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Again, for a kink meme prompt. I apologise for the spam the last few days, by the way, I'm just having a rough week in work and apparently writing about post-apocalyptic robot detectives is soothing to me. Um. Also. The story features the Stranger as a possibly immortal mission-oriented serial killer slash minor eldritch abomination. I don't know that much about the Mysterious Stranger, not having played the games, this is just based on whatever info I could find on various wikis plus some random insanity. Apologies in advance.
Title: The Lights of their Eyes
Rating: Light R
Fandom: Fallout 4, Fallout
Characters/Pairings: Nick Valentine, the Mysterious Stranger, brief cameos by M!SS and Piper. Nick Valentine/The Mysterious Stranger
Summary: Nick Valentine finally catches up with the Mysterious Stranger. The confrontation doesn't really go any way he might have thought to expect. Turns out the Stranger finds being seen rather ... intriguing
Wordcount: 4542
Warnings/Notes: Prompt fic, shaky canon knowledge, robots/androids, detectives, immortal serial killers, chases, confrontations, anger, fascination, touching, kissing
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: The Lights of their Eyes
Rating: Light R
Fandom: Fallout 4, Fallout
Characters/Pairings: Nick Valentine, the Mysterious Stranger, brief cameos by M!SS and Piper. Nick Valentine/The Mysterious Stranger
Summary: Nick Valentine finally catches up with the Mysterious Stranger. The confrontation doesn't really go any way he might have thought to expect. Turns out the Stranger finds being seen rather ... intriguing
Wordcount: 4542
Warnings/Notes: Prompt fic, shaky canon knowledge, robots/androids, detectives, immortal serial killers, chases, confrontations, anger, fascination, touching, kissing
Disclaimer: Not mine
The Lights of their Eyes
The shot rang out through the nest of alleys, somehow noticeable even through the rest of the firestorm. Something about it was different, hell if Nick knew what. He spun the second he heard it, triangulated in on the point of origin. He knew what he'd see. He knew he wouldn't be seeing it all that long, either. Just a flicker out of the corner of his eye, a trenchcoat flapping as a figure vanished off the fire escape above them. Same as goddamned always.
"That was him!" he growled. "The Stranger! He was right here. Where'd he go?"
Piper, taking aim behind the cover of a heavy-duty pipe, took a brief second out of her evening to look at him funny. Sole didn't appear to hear him at all, busy dropping the last of the Raider group that had ambushed them. Nick growled again to himself, and then decided hell with it. He'd had it up to here with this. There were only so many times he could be content to let a murderer just waltz away from the scene of a crime.
Taking advantage of Sole's somewhat accidental covering fire, Nick darted out across the alleyway, towards the shadows under the fire escape and the corner around which he just might have seen a trenchcoat disappearing. Sole noticed that, at least, giving out a brief yell of alarmed annoyance, but Nick ignored that for the moment. He'd apologise later. Right now, he had a perp to catch.
Besides. It wasn't like he was leaving the guy in the lurch or anything. Piper had his back. They'd be okay, the pair of them. The Raiders were mostly done for by this point. They'd be okay until he got back.
The branching alley was quieter, if not by much. It was also darker, not that that posed too much trouble to Nick. He ducked behind a pile of debris, trying to limit his exposure, and took a quick scan around the immediate vicinity. No Raiders, at least. No Stranger either, thou--
Wait! There, at the end of the alley. Just for a second, Nick could have sworn he'd seen the brief outline of a fedora, ducking back behind the next corner almost immediately. It was fast. Almost too fast to be certain. Nick was sure, though. He was positive he'd seen it. With the Stranger, he wasn't likely to get much else, either.
Mind you, he shouldn't have gotten even that much. The Stranger didn't make mistakes like that. He was there, and then he was gone. He didn't tend to leave a trail for people to follow afterwards. If he was doing so now, there was a pretty good chance he was doing so for a reason. There was also a darned good chance that Nick wasn't going to like that reason. Hell, though. He'd already come barging out here. He might as well go all the way.
Mind made up, Nick scanned around himself one more time, taking note that the firefight behind him had died down to nothing and, if he wasn't much mistaken, Sole was being distinctly and vocally unhappy in Nick's general direction, and then he shrugged at himself and jogged up out of cover and onwards down the alley. Fools and angels, darlin'. He'd never been the latter.
It was a slightly surreal chase, after that. The Stranger led him out of the built up areas, away from where most of the people were. And he was leading Nick. That was pretty damned obvious. There was a flash here or there, a glimpse of a fedora or a flutter of a trenchcoat, always when Nick was just on the point of losing the trail. The Stranger kept just ahead of him, always just one corner away, leading Nick out away from interference. Which, yes, was more than a little ominous. Nick was being an idiot here, he realised that. But hey. If the Mysterious Stranger wanted to talk as badly as he clearly did, Nick might be happy enough to oblige him. He had a lot of questions, after all, even if most of 'em began and ended with bullets.
He lost the man eventually. One corner, then two, out towards the edges of the wasteland proper. No more flutters out of the corner of his eye, no more shadows moving just up ahead. Nick trailed to a stop, moving instinctively towards cover while he glared around himself. Nothing moved. Not a goddamned thing. Damn it.
