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Prompt: Medical Restraints
The room their unseen kidnappers had put Lucy in was small. The size of a bedroom, with a bed in the corner, a tiny bathroom behind a half wall, and nothing else. To walk the full thing took seven steps one direction, and twelve in the other. She had room to go on short walks around the perimeter, avoiding the metal ledge of the bed she’d banged her knee on once when she hadn’t been paying attention. She could do a series of stretches on the concrete floor, reaching for the sky and bending over to touch her toes. And she could bang on the metal door and call for someone to let her out, to no avail.
She’d woken up here…she wasn’t sure how long ago. The overhead light had been on when she’d come to, but there were no windows…no way of knowing if it was night or day or where she was. There was a light switch by the locked door, and enough room under the door that whoever was holding her captive could slide her a tray of food, which they’d done twice now…not enough to keep her full, but enough to keep her alive so far. She’d lay on her stomach a few times, trying to peer under the door, but all she could see was that same concrete floor and a wall a few feet away.
She’d freaked out at first. Had screamed and banged on the door and listened for the familiar voice of the Ghoul calling back to her. They’d been traveling together…were on their way to Vegas. They’d been looting a building…some sort of old office, according to the Ghoul. And they’d found a couple of things. Old cans of food. Some antiseptic the Ghoul had insisted she grab because ‘she was worse than the dog for getting herself into trouble.’ And then Lucy had walked into a room, the Ghoul right behind her, and the floor had dropped out from under them, the Ghoul’s hand closing around the back of her arm like he was ready to yank her out of trouble like he’d done a few times before.
But they’d both been in trouble this time.
Lucy remembered landing on a thin mattress on the floor, the Ghoul landing hard on top of her. She remembered a sweet smelling gas that had made it impossible to get up. She was pretty sure the Ghoul had, though…vaguely remembered him shaking her arm and the sound of his fists on the door.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!”
Had she dreamed those words? She could hear them so clearly in her mind…she knew what he sounded like when he was angry. But she’d been too tired to open her eyes…hadn’t been able to do more than make her fingers twitch.
And then she’d woken up in this room.
Lucy paced around the room doubling as a holding cell, counting her steps and telling herself that she was fine. That she wasn’t hurt and they'd given her food and so they had some reason to keep her alive. And that the ghoul was probably alive too. Right? He was probably fine. He was tough. Durable. More durable than her, for sure. The gas had taken her out before him.
She bent and touched her toes, then reached for the sky. She did a few pushups. She bent one knee in front of her and let her other leg extend back, then switched legs, stretching her hips. She took deep breaths, listening for footsteps or voices.
When footsteps did come, she jumped to her feet, hurrying to the door. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”
A tray slid under the door, a sandwich, some carrots, and a single chocolate bar on it. She dropped to her stomach, watching the shiny shoes walk away.
“Hey! Wait! Please!”
The person didn’t respond. Just kept walking.
“Wait! Hey! Asshole!” she snapped, reaching a hand under the door. But the person kept walking and her fingers just skimmed the surprisingly clean floor. “Where’s my friend! Did you hurt him? Where is he?”
She didn’t even know his name. They’d been traveling together for two weeks and she’d never asked…hadn’t thought he’d actually tell her.
With nothing else to do, Lucy slept. She’d slept three times altogether, but she didn’t know for how long or what time it was. But in her dreams, she smelled something sweet, and her lips curved into a smile as she thought about the chocolate bars they’d been giving her. Would the Ghoul like chocolate, she wondered as, in her dreams, lights passed by overhead. The sun? Or fluorescent lights? Had they gotten out? Maybe the Ghoul had helped her escape. Maybe he was getting them to safety.
In her dream, she saw the Ghoul sitting beside her…could hear his voice as though from far away as he struggled to speak through a coughing fit. “What the fuck are you doing to her?”
His coughing fits worried her sometimes, even if she never dared voice that thought. She doubted he’d appreciate her concern. “Hm?” she asked, wondering if she was doing one of the things he said were ‘stupid’ and ‘likely to get them killed’ like lighting a fire too late at night or being too loud or counting her caps outside in the open in a settlement or failing to barter with vendors in settlements.
“Hey! I said what the fuck are you doing! I’m talking to you!”
“What?” she asked, turning her face and scrunching her nose. When she tried to move her hand, though, her wrist stopped short, held in place by something on her wrist. Her other arm was the same, and she shook her head. “Hey…what…”
“Get you fucking hands off her!”
