths would have been at that experience. Synths tended to have little experiences outside of The Institute before they find ways to escape. They tended to be about as experienced as Vault Dwellers. The idea of someone changing her identity about as easily as changing her clothes must have been as overwhelming as meeting a ghoul for the first time.

“That’s my girl,” he crooned. “I understand you would have liked her help on getting people home, and she would have done a good job, but then I would have had to pay her quite a few caps for the work. Something I’m trying to avoid right now.”

Windowlicker took a swig of his moonshine while listening to Hancock. “Trying to keep her in debt to the Bobrov brothers? She still owes me twenty caps from a bet we made five years ago.”

“How did you guess?”

“I was there when she traded her ring for a client to have a safe night,” Windowlicker said. “I know you’re afraid of what she’s going to do if she gets out of debt. I fear what she’s going to do if she starts thinking she’ll never get out.”

A cold shiver ran up Hancock’s spine. He knew she was already getting desperate to get it back. Ellie had called him several times giving him Yafim’s latest reports. Including the fact that Yafim got scared about her reaction when he suggested charging her interest. Now that two of his co-conspirators had been discovered, he needed to play the game more carefully.

“Do you honestly…?” Hancock whispered, not wanting to finish the sentence.

“You saw the memory. She believes she should have been the one who died. The thought that she can die at any moment is the only reason why she’s still alive. Sins of her family weigh her down, and each rumor of someone who she had connection to is like watching that ghoul get murdered by her father again. Eventually she’s going to decide that even her responsibility to her ancestors isn’t worth the lives that are being lost because the Brotherhood of Steel decided to conquer the Capital Wasteland.”

Hancock chewed on his lower lip for a moment before he started looking through his chems. Finally, he found what he wanted and consumed the tin of grape mentats. He used to take them to feel “intellectual” but ever since meeting Marian and listening to her talk about books the way she always prattled on about them, he more took them to keep up. Maybe if he used her form of escapism, he wouldn’t need the mentats to feel smart.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Well isn’t that fun to watch, do you feel peppy now?” Windowlicker asked sarcastically.

“Fuck you,” Hancock shot back. “You just told me that I can’t stop a friend from committing suicide and I’m supposed to take that sober?”

“You’re supposed to take it for what it is,” Windowlicker said in an uncharacteristic moment of seriousness. “She’s the only person I know of who turned down an offer to join The Railroad because it wasn’t risky enough.”

Hancock stood up and started pacing the room. His responsibility was to his city, but he still didn’t want to cut Marian loose. She didn’t even realize she was playing a game against him, and she was still winning.

“What would you suggest?” He finally asked.

“The big three for predicting people: caps, beliefs and ego. Get a handle on what’s driving someone, and you know where you stand,” Windowlicker advised.

“Caps are meaningless to her,” Hancock pointed out. “I guess no one ever bothered teaching her what their value was when she was a kid.”

“Doing what her parents wanted meant that she would get everything she needed,” Windowlicker agreed.

“I’ve been confusing her for MacCready. Instead of tempting her to stay around, caps were just another tool to help other people. She has some ego, but it’s too fragile to control her without breaking her. I don’t want to be that kind of bastard again. So, what do you know about her beliefs?”

“Sins of the father,” Windowlicker pointed out again. “She has two-hundred years of family history that she’s trying to undo on her own. Sins that are accumulating with the continued actions of the surviving members.”

“Are they all in The Capital Wasteland?” Hancock asked.

“Last I checked, yes. Maybe instead of getting her to focus on the family she was born into, get her to focus on the ones who care about her. You’re not the only ghoul in her life.”

Hancock thought about the ghouls she came into the Commonwealth with. They were happy to get a place of their own, but some of them had started complaining almost right away that she couldn’t visit them. Others were upset about the idea of being moved around at his convince because of her. There weren’t enough ghouls to set up two settlements, but maybe there was a compromise.