"Slipped right through my fingers," he grumbled to himself, nearly inaudibly. He kept his weapon out, alert and wary, but if there was anything living within a hundred yards of him, it was bein' real quiet about it. Nick growled. "Damned bastard. Playing with me, huh?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," a male voice commented in amusement. A voice from well, well within Nick's aural range, damn near in his goddamned ear, and Nick whirled around in alarm, making sure to introduce himself weapon first. A figure flickered in the corner of his eye, seeming to skirt around just at the edges of his vision and then, when Nick grimly spun to track it, it stopped. A little ways off, the trench swirling slightly as it settled, a man stopped still and looked at Nick.
He had his hands up, Nick noticed. The bastard made sure his hands were up and visibly empty right off the bat. The little smirk just visible on that shadowed face kinda ruined the picture a bit though.
"Detective," the Stranger said, inclining his head calmly and mockingly in Nick's direction. "You seem a little jumpy this evening. I hope I haven't alarmed you."
Nick snarled at him. His ticker might be mechanical, but it was jumping nonetheless. If he'd been organic, he'd have had himself a heart attack just then.
"Damn it, fella!" he said, maybe yelling a little bit. "Where the hell'd you come from? What kind of stealth equipment do you have?"
The Stranger blinked at that. He tilted his head, the mockery slipping away for a second, something contemplative entering his half-hidden expression instead. He looked human, Nick noted absently. He really did. If he was a ghoul or something else, there sure wasn't a lot of evidence to be seen of it.
"... Quite excellent equipment," the man mused softly. "Or, well. More of a talent, really. Apparently it's not quite as good as I thought it was, though. I'm not usually seen with the regularity I've found happens around here." He smiled briefly. "It appears you've quite a talent yourself, detective. Almost unique, in my experience."
Nick blinked at him, grimacing faintly. On the one hand, bully for him. On the other hand, apparently this little meeting was for a reason, and apparently that reason was of something of a personal nature. The nice wandering serial killer got interested in people who noticed him, apparently. Enough to lure them out to little tête-à-tête. Oh goody.
"... Hope you don't mind," Nick tried, waving his gun gently with a smirk of his own. "I just tend to pay attention to unknown strangers shooting people in my general vicinity, is all. You've wandered past a couple of times now. You left me some bodies every time. I tend to pay attention to that sort of thing."
The Stranger laughed. Warmly, maybe even genuinely, and wasn't that just nicely creepy. Nick backed up a couple of steps, made sure his back had a wall behind it. If he was about to get shot, he'd like it to happen in front, thanks.
"You're an interesting man, detective," the Stranger said at last, shaking his head in amusement. He looked at Nick, lowering his hands a little bit. He telegraphed the move. He made sure Nick knew in advance what he was doing, even paused a bit to give Nick room to object. It might have been friendly, if Nick didn't get the distinct air of mockery from it. The Stranger lifted his head, let the shadows clear back some more off his face, the better to hold Nick's stare. "You needn't worry. I'm not here to voice an objection. I thought we might chat, one well-dressed gentleman to another. I've no intention of trying to hurt you."
Nick raised a sceptical eyebrow at that. "Yeah?" he asked dryly, keeping his weapon right where it was. "Why's that, then? You haven't exactly been picky before. I've been tracking you for a while, pal, and I'm not seeing a lot of selectiveness in the choice of bodies you tend to leave behind."
The Stranger's eyebrow bumped up to match Nick's, but there was a much more thoughtful edge to his expression. His head tilted to the side, studying Nick contemplatively. "... Yes, you have been, haven't you?" he said quietly, in a way that implied he wasn't actually looking for an answer. "Maybe that's the reason I'm not shooting you, don't you think? But you're wrong, you know. Or not entirely right, at least. I am being picky, detective. I'm very picky indeed."
Nick snorted, unimpressed. Unwise, probably, but this was the part he always hated. The bit where the killer coughed up some justification or other, tried to make like he hadn't just murdered people for the hell of it. Nick had never been fond of this part. The Stranger noticed that. He seemed to find it some mix of amusing and ... Nick couldn't tell. He'd have half said 'admirable', but that couldn't be right.
"You don't believe me," the Stranger noted, drifting a step or two closer, ignored the little hike of Nick's gun in response. "Come now, detective. You've been paying attention. More than anyone else ever has. Surely you've noticed?" His lip quirked a bit at Nick's answering expression. "My choice of targets tends to be situational, yes. My choice of locations, however, is less so. Haven't you noticed that they tend to have ... at least one thing in common?"
Nick blinked, not getting it for a second, and then ... then he felt ice run down his mechanical spine. He felt his processors freeze in dawning horror. Because there was something in common, wasn't there? Every sighting since the Stranger had come to the Commonwealth, there'd been one thing they had in common. There was a pattern here. There'd been a pattern down in the Capital Wasteland as well, now that he was lookin' for it, though it was bit harder to track there. A factor in common, a name that kept coming up. Not among the enemies. Among the witnesses. Among the allies.
The Stranger killed whoever and whatever got in his way, yes. He didn't seem to care if they were Raiders or yao guai or ghouls or whatever. But the places he showed up to kill. The firefights he decided to show up to. There was always someone there. One particular person. Nick had never seen the Stranger without their being there, and the Stranger hadn't shown up out here at until they did first.
"... Sole," he breathed, horrified. "You've been following Sole. Same as you followed ... there was a guy in the Capital Wasteland. You're killin' people around 'em."
The Stranger smiled, apparently pleased. He'd drifted closer again. Nick hadn't seen it happen. He'd been staring right at the guy, and he hadn't seen it happen.
"Indeed," the Stranger said softly, nearly close enough now to touch Nick if he wanted to. His expression was calm. Pleased, intense. "More particularly, I've been killing whoever comes gunning for them. Only a few, of course. The odd target here or there. Just to make life that little bit easier for them. It's what you might call my mission in life."
