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nightingaelic · 2 years

Note

Could you do companions reactions to a erewolf couriour

Awoooooooo, happy spooky month

TW: Blood

When the dust-up over Hoover Dam ended and New Vegas had settled into something resembling order, the courier booked themselves an appointment at Doctor Usanagi's clinic with a very clear set of instructions. Followers of the Apocalypse volunteers reported later that they had overheard them arguing with the doctor, telling her that they didn't care about the risks of the surgery, they wanted something "gone from their head." Of course, no one thought much of it until both the doctor and the courier turned up missing the next morning, leaving behind an impressive amount of blood, a brand-new hole in the clinic wall, and a note from Usanagi saying she was going back to the Boneyard immediately and not to come looking for her.

For three days the courier was gone, and New Vegas couldn't help speculating about what happened to them. Murdered by disgruntled Legionaries, or NCR Rangers, or Brotherhood Knights. Botched operation, and the doctor had fled. Patient had murdered the doctor, then fled. Mr. New Vegas kept bringing it up on the radio, interviewing anyone who'd so much as looked at the courier once in their lifetime, and some of the casinos began to start betting pools on the most likely odds.

The reality of the situation struck the courier's companion in the face on the third day, when they returned to the Lucky 38 after yet another fruitless search. The securitron elevator operator wasn't at its post, but its mangled frame lay on the floor of the presidential suite, wires torn all to hell and screen messy with static. The culprit lay asleep in the main bedroom, taking up most of the courier's king-sized bed. It was a massive, snoring creature, whuffing softly as it breathed. Its scarred rib cage rose and fell under coarse, sandy fur that grew long across its spine and soft around its eyes. Its long tail twitched, and its hubcap-sized paws curled and jolted with the chase of a dream.

There was barely time to take this new monster in, before it let out a whine and began to diminish. The hair receded, the spine shifted, the bed creaked as its occupant shrank, twisting in the sheets as claws became hands and feet. When the change was complete, there lay the decider of New Vegas' fate.

The courier opened their eyes, bleary and unfocused. "Hey," they said.

Arcade Gannon: "Ah, fuck." Arcade clung to the suite's door frame, plasma gun loose in his grip. "You're... you... you killed Usanagi, didn't you?"

"Actually, no." The courier pulled the sheets up more to cover their naked form. "She, um... see, I went in to get the bullet taken out, and... well, I thought a day before the full moon was going to be enough time, but I guess it wasn't. And I couldn't control myself that well, since it had been so long, but I don't... I don't remember... eating... her."

"Eating..." Arcade lowered his gun and wiped his forehead. "The bullet... full moon?"

"Yeah." The courier swallowed. "I, uh, used to do... this... more often. Until Goodsprings."

"Goodsprings," Arcade repeated faintly. He moved to sit down on the bed too, but he kept a good distance between himself and the courier. "Who... who did you eat?"

"Some Jackals. South of Primm. I thought you might find it ironic, actually."

"Primm?!?" Arcade's head whipped toward them. "You ran all the way out to Primm and back in three days?!?"

They shrugged. "Easier to do, when you're a wolf."

The two sat in awkward silence for a bit. Once Arcade gained control of his heart rate again, his eyes narrowed. The courier raised an eyebrow at him. "What are you thinking about?"

"This, obviously. Deciding whether to kill you or hide you."

The courier gathered the sheet around them and stood up. "Well, let me know either way. I need a shower."

Craig Boone: Boone cleared his dry throat. "If I shoot you, are you going to turn back into that... thing?"

"No," was the courier's tired answer. "But don't do it on the bed, you'll ruin the sheets."

That was enough to make Boone hesitate. He took his finger off the trigger of his rifle. "So you won't die."

"Probably not." The courier wrapped the sheet around themselves and stood to face him. "You've seen people shoot me before, Boone. How many times have I died?"

Boone frowned. "You know what I mean."

"I do." The courier pushed past him, headed for the bathroom. "And no. It'll hurt, I'll definitely bleed, but I won't die. You don't have the right equipment."

The NCR sniper followed them as they went to the sink, ran water over their dusty hands. When they were finished, he handed them a nearby towel and averted his eyes as they unwound the sheet.