“It really is a shame…” A man’s voice she didn’t understand murmured, a hand resting on her stomach. She scrunched her nose and tried to squirm away, but she couldn’t go anywhere. “She really is beautiful.”
“What the hell are you even doing this for? Get off her!”
“We could have used her for other things…the breeding program.” His fingers stroked her stomach and she whined, trying again to squirm away. “If the others hadn’t left…but it’s just me. I have to continue the research. It’s imperative. When the overseer comes, he’ll want to know what I’ve been working on.
“Yeah? And what exactly is that?”
“You’ve been without your medicine for three days…you’re already showing symptoms. It shouldn’t be much longer. I can put you in the MRI after…”
The hand cupped her face, resting on her jaw, and she tried to swat it away, but she couldn’t move her hands. She tried to use her feet for leverage but they were tied down too. She whined, teeth gritted as she forced her eyes open. “What…what? Stop!” She turned her face away, but the hand followed.
“If it helps, you are assisting Vault Tec with life saving research.” The stranger came into focus, blurry at first, then clear despite the dim light. His face was gaunt, the white coat he was wearing hanging off of him, and his thumb brushed the corner of her lips as he leaned in. “But we have some time…I’m sure it’s been a while since you’ve been with anyone other than that monster…and I’ve been alone here for so long…”
Lucy opened her mouth, eyes wide, and the second he smiled, she turned her head to the side, getting most of his thumb into her mouth and biting down hard, teeth breathing through skin and bone, blood flooding her mouth. The man screamed, yanking his hand back and falling on his butt, droplets of blood on his pale face. She spit the thumb at him, bearing her bloody teeth, and the Ghoul cackled so hard he started to cough again. She could just make him out behind a wall made of bars, his arm propped against one of them.
“Goodamn, little killer. Hey asshole, put another finger in her mouth. See what happens! How you think I got this little digit?” He held up a hand and wiggled his right trigger finger
She pulled desperately against the restraints, writhing on the bed while the man on the floor screamed and held his hand to his chest, trying to stop the bleeding. “Let me go!” she snarled, watching him scramble to his feet, looking suddenly so small and weak. She could take him. If she could get out of here, she would rip his throat out with her teeth! “Let me go, you mother fucker!”
The man fled the room, glancing back at her with wide, horrified eyes, and slammed the door behind him. She screamed when she heard the lock click, kicking and thrashing until her head dropped to bed and she let out a sob. “Let me go…let me go!”
“Hang on, Valultie,” the Ghoul called, coughing hard, then gasping for air.
She turned to him, tears on her cheeks.
“We’ll get out. You’ll be alright,” he wheezed. “Don’t worry.”
“Why are we here?”
“I don’t know yet…he wouldn’t tell me much. But I’m thinking it’s just him.”
“What does he want?”
“I don’t know, Lucy,” he told her, voice soft, and she let out a breath, closing her eyes, listening to him cough. She was used to the sound…but then she remembered what the other man had said. He’d been without his medicine for three days. The Ghoul used that inhaler every day. But he’d been without it for three days.
Something clanked, and a door in the wall of bars swung open. The Ghoul wasted no time in running through it, hurrying to her side and grabbing the cuff that held her arm.
“Alright…hang on…hang on…”
“Let me go. Please. Please…” she whispered, tugging on her arm, and he rested a hand on her shoulder, leaning in.
“Hey,” he murmured, dead serious, but his eyes were almost soft. “I’m gonna get you out. Hang on. Just breathe, alright. Give me a second and I’ll get these off of you.”
She nodded, taking a shuddering breath and closing her eyes. “Sorry…okay…sorry…”
“You’re fine,” he muttered, then something cold touched her hand.
Her eyes snapped open and she watched him slide a knife between her skin and the cuff around her wrist.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Had it in my boot. Idiot never checked. Now be still. I don’t want to nick you.” Carefully, he sawed back and forth, turning his face away to cough. But he didn’t stop sawing through the cuff until it snapped off and she pulled her hand to her chest with a long breath.
“Thank you.”
“Do the rest,” he told her, putting the knife in her free hand, then backing away.
She did, sawing at her other arm, then her legs, and all the while, he coughed and leaned against the wall, hands on his knees. “Are you okay?” she asked when she was finally free, swinging her feet off the bed and jumping off of it, wiping the blood from her face.
“Stay over there,” he ordered, a hand up. “And keep that knife, you hear?”