Nick shook his head, trying to wrap his brain around that. "Why?" he managed, gripping his gun with both hands and pointing it dead-centre at the bastard's chest. "What the hell are you playing at, Stranger? What d'ya want with Sole?"
The Stranger paused at that, seemed to think it over. How to phrase it, maybe, how to explain it, more than trying to figure it out himself. He knew why he did what he did. Nick could see that in him, the kind of fire you got with the more insane, visionary sort of killers. Goddamn it. Nick had been right, hadn't he? The Stranger was a serial killer, pathology and all. What would have been called a mission-oriented killer, back when things like that had a terminology attached and people whose job it was to stop them. Back in the old world, there'd been a couple of words for the kind of man Nick had in front of him.
"I have an eye," the Stranger murmured at last, thoughtfully and nearly to himself as much as Nick. He looked at Nick, though. He met his eyes, with a gleam of light in his own. Not like Nick's, not mechanical. The light of vision, you might have said. "An eye for ... special people. The important ones. The ones who make things change. You'll agree, I think. You'll admit that's a fair description of our sole survivor?"
Nick didn't answer, synthetic muscles coiled tight, potential energy held and ready. The man in front of him was insane. Not necessarily wrong, mind you, Sole was all of that and then some, but definitely insane. He knew that now for sure.
"I help them," the Stranger went on, smiling gently. "Those special people. I help them survive, long enough to do what they need to do. I've helped a few of them, now. I've watched the world change around them. There's a kind of satisfaction that comes with that, detective. I think you know that too. I think you've felt it. There's a certain ... rightness to being part of a change like that. The world shifting around you. Standing beside the fulcrum on which it turns. You feel it, don't you? Every time you see your friend make something different around them. I can see it in you. You feel that rightness too."
Nick shook his head. Not exactly denial. He did feel that. Sole ... Sole made things different. Made the world seem better, at least for a few moments at a time. There was a rightness to being at his side, there really was. That wasn't the point, though. That wasn't the issue here. Sole had a lot of strange people following him, some fairly questionable taste in friends at times, but this one. This nutjob here. Nick wasn't at all sure he was the sort of danger he wanted his friend to have at his back.
"... What happens if they don't make things change the way you want them to?" he asked quietly. He traced his finger on the trigger, let it be obvious. The Stranger watched him curiously. "What happens if you decide you don't like the way they're goin'?"
The Stranger smiled, a rich, gentle amusement. He didn't seem to take offence. Point of fact, he seemed almost proud of Nick for asking that. Again, that didn't make Nick feel any easier about him. More or less the opposite.
"Change is change," the Stranger answered simply. "It's all of a piece, in the end. When something's been changed, I move on. Once they've accomplished something, whatever it might be, I leave. I just ... vanish. Move on. Wait for the next time some face should catch my eye. Wait for that special light to come again. It takes a while. A few years, the odd decade here or there. Sooner or later there's another one, though. The world makes sure of it. Change is inevitable. Sooner or later the world produces its agent, and I find my purpose again."
Nick stared at him. It wasn't readiness, now, wasn't defensiveness. There'd been ... there'd been something in that. Something vast, some great gulf of time. Nick remembered the rumours, the older ones, going all the way back to Shady Sands. The Stranger had been around a while. He hadn't been sure it was the same guy, not until now. The man didn't look like a ghoul. He was that old, though. Nick could sense it. The Stranger had been around for one hell of a time.
"What are you?" he asked, watching the man's face, smooth and human-looking, with that light of vision in his eyes. "You go back a while. I've hunted down the evidence, such as it is. The rumours. Just how many 'special people' have you been watchin' over?"
The Stranger grinned, sharp and beatific. "A few," he said, with something sly and ancient in his expression. "The world as it is now demands them. This is a land ripe for change, in need of it, never stopping. A brave new world. I'm part of that, that's all. A pebble towards the avalanche. As long as I'm needed, I'll be here."
Nick leaned back away from the guy. What was left of his skin was starting to crawl in his presence, and never mind that it was inert and artificial and shouldn't damn well do that. Lots of things around the Stranger didn't do what they were supposed to be doing. If Nick's synthetic skin wanted to shrivel up and crawl away from the guy, he wasn't going to blame it.
"... You're crazy, you know that?" he said. Very quietly, really. It wasn't any sort of grand pronouncement, wasn't an accusation. More of a statement of self-evident fact. "Maybe you're wrong, maybe you're right. Maybe you're something else altogether, I don't know. But you're definitely crazy. Telling ya that right now."
The Stranger blinked, and then shrugged, taking that one on the chin. "It's been said," he acknowledged lightly. "Among other things. I tend to find insanity mostly a matter of perspective, myself."
Nick made a disbelieving sort of a noise. "I'm sure you do," he muttered, and realised the next moment that the Stranger had come closer again. That way he had, that motion that something in Nick's eyes or brain didn't want to see. His gun had drifted downwards, he realised dimly. He'd lost track, and let his hand dip towards the ground. The Stranger had moved into him as it happened. Suddenly, standing with his back to the wall wasn't seeming like such a smart idea any more. Suddenly it was seeming like one of the worst ideas Nick had ever had.
"... You're a strange creature, detective," the Stranger murmured, almost nose-to-nose with Nick, that unholy gleam in his eyes all the more obvious for how close it was. He looked Nick up and down. Studied the gaps and tears in Nick's skin, the gleam of his exposed parts, the lights of his eyes. Nick near quailed under it, but made himself straighten up. Made himself glare back, however badly the Stranger unnerved him.