"Tell me," he said.

The courier stepped into the shower and drew the curtain closed. "Ask Benny," they replied.

"Benny's gone."

"And you want me to tell you how to kill me?"

"Seems fair." Boone leaned against the bathroom wall. "You know how to kill me. In more ways than I originally thought, too."

The courier's reply was cross, but also exhausted. Like it came from the mouth of someone who had seen too much, yet not enough. "Get out, Boone. I'm not ready to die. Same as you, it seems."

Lily Bowen: Lily came and sat on the bed next to them. "Dearie, I think you might have a condition."

The courier chuckled. "I do, Grandma. Don't worry, though. I used to be pretty good at dealing with it, when I was still running packages on the regular for the Mojave Express."

Lily felt their forehead. "No fever," she pronounced. "Your Leo is asleep, but you are absolutely covered in dirt. Look, now we'll have to do laundry. Go wash up."

Her surrogate grandchild obeyed, and emerged from the suite's showers after a little while, fresh and clean. Lily had stripped the bed in the meantime, bundled its covers up and tossed them in the hamper for the securitron service staff to clean, and was finishing corner tucks to pull the new bedspread flat. She bade the courier sit on the finished bed, and she pulled up an armchair to face them.

"Your Leo," she said, concerned. "Is he dangerous?"

"Um." The courier tucked their towel a little tighter and bit their lip. "She can be."

"For you, for others, or both?"

"Both."

Lily nodded. "We'll visit Doc Henry in Jacobstown. He can make you medication that will help."

The courier frowned. "Lily... I don't know if he can. I mean, we can certainly try, but it's not the same as schizophrenia."

"Get dressed, pumpkin." Lily patted her knees and stood up again. "It's a long trip."

"Yeah, it is." The courier sighed. "Fine. Let's go see what he and Calamity know about werewolves."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: Raul swallowed hard and took a step back, keeping his guns trained on them. "Hola, Six. And here I thought I'd seen everything."

"Easy." The courier held their hands up. "Human again. Not gonna hurt you."

"For now," Raul pointed out. "Later? Who knows. From what I've heard, you can't really tell where you stand, with naguals."

"It's not a conscious choice, viejo," the courier argued. "I'm not deciding, 'hmm, I think I'll morph into a beast today,' or anything like that. It just happens."

"Which makes you more dangerous, in my book," Raul shot back. "If you're not a nagual, qué eres?"

"I don't know." The courier slumped forward, put their head in their hands. "I'm tired, Raul. I just let out everything that's been pent-up in me for over a year. I feel like shit, and I definitely killed some people with my bare hands. People who probably deserved it, but still."

"Who did you kill?"

The courier didn't answer him. They just laid there, taking deep breaths, squeezing their eyes shut. "Quién?" Raul repeated, brandishing his pistols.

"Just shoot me," they mumbled. "Maybe it'll help you feel better. Maybe it'll help me feel better."

Raul leaned back against the wall and let his arms fall. He cursed, thumped his head against the room's cracked plaster, cast his eyes around the suite in disbelief. "Ruega por nosotros pecadores," he said. "You'll be the death of me, Six."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: Cass immediately emptied both barrels of her shotgun into the mattress, where the courier's head had been moments before. The courier cried out and grabbed their ears, hissing and writhing in pain.

Cass slid two more shells into her gun and pressed it to their heart. "Beast," she spat. "I've heard stories about things like you. Lost caravans, shredded brahmin, trails of blood, the whole shebang. You're one of the most dangerous things you can run into, on the Big Circle."

"You already knew that," the courier protested, grabbing weakly at the nose of her gun. "It's just that I'm usually dangerous on two legs, not four. What's the difference?"

"Every tribe I've ever met has some story about a giant 'yote that runs under a full moon, and how they used to feed it bighorners and dogs and even babies to keep it from slaughtering their villages. My own mother told me some of them." Cass' eyes were blazing with fury. "And here you are, walking among us like you're not a monster, pretending you're a person just so you can make out in the same way. Rolling in caps, fat as a brahmin baron, and a bloody fucking smile."

