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Be careful what you ask for. Hancock curled his fingers around the piece of paper, wishing he’d never thought up the stupid idea.
Truth was, he’d been competing with Nate, Nora’s dead husband, since day one. She still wore the ring on a necklace, tucked into her vault suit, against her skin. Even when he stripped her down to nothing, when he slid inside her, that damned ring swung between them.
He didn’t hate Nate. Wasn’t even mad at Nora for holding on. He just wanted something, anything, to feel like he could win.
Nate had been military, a damned war hero. He’d been a father, died trying to protect his child. Hancock was mayor of a city of thugs and junkies, and only had that much to his name because he’d slaughtered the last mayor.
“Hey, John. I made iguana on a stick, your favorite.” Nora walked in, two plates balanced on her arm. “You know, I put myself through law school as a waitress. I could put on a pretty little apron sometime for you, nothing else underneath.”
Hancock shook his head. “Sorry, sister. I’m not really feeling all that well.”
She stopped, the plates swaying from her quick move. “Oh. Are you alright?”
“Yeah. Everything’s fine. Just gonna call it an early night.” He shoved the paper into his coat and walked toward her. He pressed a kiss to her cheek, and ignored the hurt on her face.
He never did measure up, did he?
#
Nora sat in the living room, picking at the food. She’d never liked that meal, but it was John’s favorite.
Had she done something wrong? He was never short with her, never turned her down like that. Was he sick? Could ghouls get sick?
The bed creaked, and Nora smiled. John fidgeted in his sleep, always. It had annoyed her at first, but when she tried to sleep alone anymore, she missed it.
Nora walked to the doorway, peeked inside. Sure enough, John was spread out, blanket pulled across him, a bare leg sticking out from beneath. He’d tossed his coat across the desk, hat on top.
She remembered the first time she had met him, when he wore that silly thing. Keeping the laughter from her face had been difficult, but it sort of became him as time went on, as she realized how much it meant to him. He didn’t wear it because he liked it, but because it was a promise. It was who he wanted to be, who he swore he would be.
A piece of paper stuck out from the pocket, and she frowned.
He’d had that in his hand when she’d walked in, hadn’t he?
She pulled it out and opened it.
And stared down at a perfect drawing of Nate.
#
Hancock woke, a shadow over him. “Morning Sunshine,” he rasped to Nora, who sat beside the bed in a chair, legs folded as she stared at him. “I know we enjoy our kinks, but I didn’t think sleep watching was one of yours.”
“Who gave you this?” Nora held out the drawing of Nate.
Hancock sat up, met with that damned perfect face again. He wasn’t going to have this talk naked, that was sure as fuck. He pulled the sheet around him while he reached for his clothes, putting on the pants and shirt. He didn’t wear the hat around the house, but he couldn’t help it right then.
“Codsworth drew it.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Don’t be mad at him; I asked him to.”
Nora frowned, looking down at the picture, then back up at Hancock. Fuck, he hated that. There was no comparison. There never was. “Why would you do that? Why did you hide it from me?”
Hancock rubbed his hand against the back of his neck, the ridges of his burns catching, reminding him of everything he wasn’t. “I had to know.”
“Know what?”
“What Nate looked like. I know a bit about him, but, I needed a face.”
“And this is why you were weird last night?” Nora shook the piece of paper. “This is what you wouldn’t talk to me about?”
“Fuck, Nora, what do you want me to say?”
“How about the truth! What’s going on in your head, John? I’m always honest with you, but you won’t let me in.”
He tried to ignore how perfectly that chiseled face on the paper went with hers. Hancock would bet they were quite the lookers together, a fucking perfect pair.
“Look, Nora, I know I’m not a great replacement. I’m living up to someone so far above me. I guess I thought, maybe I’d see his face and I’d feel better. I’m petty, vain, and I thought maybe I’d find out he looked like the back of a Brahmin, and I’d win something. Fuck, I thought, maybe I could have this one thing. I’m not a hero, I’m not a father, I didn’t fucking marry you under the stars like he did. I wanted something, anything, where I felt like I was the better man.”