"What do ya want from me?" he growled, trying to coil his arm in close so that his gun could do some damage if it had to. "I don't think I'm one of your 'special people'. You're here for Sole, not me. So why'd you bring me out here, huh? You don't stop to chat with people. How come I got the honours?"
The Stranger's lips curved. It wasn't what Nick would call a smile. It was just a shade too predatory for that. He managed to wedge his gun up under the man's ribs, just in case. It didn't seem to make one scrap of difference to the Stranger.
"Do you know how many people see me when I don't want to be seen?" the man asked him, a little hum in the back of his voice. "Do you know how many people pay attention? Try to do something about it? You're a rarity, detective. I don't know if I've ever had anyone pay me the kind of attention you do. It's ... intriguing, shall we say."
Nick raised his chin, a hard curl to his lips. "It's not friendly attention," he pointed out, clipped and cold. "I'm not too keen on making friends with serial killers, usually. The word doesn't mean too much any more, but I remember when it did. It means something to me."
The Stranger lifted an eyebrow. "Are you going to tell me you haven't killed?" he asked, that edge of mockery back again. "My mission right now is a man we'd both kill to protect. A man we both did kill to protect, not one hour ago. I may be more focused about it than you, but it comes to the same end. Do you plan to deny that?"
Nick grimaced, looking away. That wasn't ... There was a difference, he knew that. Killing wasn't his first resort. He didn't have a pathology about it, didn't seek it out the way this guy did, following people over and over again across the years to kill on their behalf. There was a difference. Damned if he knew how to put it into words, though. And damned if it would make any difference to the man in front of him even if he did.
"I don't plan to hurt you, detective," the Stranger went on, almost gently. "I've seen a lot of things. You're something different. You're not one of my missions, no. You don't have the same kind of light. But you do have something. You see things others don't. You look into the darkness of the world and you see things. And then you act on them. You're not content to lie down and wait. You're a changing thing, a moving thing. I can feel it from you."
Nick closed his eyes. The gun slipped down, away from the Stranger's chest. It wasn't that Nick didn't still want to shoot him, it was that ... that he didn't know if it would affect anything if he did. The weapon felt useless, empty. There was a ... a kind of inevitability about the Stranger. A sense of the inexorable. That light in the man's eyes wasn't the kind you could put out with just a bullet.
"... What do you want from me?" he repeated at last. He opened his eyes again, looked more than a little tiredly at the man. "What do you want, and do ya plan on giving me a choice about it? Just out of curiosity, you understand. Just so I know in advance."
The Stranger's face creased in a smile. Faint, only barely there. He reached out and patted Nick's chest gently, his hands still empty and without a weapon. Not that he needed one, really.
"You have a choice," he said calmly. "All I want is some time, detective. A chance to get to know you. Up close and in person, as it were. I don't stop often, only a few people here or there, but you've got something different. I want to find out what it is. I want to know what makes you tick."
Nick snorted harshly. "That's easy," he pointed out. "Any old idiot with a sledgehammer can manage that. Got my parts all on display, in case you hadn't noticed."
The Stranger clucked, smoothing his hand across Nick's shirtfront. Tracing the seams hidden beneath it in his synthetic skin. "If I want to dissect a synth, I can find or make myself any number of dead ones," the man corrected softly. "That's not what I mean, detective, and you know it. I want your light, not your power core. I want to know what makes you look out into the world and decide to try and change it. I want ... well. I suppose I want your soul."
Nick stared at him. That ... That should have been alarming. That should've been creepy as hell. A killer coming up to you in the dead of night and sayin' he wanted your soul, that was more or less the definition of creepy. Nick couldn't help but think, though. He couldn't help but be distantly aware that at least ... at least the man thought he had one. A soul. At least the man could look at him and still think that.
"... You're an alarming sort of fella, you know that," he said distantly. Heard himself say it. "I came out here to shoot you. Maybe arrest you, if I had the chance, or somewhere to put you afterwards. I didn't come out here expecting talk of souls, or serial killers trying to hit on me."
The Stranger laughed, a low, dark sort of a thing. He leaned in, slipping his hands beneath Nick's trenchcoat, drifting them down to Nick's waist. "You can't blame me for that," he said softly. "You're a hard thing to resist, detective. Especially for me. People don't look at me the way you do. They don't see me. You're something unique. I've looked into the abyss for decades now. You're the first time any part of it has ever really looked back."
Nick blinked at that. "Uh, thanks," he managed. "I think. You do know you're crazy, right? I mean, you recognise that? I don't know how long you've been knocking around, or what happened during it, but somewhere along the line you got a few things knocked loose upstairs. You figured that out, right?"
"Mmm," the Stranger hummed, in what might or might not have been agreement. He was leaning too close for Nick to argue with it, either way. He was leaning ... he was leaning all ...
He was kissing him. The Mysterious Stranger was leaning in and kissing him. Nick's eyes drifted closed, as much from shock as from sensation, and he ... he let it happen. Damned if he knew why, but he did. He let his mouth fall open, let the man lean all his weight against him, and let the kiss happen. Just because. Hell if he had any idea.
It was a strange thing. Nick hadn't been kissed too many times. Not like this, not as he was now. He hadn't been designed for it, hadn't been made to experience anything like this. Even if he had been, he wasn't sure if the Stranger wouldn't have been different anyway. The man tingled with something. Electricity, maybe, something else. There was a sharpness and a bite to touch of his lips, a sensation of something other. Nick didn't know. He just didn't know anything at all. Maybe it didn't matter.