The courier's hands stilled. "That's not me. It's never been me. I've never attacked a caravan or eaten a baby or pretended to be something I'm not. Hell, I wouldn't even be here if a New Vegas dandy hadn't put a bullet in my head and made me a household name, Cass. Can you give me a fucking break?"

They stared each other down, neither willing to give in. Slowly, the courier tugged the shotgun away from their chest and sat up.

"Fine." Cass pulled the gun back and rested it against her shoulder. She put a hand on her hip. "Start talking, courier. And if you give me anything other than the straight truth, I'll blow your kneecaps off."

Veronica Santangelo: Veronica took a few steps back. Suddenly, her power fist seemed rather insufficient. "You're... I... how...?"

"Don't panic." The courier raised their head in alarm. Even this little movement seemed to be too much for them, and they fell back into mattress in exhaustion. "Ah, fuck."

Veronica's helpful instincts overrode her fear, and she was at their side in an instant. When she reached out to touch them, though, she hesitated. "You were just... that's impossible, Six."

"And here I am." The courier sighed and closed their eyes. "Poster child for impossibilities. They're pretty common, nowadays."

"Yeah, but not like this." Veronica gestured at their bruised body. "I mean, your bones, and the teeth, and the fur...!?"

She realized in that moment that the courier was very naked, and she quickly tossed a sheet over them. "Where are your clothes?!?"

"They weren't in Doctor Usanagi's clinic?"

"You mean those bits of cloth that were all over the floor? Well, I couldn't tell if they were yours or hers, given how shredded they were and how much blood was on them!"

"What about my Pip-Boy?"

Veronica clapped her hands to her forehead. "Oh my god, you killed the doctor. She put some faulty implant in you that turns you into a weird, mutated dog, and you killed the doctor. Is that what happened?"

"That is not at all what happened-"

"Then give me some kind of explanation that makes sense, Six, because I am this close to calling the rest of the securitrons up-"

"Okay, okay." The courier raised their head again and gave her a look of pure regret. "Fine. Do we have any toothpaste? My mouth tastes awful."

ED-E: ED-E scanned the courier a few times in quick succession. Elevated temperature, slightly-increased heart rate, contusions and scratches in line with others they had sustained over their Mojave wasteland adventures. Overall, they now looked no different from the other times they had laid in bed, recovering from the latest run-in with raiders or night stalkers - but there hadn't been a sensor error that might have accounted for how they'd transformed from a beast into a human. ED-E beeped the obvious question, from a safe distance.

"No," the courier answered, their voice muffled by the bedspread. "No, I'm not dying. Actively. Even if I feel like I might be."

That only earned them more beeps and blats. The courier groaned and flopped over onto their back. "No, I'm not sick. Or mutated. Or cur- cursed? ED-E, I'm fine. I'm just like this. Normally."

They sighed and closed their eyes again. "No, I know there's nothing 'normal' about it, and I know it's dangerous, for everyone on the Strip and me. I'm dealing with it, okay? That's why I went to Doctor Usanagi in the first place. It just didn't work out."

Even as a bot, ED-E could tell that the courier's spirits were as low as their energy. It ceased its wordless questioning and drifted closer. When they reached a hand up to pat its chassis, it leaned into the motion as if nuzzling a friend in pain.

"I'll figure something else out," the courier promised the bot. "Don't worry, ED-E."

Rex: Rex laid his ears back and tried not to look the courier in the eye. He whined when they sat up, curling his augmented spine and shrinking his frame to appear smaller. Well, as much as he could with robotic pieces, anyway.

"Oh, buddy." The courier rolled off the edge of the bed and hit the floor with a thump, taking the sheet with them. They wrapped it around themselves and reached a hand out, offering it to the German shepherd.

Rex sniffed their fingers carefully, then whined again. They smelled like themselves - like water and earth metals and the dust of nations - but there was something larger there, now. Something that Rex had sensed upon their first meeting and deferred to, now awake and burning like an uncontrollable grass fire.

"It's me," the courier reassured him. "It's okay. It's just me."

And Rex believed them, though the belief itself was an act of fear. He moved to lick their chin, and they ran their hands through his fur, grateful and magnanimous.

BONUS!