“What?” She turned in circles, looking for another exit, but the only door she could see was the one the scientist had gone through.
“You stay there, and you keep that knife. And if I turn, you put me out your misery and kill that miserable fuck. Then find the dog and get out.”
“What are you talking about?” she whispered, but she knew. Somehow, she knew. And she shook her head, taking another step. “No…”
“Stay over there!” he snapped.
“No!” her voice broke. “Please…we both have to get out of here! You too!”
He sighed, leaning against the wall.
“We’ll get out! We’ll find your medicine!” She took another step, then another, and he bared his teeth before coughing hard, a breath coming out as a snarl. She remembered his friend, Roger, and the woman, Martha, in the grocery store. They’d repeated their names over and over, trying to hold onto themselves. But she didn’t know his name!
So she reached out and took both of his hands in hers, careful with the knife. “Please! Please, we’ll get out. We’ll find your medicine. You can’t just give up.”
He turned his head, pulling one hand back to cover his mouth, that snarling sound shaking her to her core, but she held onto his free hand. “Vaultie, back up!” he snapped, but he didn’t pull away…instead, he all but clung to her, and she took another step, dropping her head to his shoulder, tears burning her eyes.
“Please. I don’t know your name. But…my name is Lucy. I’m Lucy.” He let out a shaking breath, fingers squeezing hers. And that was enough for her. He’d saved her life. Now she would save his. “I’ll find a way out. Stay here.”
She spun, going straight for the door. They were lucky…it was a regular door, not a normal Vault one. So maybe this wasn’t a real Vault. But she had to get them out. Now. So she grabbed the knob and tried to jiggle it. It was locked, of course, but she knew something she could do about that. “I need something…something small. Straight. Do you have anything? A bobby pin?”
“Sweetheart, I haven’t needed bobby pins for a while,” he told her, leaning against the wall. “And even when I had hair, I wasn’t exactly the target audience.”
“A small screwdriver?” she tried. “Anything?”
He reached into his pockets, searching, and she left him to it, running into the room he’d been locked in. There was a cot in the corner just like the one in the bedroom she’d been kept in. Lucy plunged the knife into it, slicing into the fabric and grinning when she spotted the springs.
“You ruining my bed, sweetheart?” he called, sounding careless, but she wasn’t fooled.
Lucy grabbed a spring, not bothering to answer as she used the knife to saw at the thin metal, sure she was ruining his knife too, but she could get him a replacement as soon as they were out of here. And they were getting out of here. Especially if it was just that one guy. She finally snapped a piece off the spring, just long enough to stick into the lock, and ran back to the door, dropping to her knees in front of it.
Behind her, the Ghoul coughed, and when she glanced back, he had slid down to the ground, breaths coming in horrible sounding wheezes. “Hold on!” she called. “I’m getting out. I’m…fuck…hold on. Please.”
“You ought to swear more, Vaultie,” he joked softly.
“Damn,” she called over her shoulder, smiling shakily when he laughed, the sound tapering off into another wheeze. Then she pressed her ear to the door, closing her eyes to concentrate as she turned the little metal piece, searching for the right spot. It took a few tries but she’d practiced and practiced in her Vault and…
There.
Click.
She grinned, jumping up and opening the door. “I’ll get your medicine! I’ll be right back!” she called.
“Vaultie…wait!”
“One second!”
She took off running, boots slamming into the floor, arms pumping, knife in hand. He had to be nearby…there was blood on the floor, and she followed the droplets to another door, bringing a boot up and slamming it into a spot right by the doorknob. She didn’t have time to pick anymore locks and she couldn’t let him use that gas on her again.
The gunshot was so loud it made her ears ring as she stumbled back, hand flying to her shoulder. But she was running on pure adrenaline, heart pounding so hard she barely felt it. Rushing forward, Lucy tackled him, knocking the gun out of his hand and bringing the knife down into the meat of his wrist, pinning it to the dark blue carpet that immediately darkened with his blood.
He screamed, thrashing under her, but she held him fast, knees on his stomach, her hand holding the arm not pinned down. “Where’s his bag!”
“Please…”
“Where’s his fucking bag! Now!”
“The corner! There!” he gasped, pointing, and she yanked the knife out of his arm and grabbed the gun he’d dropped, sticking the knife in her boot and stumbling over to the cabinet in the corner. The top drawer was empty. The second held his bag, and she grabbed it, taking off at a sprint back down the hall, following the blood trail back to the Ghoul.