The Stranger licked Nick's lips, as he pulled away. A little trace of his tongue, a sly little flicker of sensation. That light in his eyes looked unholy, when Nick was able to see it again. It looked like something you'd see the Devil wearing. That crawling sensation came back again. Nick wasn't sure if it was fear or something else altogether.
"Such a thing you are," the Stranger whispered, watching him hungrily. "Such a wonderful thing, detective. No better eyes to see me, I think. No better light to be seen by. I do thank you."
... Aw hell, Nick thought. Hell. This hadn't been a good plan, had it? This hadn't been his best idea at all. See, this? This was why angels feared to tread.
'Cause angels, at least, had the occasional bit of goddamned sense.
The shot rang out through the nest of alleys, somehow noticeable even through the rest of the firestorm. Something about it was different, hell if Nick knew what. He spun the second he heard it, triangulated in on the point of origin. He knew what he'd see. He knew he wouldn't be seeing it all that long, either. Just a flicker out of the corner of his eye, a trenchcoat flapping as a figure vanished off the fire escape above them. Same as goddamned always.
"That was him!" he growled. "The Stranger! He was right here. Where'd he go?"
Piper, taking aim behind the cover of a heavy-duty pipe, took a brief second out of her evening to look at him funny. Sole didn't appear to hear him at all, busy dropping the last of the Raider group that had ambushed them. Nick growled again to himself, and then decided hell with it. He'd had it up to here with this. There were only so many times he could be content to let a murderer just waltz away from the scene of a crime.
Taking advantage of Sole's somewhat accidental covering fire, Nick darted out across the alleyway, towards the shadows under the fire escape and the corner around which he just might have seen a trenchcoat disappearing. Sole noticed that, at least, giving out a brief yell of alarmed annoyance, but Nick ignored that for the moment. He'd apologise later. Right now, he had a perp to catch.
Besides. It wasn't like he was leaving the guy in the lurch or anything. Piper had his back. They'd be okay, the pair of them. The Raiders were mostly done for by this point. They'd be okay until he got back.
The branching alley was quieter, if not by much. It was also darker, not that that posed too much trouble to Nick. He ducked behind a pile of debris, trying to limit his exposure, and took a quick scan around the immediate vicinity. No Raiders, at least. No Stranger either, thou--
Wait! There, at the end of the alley. Just for a second, Nick could have sworn he'd seen the brief outline of a fedora, ducking back behind the next corner almost immediately. It was fast. Almost too fast to be certain. Nick was sure, though. He was positive he'd seen it. With the Stranger, he wasn't likely to get much else, either.
Mind you, he shouldn't have gotten even that much. The Stranger didn't make mistakes like that. He was there, and then he was gone. He didn't tend to leave a trail for people to follow afterwards. If he was doing so now, there was a pretty good chance he was doing so for a reason. There was also a darned good chance that Nick wasn't going to like that reason. Hell, though. He'd already come barging out here. He might as well go all the way.
Mind made up, Nick scanned around himself one more time, taking note that the firefight behind him had died down to nothing and, if he wasn't much mistaken, Sole was being distinctly and vocally unhappy in Nick's general direction, and then he shrugged at himself and jogged up out of cover and onwards down the alley. Fools and angels, darlin'. He'd never been the latter.
It was a slightly surreal chase, after that. The Stranger led him out of the built up areas, away from where most of the people were. And he was leading Nick. That was pretty damned obvious. There was a flash here or there, a glimpse of a fedora or a flutter of a trenchcoat, always when Nick was just on the point of losing the trail. The Stranger kept just ahead of him, always just one corner away, leading Nick out away from interference. Which, yes, was more than a little ominous. Nick was being an idiot here, he realised that. But hey. If the Mysterious Stranger wanted to talk as badly as he clearly did, Nick might be happy enough to oblige him. He had a lot of questions, after all, even if most of 'em began and ended with bullets.
He lost the man eventually. One corner, then two, out towards the edges of the wasteland proper. No more flutters out of the corner of his eye, no more shadows moving just up ahead. Nick trailed to a stop, moving instinctively towards cover while he glared around himself. Nothing moved. Not a goddamned thing. Damn it.
"Slipped right through my fingers," he grumbled to himself, nearly inaudibly. He kept his weapon out, alert and wary, but if there was anything living within a hundred yards of him, it was bein' real quiet about it. Nick growled. "Damned bastard. Playing with me, huh?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," a male voice commented in amusement. A voice from well, well within Nick's aural range, damn near in his goddamned ear, and Nick whirled around in alarm, making sure to introduce himself weapon first. A figure flickered in the corner of his eye, seeming to skirt around just at the edges of his vision and then, when Nick grimly spun to track it, it stopped. A little ways off, the trench swirling slightly as it settled, a man stopped still and looked at Nick.
He had his hands up, Nick noticed. The bastard made sure his hands were up and visibly empty right off the bat. The little smirk just visible on that shadowed face kinda ruined the picture a bit though.
"Detective," the Stranger said, inclining his head calmly and mockingly in Nick's direction. "You seem a little jumpy this evening. I hope I haven't alarmed you."
Nick snarled at him. His ticker might be mechanical, but it was jumping nonetheless. If he'd been organic, he'd have had himself a heart attack just then.