Benny Gecko: Benny stowed Maria in his jacket when he was certain the courier wasn't going to transform again. He crossed his arms and leaned on the suite's door frame. "So those Khans weren't just practicing a bit, when they said I'd need something special to take you down."

"Well, I don't know," the courier shot back, annoyed. "You tell me. You seem to have made out just fine, even if I didn't technically die."

Benny shrugged. "Like I said then, it wasn't personal. With you dead, we were made in the shade. Now, McMurphy said he had it all handled, but you shook off that bullet in the head like a brahmin baron shakes off caps in Gomorrah. What's your tale, nightingale?"

"My tale is that McMurphy was a cheap son of a bitch." The courier rolled back into the sheets. "Or he trusted the wrong gunsmith. It wasn't pure silver. Just plating."

"Huh." Benny smirked. "Did you figure that out before or after you ate the doc?"

"I didn't eat her."

"If you say so, cookie."

"I know what it looks like."

"Sure, sure."

The courier groaned. "You're not about to run off to the Van Graffs and rustle up something that will actually do me in, are you?"

"You've gotta know where the fire exits are in your casino, Six."

"Great." The courier bounced their head against the mattress in frustration. "So I've got you to worry about on top of all the gossip that's probably flying around. Fantastic."

"You can worry about me later, when you're all dolled up to go out on the town." Benny jerked his head toward the suite's shower.

The courier eyed him skeptically. "And why would I do that? I feel like absolute shit."

"Call it speaking from experience." Benny plucked a towel from a stack near the door and tossed it at the courier. "We either need to hit the road, or make the scene. New Vegas has questions, and you and I need to come up with answers, if we want to keep winning popularity contests around here."

"Ugh. Fine." The courier grabbed the towel and struggled to their feet. "Anywhere but the Gourmand."

Ulysses: Ulysses planted Old Glory's wooden base in the carpeting and studied the tired figure in the bed. "Always thought your records were wrong," he said. "Or altered, to make you a favorite."

"My records... oh, you mean my Mojave Express trip logs." The courier grimaced and shrugged. "It helps. I can go off-road more than most, and I haven't met any people who can outrun me when the change comes. But it's risky."

"You took that risk. Took it far and wide, with the moon above you and death in your teeth, in many forms." Ulysses bowed his head. "I understand now. Histories, old as the Mojave and older. Had I seen them sooner, things might have been different."

"I still don't know how I got through the Divide without it," the courier replied softly. "Or anything since Goodsprings, really. It's been so long since I could... since I felt..."

Ulysses let them feel the moment out in silence. He knew something about the words they fumbled for, the inability to describe a freedom lost and recovered. His knuckles relaxed around the staff he held, and he wondered if he'd crossed paths with them in their other form without realizing it, before their collision in the Mojave.

"Have you changed your mind about killing me?" the courier asked, eyeing the golden eagle that adorned the staff's head.

The other courier shook his head slightly. "The wasteland has already judged you. Our roads may run together, split, descend into the earth, but they will no longer be each other's end. What you are is what you have always been, even if I could not see it."

"You really didn't know?" The courier pulled the sheet around themselves and sat up, holding their head. A new scar was seared into their skull, atop the one from Goodsprings. "I mostly got by on anonymity and general indifference, but obviously someone figured it out. I thought maybe it was you who told Benny about me."

"No." Ulysses smiled under his mask. "But the leader of the Chairmen always did hold an eye for patterns."

It took a beat, but the courier eventually cracked a grin. "Ulysses. I'm touched. That was an actual joke."

Roxie: Roxie immediately squared up and growled, flashing her white teeth as the courier struggled to right themselves. They put a hand out as if trying to calm her, but the cyberdog snapped her jaw and snarled a louder warning.

"Okay, okay." The courier rolled off the far side of the bed and inched around it, moving slowly past the canine toward the suite's bathroom. Roxie turned and faced them as they moved, periodically sniffing the air between growls. Something in their scent that had hidden in the past was awake now, intertwining with their blood, sweat, and the dust of the Mojave. It was dangerous in an unknown way, and for the life that Roxie was protecting, she was afraid.