“You’re seriously trying to compete with a man who died sixty years ago?”
“Yeah, I am. Like I said, I get that this ain’t the sexiest thing I’ve done, but damnit, I needed it. And when Codsworth drew that picture, when I got to see your model-worthy husband’s face, it just dug a bit deeper than I was expecting it to.”
“You’re an idiot, John.”
“Don’t I know it. But you, you’re amazing. And you picked me for some reason I can’t even start to understand.”
Nora came off the chair and straddled Hancock’s lap. She took his hat off, and he tried to hide the flinch.
“Nate was handsome, I’ll admit that. And yeah, he went off to war. But do you know why I don’t talk about him?”
“Because he’s dead?”
She smiled and pressed a kiss to where his nose should have been, to where Nate would have had a nose. “Because he was an asshole. We didn’t have a great marriage, and while I’m sorry he’s gone, I’m not sorry I’m not married to him anymore. If the world hadn’t ended, I would have taken Shaun and left within a year. Nate carried about himself, mostly.”
John listened to the ease in which Nora spoke of Nate. She’d never talked about him before, but he’d assumed because it was uncomfortable, because who wanted to discuss their dead husband with the ghoul they were sleeping with?
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
She touched his face, her fingers tracing the deep groves in his skin. “It never mattered. Or, at least, I didn’t think it mattered. I didn’t realize you’d be keeping score.”
Hancock reached up and grasped her hands, stilled her fingers. “You’re fucking amazing, and I don’t get why you stay with me. We both know you have a hundred men who’d jump at the chance to be with you, but you stick around with a radfreak like me. I don’t get it.”
Nora pulled her hands from his grip and worked at the buttons of his shirt. “You know, when I first met you, and your way of saying ‘welcome to my town’ was to stab a man for me, well, it’s hard for a girl not to notice something like that.” She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his throat. “And, as time went on, as I got to know you better, I realized you were pretty damned amazing yourself. You wanted to do right, wanted to help people, and you weren’t afraid to get down in the filth to do it.”
Hancock swallowed hard as her lips moved over his skin, the words spilling across him. “So you were willing to overlook some of my more obvious shortcomings?”
“Not at all. God, John, do you have any idea how turned on I was when you stood on that balcony and talked to the town? I could barely speak to you afterward because I was too busy fantasizing.”
Nora slid his shirt off his shoulders, tossed it aside. She ran her tongue over his collar bone, slipping it into the ridges of his burns.
She’d never shied away from his skin, never acted as if it bothered her. But how couldn’t it? He was a freak and she was perfect. “It’s okay to tell me the truth, Nora. I can handle it. Smoothskins don’t go crazy for ghouls covered in radiation burns.”
“Well, I did, and I do.” She pushed his shoulders back until he laid back. She took her thumbs and ran them over his flat nipples, smiling when he moaned.
She always knew how to turn him into putty. “I don’t overlook a damned thing, John. I love you, everything about you. I love how you use that shotgun, I love your stupid hat, I love the way you smile at me in the morning, and I love your skin. This man-“ she held up the picture “is not competition, and not just because he’s dead. If he were here, I’d still pick you, no challenge at all.”
“The ring. . .”
“Is that what started this? I wear the ring because of Shaun. I don’t have baby pictures of him, I don’t have anything like that. I see it and I think of my baby.”
Hancock thought back, to the sadness that always crossed her face when she would touch the ring, when she’d rub it between her fingers.
Fuck, he was an idiot to have not seen it.
“So, you’re saying you kind of like me?” He flashed her his best smile, the one he knew drove her crazy.
“I’m saying that I love you, you idiot.”
He pulled her down into a kiss. “Well, why don’t you go get that apron and prove it to me, hmm?”