"Damn it, fella!" he said, maybe yelling a little bit. "Where the hell'd you come from? What kind of stealth equipment do you have?"
The Stranger blinked at that. He tilted his head, the mockery slipping away for a second, something contemplative entering his half-hidden expression instead. He looked human, Nick noted absently. He really did. If he was a ghoul or something else, there sure wasn't a lot of evidence to be seen of it.
"... Quite excellent equipment," the man mused softly. "Or, well. More of a talent, really. Apparently it's not quite as good as I thought it was, though. I'm not usually seen with the regularity I've found happens around here." He smiled briefly. "It appears you've quite a talent yourself, detective. Almost unique, in my experience."
Nick blinked at him, grimacing faintly. On the one hand, bully for him. On the other hand, apparently this little meeting was for a reason, and apparently that reason was of something of a personal nature. The nice wandering serial killer got interested in people who noticed him, apparently. Enough to lure them out to little tête-à-tête. Oh goody.
"... Hope you don't mind," Nick tried, waving his gun gently with a smirk of his own. "I just tend to pay attention to unknown strangers shooting people in my general vicinity, is all. You've wandered past a couple of times now. You left me some bodies every time. I tend to pay attention to that sort of thing."
The Stranger laughed. Warmly, maybe even genuinely, and wasn't that just nicely creepy. Nick backed up a couple of steps, made sure his back had a wall behind it. If he was about to get shot, he'd like it to happen in front, thanks.
"You're an interesting man, detective," the Stranger said at last, shaking his head in amusement. He looked at Nick, lowering his hands a little bit. He telegraphed the move. He made sure Nick knew in advance what he was doing, even paused a bit to give Nick room to object. It might have been friendly, if Nick didn't get the distinct air of mockery from it. The Stranger lifted his head, let the shadows clear back some more off his face, the better to hold Nick's stare. "You needn't worry. I'm not here to voice an objection. I thought we might chat, one well-dressed gentleman to another. I've no intention of trying to hurt you."
Nick raised a sceptical eyebrow at that. "Yeah?" he asked dryly, keeping his weapon right where it was. "Why's that, then? You haven't exactly been picky before. I've been tracking you for a while, pal, and I'm not seeing a lot of selectiveness in the choice of bodies you tend to leave behind."
The Stranger's eyebrow bumped up to match Nick's, but there was a much more thoughtful edge to his expression. His head tilted to the side, studying Nick contemplatively. "... Yes, you have been, haven't you?" he said quietly, in a way that implied he wasn't actually looking for an answer. "Maybe that's the reason I'm not shooting you, don't you think? But you're wrong, you know. Or not entirely right, at least. I am being picky, detective. I'm very picky indeed."
Nick snorted, unimpressed. Unwise, probably, but this was the part he always hated. The bit where the killer coughed up some justification or other, tried to make like he hadn't just murdered people for the hell of it. Nick had never been fond of this part. The Stranger noticed that. He seemed to find it some mix of amusing and ... Nick couldn't tell. He'd have half said 'admirable', but that couldn't be right.
"You don't believe me," the Stranger noted, drifting a step or two closer, ignored the little hike of Nick's gun in response. "Come now, detective. You've been paying attention. More than anyone else ever has. Surely you've noticed?" His lip quirked a bit at Nick's answering expression. "My choice of targets tends to be situational, yes. My choice of locations, however, is less so. Haven't you noticed that they tend to have ... at least one thing in common?"
Nick blinked, not getting it for a second, and then ... then he felt ice run down his mechanical spine. He felt his processors freeze in dawning horror. Because there was something in common, wasn't there? Every sighting since the Stranger had come to the Commonwealth, there'd been one thing they had in common. There was a pattern here. There'd been a pattern down in the Capital Wasteland as well, now that he was lookin' for it, though it was bit harder to track there. A factor in common, a name that kept coming up. Not among the enemies. Among the witnesses. Among the allies.
The Stranger killed whoever and whatever got in his way, yes. He didn't seem to care if they were Raiders or yao guai or ghouls or whatever. But the places he showed up to kill. The firefights he decided to show up to. There was always someone there. One particular person. Nick had never seen the Stranger without their being there, and the Stranger hadn't shown up out here at until they did first.
"... Sole," he breathed, horrified. "You've been following Sole. Same as you followed ... there was a guy in the Capital Wasteland. You're killin' people around 'em."
The Stranger smiled, apparently pleased. He'd drifted closer again. Nick hadn't seen it happen. He'd been staring right at the guy, and he hadn't seen it happen.
"Indeed," the Stranger said softly, nearly close enough now to touch Nick if he wanted to. His expression was calm. Pleased, intense. "More particularly, I've been killing whoever comes gunning for them. Only a few, of course. The odd target here or there. Just to make life that little bit easier for them. It's what you might call my mission in life."
Nick shook his head, trying to wrap his brain around that. "Why?" he managed, gripping his gun with both hands and pointing it dead-centre at the bastard's chest. "What the hell are you playing at, Stranger? What d'ya want with Sole?"
The Stranger paused at that, seemed to think it over. How to phrase it, maybe, how to explain it, more than trying to figure it out himself. He knew why he did what he did. Nick could see that in him, the kind of fire you got with the more insane, visionary sort of killers. Goddamn it. Nick had been right, hadn't he? The Stranger was a serial killer, pathology and all. What would have been called a mission-oriented killer, back when things like that had a terminology attached and people whose job it was to stop them. Back in the old world, there'd been a couple of words for the kind of man Nick had in front of him.