When the courier finished their shower, they stepped back into the suite's bedroom with a towel wrapped around their figure. Roxie set to barking, but this time the courier stood firm, unflinching. "I know you've got a litter coming," they said, between the cyberdog's barks. "And I know you don't understand me, really, but I promise you that I don't mean them any harm. It's okay, Roxie."

Roxie's barks petered out into whines, and eventually she stopped. When the courier moved to approach her she raised her lip, but she accepted their touch as they scratched around her ears.

Joshua Graham: Joshua Graham did not respond. Slowly, he raised the pistol from his side and flipped the safety off.

"Gonna shoot me?" the courier asked, watching the motion with a leisurely sweep of their brightening eyes.

"God willing," Graham said. "It would not do to ignore a warning from on high."

"A warning? Do tell."

"'Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing,'" Graham recited. "'But inwardly they are ravening wolves.' The Book of Matthew, chapter seven."

The courier grinned. "I've never known you to be so literal, Malpais. And I know you've ignored that warning before."

"I have," Graham agreed. "And the wasteland ran red. I will not do so again."

"You can't kill me." The courier's excitement softened, with a twinge of disappointment in their syllables. "Better people than you have tried, Graham. Hell, worse people than you have tried. You know where they are now."

"I need not succeed," the Burned Man admitted, looking down the barrel of his gun at them. "But to be given a task by the Lord and fail to even try would seal my fate. His judgment would be swift, cold."

To his surprise, the courier smiled. "You've been judged, Joshua. You told me so yourself, under a full hunter's moon, when my soul was screaming for release and you found me about to walk into the Virgin River. You told me what happened to you, and my hidden self lay quiet for the first time in months."

Graham's stance did not change. The courier sighed, resigned. "You saw something in me, then. Find it again now. What if I asked you to ignore the warning, as a friend?"

"Edward asked much of me, too," Graham replied. "As a friend. And he was nowhere near as dangerous as you, courier."

They were off the bed before he could fire, their motion obscured by the sheet they tossed upward. Three bullets tore through the fabric and the wall behind the bed, but none of them found their mark. Graham readied himself for an attack, spun to face the direction he was certain they'd gone, but all that remained of the desert wolf was a bloody footprint on the floor and the sound of their laughter in the casino's stairwell.

Follows-Chalk: "Hoi," Follows-Chalk replied weakly. "You never told me you could turn into a giant coyote."

"Well, I couldn't when I met you." The courier flexed their fingers and winced, as if every one of their joints were sore. "I thought I might not be able to at all, anymore, but Doctor Usanagi put everything back into place."

"The doctor?" Follows-Chalk looked back the way he had come.

"Yeah, Usanagi. Is she alright?"

Follows-Chalk shook his head. "Gey gonen. No one could find her. Everyone thinks she's dead, owslandr."

The courier's face fell. "Oh. I didn't... oh."

The scout's response was jarringly matter-of-fact. "You killed her?"

"I..." The courier twisted themselves up in the sheet, strangling the fabric with their bloody hands. "Maybe. I don't know."

Follows-Chalk hadn't know the missing woman well, but because the courier looked so troubled, he moved on to the bigger question. "What are you?"

The courier looked down at their stained fingers. "I don't know the name, anymore. I know there used to be one, but it's not in my head. Not since the bullet took it, and the rest of my past."

Slowly, Follows-Chalk sat on the bed, keeping a wide space between the two of them. "I've heard stories. People who change their shape, when night comes. Never met one, though. Do you eat anything... strange?"

"I'm not a card-carrying member of the White Glove Society, if that's what you're asking." The courier sighed. "Or I wasn't. Usanagi... I..."

"She left a note, owslandr. Went back to the yard of bones."

This seemed to bring the courier some relief. Their shoulders relaxed, and they slumped fully onto the bed again. "Then we'll go look for her once I'm rested up. You're one of the best trackers I know, Follows-Chalk. If anybody can find her, it's you. Us. I just need... a nap."

They were out cold before Follows-Chalk could respond. The Dead Horses scout could only marvel at the amount of trust they placed in him, snoring so peacefully after revealing something that marked them as a danger to any tribe in the wasteland.

He shook his head and stood. "Roo too nait, courier," he murmured fondly. "This is a strange world."