“I’ve got it! I’ve…” She skidded to a stop as she ran through the open door, watching him snarling in the corner, hands clenched into claws, teeth bared like he was in pain as he stood in that same corner where she’d left him. “No…no…”
His eyes snapped open, locking in on her.
“What’s your name?” she demanded, taking a slow step into the room. “My name is Lucy, and I should have asked you yours but I never did…I’m sorry. What’s your name? Please!”
“My…” He dropped his head against the wall with a groan, a shudder shaking his whole body. “My name…”
She crept forward, digging in his bag without looking, then pulling out a vial by feel alone. She didn’t know where his inhaler was, but she’d felt three of those vials inside the bag. She hoped that would be enough. “What’s your name?”
“My name is…Cooper,” he breathed. “Cooper Howard. Your…your name…” He clenched his jaw, that horrible snarling noise forcing its way through his teeth. “Your name is Lucy.”
She took another step, lips trembling. “Your name is Cooper Howard,” she whispered, knowing what that meant and not able to take it in. Not yet. “Your name is Cooper. My name is Lucy. I have your medicine. Just…” She shuddered when he made that noise again, coughing hard and growling. Lucy hurried towards him then, knowing that this could be another one of those things he told her was stupid and not able to just stand there.
He sprang at her without warning, hands grabbing her shoulders, knocking the both of them down to the ground, and she dropped the gun, head knocking against the floor as it skidded across the floor. “Cooper! Cooper!” She turned her face when his teeth snapped at her. It couldn’t end like this. He couldn’t end like this! “Please! I got the medicine! It’s me! It’s Lucy!”
He paused, closing his eyes tight, teeth still bared, but he pulled one hand back, staring at the blood on his fingers from her shoulder.
“Here! Cooper, take it!” she begged, holding up the vial she’d somehow hung on to. “Please!”
He grabbed it, biting the lid off and downing the amber liquid inside, scooting away from her. His eyes closed, throat bobbing as he swallowed every mouthful.
“Do you need another one?” she whispered, voice shaking. “There’s two more in your bag.”
He wiped a hand over his face and sat down hard, legs in front of him, back pressed to the wall. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Fuck.”
“Do you need another one?” she repeated.
“No. One’s fine. Shit. You alright?”
She nodded, sitting up and feeling the pain in her shoulder for the first time as the adrenaline finally started to wear off. “I’m okay.”
“Why are you bleeding?” he demanded, sounding angry.
“He shot me.”
“You shoot him back?”
“No time. I had to get your bag. I stabbed him though.”
He huffed, grabbing the gun and shoving it into his pocket as he sat up on his knees, then reached a hand out to her. “Up. Let me see.”
She took his hand, letting him pull her upright, then pulled the flap of torn fabric away from her shoulder to show him. “We need to get out of here.”
He grimaced. “Yeah…I’ll have to dig that bullet out later.”
“Later,” she agreed. “I didn’t kill him…he could come still use that gas.”
“Alright.” He straightened, helping her do the same. “You see your bag?”
“I was just looking for yours,” she muttered, dropping here eyes, sure he was about to scold her for being stupid again.
Surprisingly, he just nodded, not looking irritated at all. “Well, let’s go see if Doctor Asshole’s got it.” He shouldered his bag, giving her another once over. “That was pretty impressive, little killer. Where’d you learn to pick a lock?”
She blushed a little, letting him lead the way, obviously picking up the blood trail immediately. “A couple of years ago, a woman came from another Vault to marry a man in 33. Steph. We became friends and…one day, she taught me how,” she admitted.
“Huh. Little rebel.” He downed another vial, dropping the empty into his bag. “How’s your shoulder?”
“It hurts,” she told him, too tired to try and lie.
“We can look around and see if there’s any pain medicine here. There’s bound to be some good shit.” He turned the corner, glancing at the door with the hole in the wood where her boot had gone through it, then at the busted doorframe with a grin. “Hey there, doctor. What happened to your hand?” he asked, voice full of false courtesy.
The doctor was still on the ground, holding his bloody wrist, and he shrank back when Cooper stepped closer. “You don’t understand. I had to finish the research.”
“Sure…I got a little research I’d like to do myself. Sweetheart, why don’t you look around? See what you can find? I’ll take care of this asshole.”
“Please! I can tell you more about what I’ve learned! And the other’s…they’ll be back any day now…”
He glanced back at Lucy, tilting his head towards the door. “Want to do some looting?”