"I have an eye," the Stranger murmured at last, thoughtfully and nearly to himself as much as Nick. He looked at Nick, though. He met his eyes, with a gleam of light in his own. Not like Nick's, not mechanical. The light of vision, you might have said. "An eye for ... special people. The important ones. The ones who make things change. You'll agree, I think. You'll admit that's a fair description of our sole survivor?"
Nick didn't answer, synthetic muscles coiled tight, potential energy held and ready. The man in front of him was insane. Not necessarily wrong, mind you, Sole was all of that and then some, but definitely insane. He knew that now for sure.
"I help them," the Stranger went on, smiling gently. "Those special people. I help them survive, long enough to do what they need to do. I've helped a few of them, now. I've watched the world change around them. There's a kind of satisfaction that comes with that, detective. I think you know that too. I think you've felt it. There's a certain ... rightness to being part of a change like that. The world shifting around you. Standing beside the fulcrum on which it turns. You feel it, don't you? Every time you see your friend make something different around them. I can see it in you. You feel that rightness too."
Nick shook his head. Not exactly denial. He did feel that. Sole ... Sole made things different. Made the world seem better, at least for a few moments at a time. There was a rightness to being at his side, there really was. That wasn't the point, though. That wasn't the issue here. Sole had a lot of strange people following him, some fairly questionable taste in friends at times, but this one. This nutjob here. Nick wasn't at all sure he was the sort of danger he wanted his friend to have at his back.
"... What happens if they don't make things change the way you want them to?" he asked quietly. He traced his finger on the trigger, let it be obvious. The Stranger watched him curiously. "What happens if you decide you don't like the way they're goin'?"
The Stranger smiled, a rich, gentle amusement. He didn't seem to take offence. Point of fact, he seemed almost proud of Nick for asking that. Again, that didn't make Nick feel any easier about him. More or less the opposite.
"Change is change," the Stranger answered simply. "It's all of a piece, in the end. When something's been changed, I move on. Once they've accomplished something, whatever it might be, I leave. I just ... vanish. Move on. Wait for the next time some face should catch my eye. Wait for that special light to come again. It takes a while. A few years, the odd decade here or there. Sooner or later there's another one, though. The world makes sure of it. Change is inevitable. Sooner or later the world produces its agent, and I find my purpose again."
Nick stared at him. It wasn't readiness, now, wasn't defensiveness. There'd been ... there'd been something in that. Something vast, some great gulf of time. Nick remembered the rumours, the older ones, going all the way back to Shady Sands. The Stranger had been around a while. He hadn't been sure it was the same guy, not until now. The man didn't look like a ghoul. He was that old, though. Nick could sense it. The Stranger had been around for one hell of a time.
"What are you?" he asked, watching the man's face, smooth and human-looking, with that light of vision in his eyes. "You go back a while. I've hunted down the evidence, such as it is. The rumours. Just how many 'special people' have you been watchin' over?"
The Stranger grinned, sharp and beatific. "A few," he said, with something sly and ancient in his expression. "The world as it is now demands them. This is a land ripe for change, in need of it, never stopping. A brave new world. I'm part of that, that's all. A pebble towards the avalanche. As long as I'm needed, I'll be here."
Nick leaned back away from the guy. What was left of his skin was starting to crawl in his presence, and never mind that it was inert and artificial and shouldn't damn well do that. Lots of things around the Stranger didn't do what they were supposed to be doing. If Nick's synthetic skin wanted to shrivel up and crawl away from the guy, he wasn't going to blame it.
"... You're crazy, you know that?" he said. Very quietly, really. It wasn't any sort of grand pronouncement, wasn't an accusation. More of a statement of self-evident fact. "Maybe you're wrong, maybe you're right. Maybe you're something else altogether, I don't know. But you're definitely crazy. Telling ya that right now."
The Stranger blinked, and then shrugged, taking that one on the chin. "It's been said," he acknowledged lightly. "Among other things. I tend to find insanity mostly a matter of perspective, myself."
Nick made a disbelieving sort of a noise. "I'm sure you do," he muttered, and realised the next moment that the Stranger had come closer again. That way he had, that motion that something in Nick's eyes or brain didn't want to see. His gun had drifted downwards, he realised dimly. He'd lost track, and let his hand dip towards the ground. The Stranger had moved into him as it happened. Suddenly, standing with his back to the wall wasn't seeming like such a smart idea any more. Suddenly it was seeming like one of the worst ideas Nick had ever had.
"... You're a strange creature, detective," the Stranger murmured, almost nose-to-nose with Nick, that unholy gleam in his eyes all the more obvious for how close it was. He looked Nick up and down. Studied the gaps and tears in Nick's skin, the gleam of his exposed parts, the lights of his eyes. Nick near quailed under it, but made himself straighten up. Made himself glare back, however badly the Stranger unnerved him.
"What do ya want from me?" he growled, trying to coil his arm in close so that his gun could do some damage if it had to. "I don't think I'm one of your 'special people'. You're here for Sole, not me. So why'd you bring me out here, huh? You don't stop to chat with people. How come I got the honours?"
The Stranger's lips curved. It wasn't what Nick would call a smile. It was just a shade too predatory for that. He managed to wedge his gun up under the man's ribs, just in case. It didn't seem to make one scrap of difference to the Stranger.
"Do you know how many people see me when I don't want to be seen?" the man asked him, a little hum in the back of his voice. "Do you know how many people pay attention? Try to do something about it? You're a rarity, detective. I don't know if I've ever had anyone pay me the kind of attention you do. It's ... intriguing, shall we say."