Waking Cloud: The warrior midwife of the Sorrows had gone very pale, but she held her clawed gauntlet steady as she surveyed the tired courier. "Tsagasee," she said, in the tone of a dismayed mother, "Was... did you... me suenoo-na?"

"Not your imagination," the courier assured her, rolling to fully face her and partially cover themselves with the sheet. "It's a long story."

"Story." Waking Cloud shook her head. "It is as the Ghost of She. A spirit lives in you, gives you its form. What creature did you kill and anger?"

"I... don't know." The courier hesitated, surprised at the Sorrows leader's willingness to accept what she had seen. "I don't remember. I don't remember anything much from before I was hired to carry the platinum chip. I thought that when I went to get the bullet out, it might... might... come back..."

They trailed off and began to cry. Tears streaked through the dirt on their cheeks, and the already smudged sheets gained a few damp places where they rubbed their eyes. "I don't know what happened, I don't know if the doctor... or anyone else... I didn't mean for this to happen!"

Waking Cloud's arm dropped to her side, and the gauntlet fell away. She joined the courier on the bed and pulled them close to her, stroked their head and murmured reassurances. "Paz, tsagasee. You are not alone."

"I... I..." The courier gathered themselves together and stilled, save for a few hiccups. "I want it... gone."

"Gone." Waking Cloud nodded. "Are you sure?"

"I am." The courier wiped their face with the sheet. "It might be who I used to be, but that's... that's not me anymore."

Waking Cloud stood and reclaimed her gauntlet. "Clean yourself. Get dressed."

"N-now?"

"Now." Waking Cloud handed them a towel from a nearby stack. "We must rejoin the Sorrows and consult White Bird, before we hunt your spirit. Prepare yourself."

Caesar: For once, the mighty Caesar was speechless. He stood frozen as the courier watched him, waiting for a response of any kind.

"Are you afraid?" they finally asked, rising without any care to cover their naked form.

"No," Caesar replied, a little too quickly. "Merely startled. I have seen strange things in my time abroad, but none like yourself."

"You don't need to lie to me." The courier grinned. The evidence of their true nature still clung to them, in the redness of their gums and the sharpness of their teeth. "Fear is the appropriate response."

"You assume too much," Caesar said stubbornly. "If I were a man who let fear govern my actions, we would not be standing in this room together."

"Another lie." The courier stretched leisurely, showing off their changed muscles and limbs. "Fear brought you here, Caesar. Fear drives us forward, beyond what we thought possible. Look at me, and what terror I might bring to those I prey upon. I should know the capabilities of the doomed."

Caesar cloaked himself in the assurance that had become second nature long ago. "Careful, courier. You forget your place."

"My place?" The courier laughed. "You may be a Son of Mars, but the god's children would have died all the same if a she-wolf hadn't taken pity on them. Don't try to raise yourself above me, Caesar. You didn't build this Rome. I did."

Caesar was shaking with rage. "I will see you dead for your insolence, dog. The might of the Legion will-"

"Will what? Destroy their fox heads and shoot their hounds? Nail me to a cross? Hunt me down in my own desert?" The courier's eyes gleamed dangerously. "No. You will do nothing. You will leave this room, and you will let me sleep here, untouched, while you rule this wasteland you longed for."

The two horns of the Legion's bull glared at each other for a moment. When Caesar said nothing else, the courier returned to the bed and rolled over, an act of dismissal if ever there was one. As Caesar made his way back to the elevator, he cursed his own decision to let the Followers of the Apocalypse leave New Vegas in peace.

Robert House: "I don't recall you disclosing the ability to turn into a giant wolf on the contract you and I signed, when we began working together," Robert House declared from the screen of the securitron he was currently operating.

"You didn't ask," the courier replied in a playfully venomous tone.

If House had seen any merit in rolling his eyes, he would have. "Maybe not in so many words, but you did fill out the standard public image disclosure form. Past scandals, pending criminal investigations, questionable proclivities and the like: Lycanthropy would fall under that category, by all definitions and assumptions."

The courier glanced at the securitron's weapons systems and raised an eyebrow. "So you did a complete background check on every courier you hired to carry your casino knickknacks, dug up information on six individuals from all corners of the wasteland who probably don't know their own birthdays, and you're telling me that you had no idea I was a werewolf?"