“I’ve thought about moving them to the Mayor’s Shelter. I heard they used to live underground, maybe it’ll feel more like home to them,” he thought out loud. “I’m not sure if that’s enough for her. She seems to be so used to be an island herself that even having people love her just doesn’t register.” Hancock felt morose for a moment.

He remembered some of the things he did to people when he was human to get them into his bed. How easily he told them that he loved them, and then after fucking them left them emotionally broken. She remembered her father threatening her when she worshiped him. She was someone who’s first experience with love was so similar to what Hancock had done in his past life.

Only difference was he had the decency to walk away after he got what he wanted, she was told that not enjoying the fucking just meant she didn’t love the people around her enough and that she needed to try earn the love that was never going to come. Her family kept fucking her, even if it wasn’t literal.

Hancock saw how his actions made many of his victims shy around someone who would truly love them after he was done, and he only inflicted pain for a few weeks or months. She had a lifetime of that pain and confusion.

“Let’s change the subject,” Hancock finally said, returning to his couch. “What’s the latest rumor on the Brotherhood of Steel?”

“They’re expanding,” Windowlicker finally said. “Rumor is that they aren’t happy with the property they have, especially the factions that decided everyone needed to be drafted and forgot about needing someone to provide them with food. Apparently, someone thought it would be a good idea to blow up the Jefferson Memorial. So, they are all short on food and water.”

“Which direction are they going?”

“Yes.”

A double-edged sword. There weren’t enough members to spread out too far and having them go multiple directions would buy some time. They were still heading North, and that’s when he was going to have troubles with them.”

“Do you need a place to move synths from there to?” he asked.

“No synth who still has their memory is going to come back to live next door to the Institute,” Windowlicker told him. “I’m here as a curtesy for the help you’ve given us over the years.”

“You’re leaving?”

Windowlicker was silent for a moment. Hancock could see him wanting to spout his usual lies. The man looked like he was fighting himself.

“I can’t say,” he finally told the ghoul. “I don’t know what they will do with me, if anything. After my failure last year, there’s a lot that they aren’t trusting me with anymore. I’m not even sure if there’s a new chapter already set up around here. I guess being buddies with the Institute Director can ruin your street cred.”

Hancock was still thinking of precautions he was going to have to take. If the Brotherhood of Steel got to the Commonwealth, a whole lot of people were going to need a place to stay. That meant supplies, and more security for those supplies. He was hoping to make the city into a type of self-sufficient fortress. Such precautions take time, and he wasn’t sure if that was on his side anymore.

“Let your people know that Goodneighbor is still their ally. If Nate has a problem with that, he can stuff it,” Hancock growled. “Have the next messenger come by wanting to discuss the possibility of counterfeit caps, that way I’ll know they are from you guys. If they want me to kick Amari and Irma out, have them tell me where to send them. I can use the trick they pulled on Marian for a bit, but if they wait too long, I’ll need to come up with a different excuse.”

“I’ll do that,” Windowlicker said. “I’m going to miss this face; I didn’t really have it long enough to recognize it in the mirror yet.”

“Any idea of what you’re going with next?” Hancock asked.

“There is one. Running with Marian, I forgot that she tended to recycle her names. I was thinking with recycling my faces. I don’t think anyone would recognize me if I went with my old vault dweller look.”

Hancock chuckled at the thought of Windowlicker being a vault dweller. “When did you go with a look like that?”

“It’s my original,” Windowlicker said. “I was a little punk then, thought that I was tough just because I could put on a jacket and own a switchblade when I was a kid. I learned how wrong I was when I turned nineteen.”

“Don’t feel too bad, I thought I was tough for similar reasons, it took me until I was forty to figure that out.”

Windowlicker stood up. “I better get going. I’ll let my command know what you said. I’ll be seeing you around.”

Hancock gave Windowlicker 100 caps per freed slave for his work before the spy walked out of the room and shut the door behind him. Hancock felt almost as if he watched a friend die.

He quietly raised the glass of moonshine towards the door in a private toast, “Take care of yourself, Deacon.”