Nick raised his chin, a hard curl to his lips. "It's not friendly attention," he pointed out, clipped and cold. "I'm not too keen on making friends with serial killers, usually. The word doesn't mean too much any more, but I remember when it did. It means something to me."
The Stranger lifted an eyebrow. "Are you going to tell me you haven't killed?" he asked, that edge of mockery back again. "My mission right now is a man we'd both kill to protect. A man we both did kill to protect, not one hour ago. I may be more focused about it than you, but it comes to the same end. Do you plan to deny that?"
Nick grimaced, looking away. That wasn't ... There was a difference, he knew that. Killing wasn't his first resort. He didn't have a pathology about it, didn't seek it out the way this guy did, following people over and over again across the years to kill on their behalf. There was a difference. Damned if he knew how to put it into words, though. And damned if it would make any difference to the man in front of him even if he did.
"I don't plan to hurt you, detective," the Stranger went on, almost gently. "I've seen a lot of things. You're something different. You're not one of my missions, no. You don't have the same kind of light. But you do have something. You see things others don't. You look into the darkness of the world and you see things. And then you act on them. You're not content to lie down and wait. You're a changing thing, a moving thing. I can feel it from you."
Nick closed his eyes. The gun slipped down, away from the Stranger's chest. It wasn't that Nick didn't still want to shoot him, it was that ... that he didn't know if it would affect anything if he did. The weapon felt useless, empty. There was a ... a kind of inevitability about the Stranger. A sense of the inexorable. That light in the man's eyes wasn't the kind you could put out with just a bullet.
"... What do you want from me?" he repeated at last. He opened his eyes again, looked more than a little tiredly at the man. "What do you want, and do ya plan on giving me a choice about it? Just out of curiosity, you understand. Just so I know in advance."
The Stranger's face creased in a smile. Faint, only barely there. He reached out and patted Nick's chest gently, his hands still empty and without a weapon. Not that he needed one, really.
"You have a choice," he said calmly. "All I want is some time, detective. A chance to get to know you. Up close and in person, as it were. I don't stop often, only a few people here or there, but you've got something different. I want to find out what it is. I want to know what makes you tick."
Nick snorted harshly. "That's easy," he pointed out. "Any old idiot with a sledgehammer can manage that. Got my parts all on display, in case you hadn't noticed."
The Stranger clucked, smoothing his hand across Nick's shirtfront. Tracing the seams hidden beneath it in his synthetic skin. "If I want to dissect a synth, I can find or make myself any number of dead ones," the man corrected softly. "That's not what I mean, detective, and you know it. I want your light, not your power core. I want to know what makes you look out into the world and decide to try and change it. I want ... well. I suppose I want your soul."
Nick stared at him. That ... That should have been alarming. That should've been creepy as hell. A killer coming up to you in the dead of night and sayin' he wanted your soul, that was more or less the definition of creepy. Nick couldn't help but think, though. He couldn't help but be distantly aware that at least ... at least the man thought he had one. A soul. At least the man could look at him and still think that.
"... You're an alarming sort of fella, you know that," he said distantly. Heard himself say it. "I came out here to shoot you. Maybe arrest you, if I had the chance, or somewhere to put you afterwards. I didn't come out here expecting talk of souls, or serial killers trying to hit on me."
The Stranger laughed, a low, dark sort of a thing. He leaned in, slipping his hands beneath Nick's trenchcoat, drifting them down to Nick's waist. "You can't blame me for that," he said softly. "You're a hard thing to resist, detective. Especially for me. People don't look at me the way you do. They don't see me. You're something unique. I've looked into the abyss for decades now. You're the first time any part of it has ever really looked back."
Nick blinked at that. "Uh, thanks," he managed. "I think. You do know you're crazy, right? I mean, you recognise that? I don't know how long you've been knocking around, or what happened during it, but somewhere along the line you got a few things knocked loose upstairs. You figured that out, right?"
"Mmm," the Stranger hummed, in what might or might not have been agreement. He was leaning too close for Nick to argue with it, either way. He was leaning ... he was leaning all ...
He was kissing him. The Mysterious Stranger was leaning in and kissing him. Nick's eyes drifted closed, as much from shock as from sensation, and he ... he let it happen. Damned if he knew why, but he did. He let his mouth fall open, let the man lean all his weight against him, and let the kiss happen. Just because. Hell if he had any idea.
It was a strange thing. Nick hadn't been kissed too many times. Not like this, not as he was now. He hadn't been designed for it, hadn't been made to experience anything like this. Even if he had been, he wasn't sure if the Stranger wouldn't have been different anyway. The man tingled with something. Electricity, maybe, something else. There was a sharpness and a bite to touch of his lips, a sensation of something other. Nick didn't know. He just didn't know anything at all. Maybe it didn't matter.
The Stranger licked Nick's lips, as he pulled away. A little trace of his tongue, a sly little flicker of sensation. That light in his eyes looked unholy, when Nick was able to see it again. It looked like something you'd see the Devil wearing. That crawling sensation came back again. Nick wasn't sure if it was fear or something else altogether.
"Such a thing you are," the Stranger whispered, watching him hungrily. "Such a wonderful thing, detective. No better eyes to see me, I think. No better light to be seen by. I do thank you."
... Aw hell, Nick thought. Hell. This hadn't been a good plan, had it? This hadn't been his best idea at all. See, this? This was why angels feared to tread.
'Cause angels, at least, had the occasional bit of goddamned sense.