"There were a few stories of interest attached to your file," House admitted. "But nothing that stood out from the average wastelander with dangerous inclinations. New Vegas is drowning in mercenaries who claim to kill victims with their bare hands and teeth, and 'lone wolf' is practically a job description, nowadays. I don't put much stock in rumors."

The courier rose from the bed, let the sheet fall away from their naked body and stalked toward the casino's owner. House began to spin up the robot's minigun, but the courier merely grinned and jerked their head toward the dismantled securitron that already lay on the floor. "Don't trouble yourself, House," they said. "I know where your frail little body lies. I can be there much faster than you can send your robot army to manufacture bullets that will actually kill me. And if I wanted you dead, I would have torn you to pieces already."

They looked positively wild in the presidential suite's lighting, sinewy and feral in musculature and stance. The shadows grew jagged on their face, but they weren't deep enough to obscure the sharp canines in their taunting smile.

House released control of the securitron's minigun and let it wind down. "What is it you want from me?" he asked, trying his best to cover his momentary defeat with an air of confidence.

His latest employee looked the robot up and down. "I want to live. I want to look forward to full moons. I want to slip out of the city and run, climb the mountains and hunt bighorners. I want to sing like I was meant to, without worrying about someone trying to hunt me down, skin me, and mount my head on a wall. I am better than everyone outside this casino. And you're the only human alive who seems to understand the freedom and prison of that kind of power."

Yes Man: "Wow! You sure are full of surprises!" Yes Man remarked with his usual enthusiasm. The securitron still didn't have a pessimistic bolt on his chassis - or any of the robot chassis that he could now inhabit, as the Lucky 38's resident AI - but he did turn his screen to give the wrecked securitron on the floor a pointed look.

"Ah, yeah, sorry about that." The courier stretched. "I was tired, and he was in my way. I'm surprised you didn't send the rest of the army after me when I came up the elevator in wolf mode."

"Seeing as this isn't the first time you've disassembled the elevator securitron, I rewrote the concierge protocols in order to prevent future misunderstandings!" Yes Man replied brightly. "There should have been a system notification for another securitron being taken offline!"

"You mean there wasn't one?"

Yes Man checked the system administration files "That's odd! A notification was filed! I don't know how I missed it!"

The courier eyed the door that the robot had just come through. "Were you out and about?"

"I was! I went looking for you! Freeside, Westside, any-side and every-side!"

The courier melted back into the sheet a little bit. "Awww, Yes Man... you were worried about me?"

"I can assure you, worrying isn't part of my programming!"

"And yet..." The courier raised a knowing eyebrow. "Yes Man, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were developing a little conscience of your own in that circuitry. Good for you."

"I've never had a conscience before!" Though Yes Man's smiling face remained the same, the screen it was displayed on shone a little brighter. "How exciting!"

The courier teased him playfully. "Are you... blushing?!? You are, you're blushing!"

"You sure are something else, boss!" Yes Man replied. "Blushing is nowhere near as interesting as turning into a wolf, but you know exactly how to change the subject and avoid scrutiny! Truly amazing!"

Dog/God: The nightkin's gaze locked onto the courier's, and they stared each other down. Though he wasn't afraid, the mutant's chest was heaving, and the walls felt closer than ever.

"Dog," he managed to say.

The courier sighed and rose slowly into a sitting position. "And God. Yeah."

"You... too?"

"Sort of." The courier examined their nails, which were torn and caked around the edges with hardened blood. Their teeth, which flashed occasionally between their lips, looked wet with the same viscera.

"Whose voice?" the nightkin demanded of them.

The courier glanced up, toward something beyond the casino's cracked ceiling. "Plenilunium herself. The big bottle cap in the sky. When she calls me, I answer."

The Sierra Madre's most fearsome ghost didn't understand, of course, and so the courier washed away the blood and led the way up to the balcony of the Lucky 38. Their hands were cold on the railing, their clothes snapping in the brisk wind that always blew, but they stood as still as the nightkin and watched the sun descend from its throne.