She nodded, hurrying to do as he’d asked. It wasn’t that she wasn’t used to the kind of violence he could do, but she also wanted to see if she could find some food. And medicine. She was starving. So she left the room and pulled the knife out of her boot, searching the lab next door, barely flinching when she heard the gunshot. That man had been planning to let the Ghoul…to let Cooper…Cooper Howard, lose his humanity and kill her while she was tied down to a gurney.
She just hoped Cooper found her bag.
The lab next door was empty, as was the next room she found, but then she opened a third door and stopped in her tracks with a grin that took over her whole face as the automatic lights flickered on. There was a metal table covered in clipboards and discarded papers right in the middle of the room, almost making her dismiss this one entirely. But then she saw the wall to wall shelving units fully stocked with cans of soup and boxes of mac and cheese and bags of rice and pasta…more food than she’d seen since she’d left Vault 4. A bookshelf in the corner held towels and gloves and first aid kits. Multiple first aid kits. At least four. And she grabbed all of them, leaving them on the metal table, then started grabbing whatever food she thought might fit in their bags, covering the table with it, shoving the clipboards and papers out of the way.
When Cooper found her again, peering into the room before spotting her looting the hell out of the pantry, he had her bag thrown over his shoulder. He looked around and whistled, taking the box of crackers she held out and plucking one out, tossing it in his mouth. “Shit, sweetheart. We could live for months off this.”
She grinned. “This is probably just one of them. If it’s anything like my Vault, there should be a whole floor devoted to food storage. But the doors are wrong for a Vault…I wonder if there are lower levels.”
“We’d probably better not stick around to find out. Unzip the top of that onesie. I need to get the bullet out of you before it gets infected.”
She took another cracker and did as he asked, chewing as he grabbed a first aid kit from a table, popping open the lid and rifling through it, pulling out a pair of tweezers sealed in a plastic pouch…untouched. “Can I ask you something?”
“Well, you just saved my ass, so I guess I can answer a question.” He pulled out the bottle of antiseptic and a sewing kit next, laying all of it out on the table.
“You said…your name. It’s…Cooper Howard.”
“That ain’t a question.” He opened the tweezers and poured the antiseptic over them, then stepped closer, eyes trained on her shoulder. She hissed when he dumped more of it over the wound, then used his bare fingers to hold the wound open.
“Can I call you that?”
“My name?” he asked, huffing a little. “Sure. Why the hell not?”
Lucy closed her eyes when the tweezers pushed inside the wound, biting down on her lip with a whine she tried to stifle. He just nodded a little.
“Almost got it.”
And then he pulled the tweezers out, pulling the bullet along with them, and poured more antiseptic over her bleeding arm, making her hiss and jerk back.
“Sorry. I’ll stitch you up and we’ll see if we can find some pain meds. Looks like this place is pretty well stocked.”
“Cooper?”
He paused, then threaded the needle. “Yeah?”
“Cooper Howard?”
“You got a question, sweetheart?”
“The Cooper Howard? The actor?”
“You had movies in your little hole in the ground?”
“Yes. A few. My dad was a big fan.”
“Figures,” he grumbled.
“I’m a big fan too,” she offered, looking away while he slipped the needle into her arm, pulling the threat tight.
“Huh.”
“Does anyone know? Your name?”
“A few people. Most people don’t care to ask.” He put another stitch into her arm, then poured the rest of the little antiseptic bottle over it.
“Cooper?”
“What?” he asked, stepped back and regarding her impatiently.
She offered a hesitant smile. “Will you tell me about filming your movies?”
His lips tilted into a little smile. “Come on. Let’s fill our bags and get out of here. And then, maybe I can tell you about it.”
Lucy grinned, holding out a hand. “Deal.”
Snorting, he took her hand and shook it. “Yeah, alright. Let’s get a move on. I want to get out of this shithole and find the dog.”
“Is it true that it was really your dog?” she blurted, catching her bag when he tossed it at her. “In A Man and His Dog? Because my dad said it was but I can’t really trust anything he said anymore.”
“Less talking, more looting,” he scolded halfheartedly. Then, when she obediently began putting cans of food into her bag, he nodded. “Yeah. That was my real dog. His name was Roosevelt.”
“You know, that’s a much better name than Dogmeat.”
He rolled his eyes. “Just put the cans in the bag, MacLean.”
Grinning, she did.