The nightkin, who had spent so long in the mist of a forgotten oasis, drank the departing sunlight in with no complaint. There was no change to the city's own radiance, but slowly the ever-blinking lights and billboards began to cast their cheeriness farther into the growing dark. Stars ahead were few and far between in this constant glow, and even when the waning desert moon appeared, it barely caused a stir in the Strip's brilliance.

"Her," the courier said, pointing to it. "When she's full, I remember."

They didn't seem afraid. They took his hand, as if trying to impart the feeling into him, make sense of it with just a reassuring touch. He couldn't truly understand, he thought, though he did try. They were already mostly one, the courier and their second self. Not like him. But if they had found some peace with it, then maybe he could, too.

Dean Domino: Dean swirled the martini he'd demanded from the securitron in the cocktail lounge and regarded them with a raised eyebrow. "Pre-war folks would have paid good money to see that kind of a performance on the silver screen," he said. "But not in their boudoirs."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the courier said with a mischievous grin, rolling over onto their back. They let the sheet fall where it might, leaving little to the imagination in terms of their naked form. "You don't think anyone in New Vegas would shell out caps for a night with a werewolf?"

"Oh, of course there are some high rollers out there with a fondness for furs and teeth, but you wouldn't get anywhere near the same amount of fans as you would from starring in movies." Dean sipped his martini and made a face of disgust. "Especially after the scene you made at the clinic. Take it from an expert: Sometimes, fantasy is better than reality."

"And just which fantasies did you ruin by trying to make them a reality, Dean Domino?"

Dean smiled. "You already know that story. You played a prominent role in it. I want to know what your plan is, now that you're a big star in the slasher genre."

The courier drew the sheet up around them, suddenly self-conscious. "Become less of a star. I might look hard to kill - and I am, obviously - but I'd rather not be run out of town."

"Give it a few years, and some other grisly murder will take over public memory," Dean offered wryly. "Or decades, if your physiology is anything like mine. And start wearing something more befitting the owner of a casino. The rabble might talk less, if you don't run around looking like a gutter urchin."

"Hard to blend in, if you don't dress down," the courier muttered, rising from the bed.

"Blend in?!?" Dean sputtered, exasperated. "Perish the thought, courier."

Christine Royce: Christine, who was still ill at ease with the voice of the starlet she'd been given, nevertheless let out a horrified squeak at the courier's transformation. She backed against the wall, reaching an arm out for some kind of purchase to hold herself up.

The courier watched her silently, eyes wide with concern. They didn't move or speak until she caught her breath again. "I'm sorry," they said, seemingly aware of how useless the sentiment was. "I didn't mean... I know it's..."

Christine began to gesture and sign furiously like she always did when surprised, pointing at the courier's shoulders, their feet, miming the growth in size and a pair of long ears with wild incredulity. The courier couldn't help but laugh when she used her fingers to indicate fangs. "I- sorry, I just- I know, I know, it's been-"

"Monster!" Christine blurted suddenly, giving up on her own silence under the circumstances.

The courier, startled, looked hurt. "Not- I'm... monster?"

"I- I don't know what to call you." Christine panted and gripped the room's door frame so tightly that her knuckles blanched. "You're not who you said you were. Who you're pretending to be. I saw the clinic, I saw all the... the blood... oh, god."

Her knees gave out, and she sank to the floor, chest heaving. The courier let her breathe, lowered themselves back onto the mattress as their face fell.

"I didn't do this," they said, finally finding the words. "It wasn't... it wasn't a choice. I thought Doctor Usanagi might... help. But she couldn't, so I'm stuck like this. Forever."

Christine's hand went to her mouth, to the scars that radiated outward from her lips, left by the Big Empty's unfeeling scalpels. Another scar split her forehead, ran up into the hair that was only just beginning to grow again.

"Who?" she asked. Even that one word felt wrong to utter, given the past days' events and her new vocal cords, but she owed them that much.

The courier smiled halfheartedly. "Gonna hunt them down, Knight? Track them through the desert and kill them the way we killed Elijah? Let it be. You and I have to live with what we've become all the same."

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fnv #companions react #honest hearts #lonesome road #old world blues #dead money #werewolf #werewolves #lycanthrope

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