icarus_chained (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
icarus_chained) wrote2015-12-30 12:17 pm
icarus_chained) wrote2015-12-30 12:17 pm
Nick & Hancock Fic
Combining two one-word prompts from the kink meme, 'Immortal' and 'Endless Night'. I've been wanting to do something with these two and immortality for a while, especially given things like Nick's Poe quote. Heh. It's my first time trying to write Hancock, by the way, so I'm not sure how that went.
Title: Made to Last
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Fallout 4
Characters/Pairings: John Hancock, Nick Valentine, mentions of SS. Nick & Hancock
Summary: Nick gets philosophical in the long watches of the night. It's probably not good for him, or for Hancock either, but sometimes something warm can come out of it
Wordcount: 4141
Warnings/Notes: Conversations, ghouls & synths, immortality, angst, fear, despair, hurt/comfort, hope determination, promises, friendship
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Made to Last
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Fallout 4
Characters/Pairings: John Hancock, Nick Valentine, mentions of SS. Nick & Hancock
Summary: Nick gets philosophical in the long watches of the night. It's probably not good for him, or for Hancock either, but sometimes something warm can come out of it
Wordcount: 4141
Warnings/Notes: Conversations, ghouls & synths, immortality, angst, fear, despair, hurt/comfort, hope determination, promises, friendship
Disclaimer: Not mine
Made to Last
Nick got philosophical in the long watches of the night. It'd startled Hancock a bit, the first time he'd both stuck around long enough and been lucid enough to witness it. Not surprised him, exactly, Nick tended to be a bit philosophical at the best of times, but it was different at night. Enough to bemuse him. Nick was ... freer with it, he guessed. In the quiet of the long hours, when most people were asleep, Nick sometimes let himself go a little bit.
"Ya know, I always found ghouls kinda comforting," the detective came out with one night. He was sitting in his office chair, watching his cigarette burn down with thoughtful yellow eyes. Hancock, sacked out on the guy's cot and coming down off a high, squinted at him a bit.
"Yeah?" he asked, though mildly enough. "I guess it's always nice to know there's folks out there as ugly as you are. I can see how that'd be comforting."
Nick huffed at him for that one, deliberating blowing smoke in Hancock's general direction. Hancock grinned, and saluted him lazily in response. It lightened the mood for a second, but that didn't last very long. Nick's thoughtful moods could be hard to budge.
"Didn't mean that," the detective said wryly. "Though yeah, that's nice as well. Especially when this old mug'll only be getting worse from here."
Hancock smiled at him. "Ah, it's not so bad. I mean, it's not king of the zombies, but you've got the whole 'world-weary sympathetic soul' thing going on. I know a few ladies would find that right up their alley, if you wanted me to swing 'em your way."
Nick slanted him a long look. "Thanks," he said, "but I think I'll pass. Prefer to do my own scouting, you don't mind?" When Hancock shrugged gamely, he sobered again. "Anyway. You got me all off track. Shaddup a minute, won't ya? Can't think in a straight line for two seconds with you around."
Hancock laughed at that, leaning back into the cot and stretching his neck to try and get comfortable. A while back, he might've gotten offended, but Nick didn't mean anything by it. Nick never meant anything by it, unless he was well and truly pissed off, and you could always tell when that had happened. Had his heart on his sleeve, Nick Valentine. Which was funny, really, considering.
"You ever think sometimes how long some of you have been around?" Nick continued eventually. He was back to staring at his cigarette when Hancock looked back at him. Tilting it from side to side, watching the reflected gleam off metal fingers. "That's what I was on about. Makes me feel better sometimes. Knowing it can be done, ya know? Knowing that there's folks who've lived through that much hell, and come out of it more or less okay."
Hancock coughed a little, thinking of a couple of cases where 'okay' was maybe stretching it a bit, but he didn't say anything. He knew a few more where Nick wasn't wrong, after all. Not everybody went feral. There were some kinds of stubborn that took a bit more than the end of the world and a couple of centuries of hell to shift.
Which, yeah. Now that Nick mentioned it, that actually was pretty comforting to think about.
"We'll be like that, you and me," Nick said quietly, and Hancock nearly choked on his own spit. Shit. Inhaled wrong, startled the hell out of him. What the hell, Nick? The detective paid him no mind, though. He was still lost in his own meandering thoughts. "You ever think about it? We skipped a lot of hell to get here, but we're made to last from here on out. Whatever happens next, we'll be there for it. Heaven or hell, don't matter. The two of us are gonna see it."
Hancock blinked for a bit, and then levered himself up to sitting. Well, hell. This wasn't a conversation to have lying down. It also wasn't a conversation to have sober, but he had a feeling Nick wouldn't look kindly on him taking something to ease it down right now. Man was in one hell of a mood, apparently.
"... You don't know that," he pointed out at last. "I mean, I'm not saying I'm wishing for it or anything, but there's plenty of stuff out there that could put us out of our misery at any time. More, recently." He smiled faintly. "Life's gotten real exciting lately. And I mean that in the best possible way."
Nick allowed himself a little grin at that as well, yellow eyes shining brightly at Hancock. Their bit of excitement was away at the minute, off doing something mysterious and probably ill-advised with Deacon, but that didn't stop the two of them from thinking about 'em. The opposite, really. That damned vault survivor was getting to be a permanent lodger in Hancock's thoughts, and he figured Nick wasn't in too dissimilar a boat. For better or for worse, and most days Hancock was pretty sure on the former.
The detective didn't stay smiling long, though. Hancock watched it fade and made a little note to himself. Three in the morning was bad for the guy. That was what happened when you didn't normally sleep, he supposed. Though it was worse, maybe, when Nick didn't have anybody to vent it at. He could imagine Nick sitting here by his lonesome, just thinking depressing thoughts to himself all endless night long. It was ... not a nice thought. Wow. That was not a happy thought at all.
"There's a good chance we'll outlast 'em, ya know," Nick said quietly, and holy Hannah, Hancock needed to do something about this. He needed to get the guy out of here, take him somewhere nice and lively. Get him out of his own head for a bit, 'cause right now Nick's head didn't look like a nice place to be living. He didn't get the chance straight away, though. Nick steamrolled on down his merry mental road to depressionsville. "Outlasted a few people as it stands, and nobody's bein' particularly careful right now. Don't know how much you've noticed that, seein' as you're rarely all that careful yourself."
He cocked an eyebrow at Hancock there, which at least proved that he was still aware he had company. Hancock had been starting to doubt it. He heaved himself up, now that Nick was looking at him. He got to his feet, scrubbed a tired hand over his face, and ambled over to lean against the desk beside the man and peer down at him. Nick blinked placidly at him. Bastard could be harder to perturb than a Raider hopped up on Psycho at times.
"You have this sorta mood often, or did something happen?" Hancock asked him, and didn't bother to hide the edge of concern to it. They were friends, right? Him and Nick? After everything that had happened recently, it couldn't hurt to open up to the guy a bit. "No offence, pal, but if you were drinking this'd be the point where even I'd be thinking about cutting you off. Something wrong? More than usual, I mean?"
He hesitated, just for a second, and then put a hand on Nick's shoulder. It felt odd, weightier and more purposeful than slinging his arm around the guy's shoulders would have been. This was a different sort of gesture, and it seemed Nick took it as such as well. The detective blinked at him, hesitating a little himself, and then reached over to stub his cigarette out in the tray. He didn't look at Hancock, not yet. He laced his newly-freed hands in his lap instead, and seemed to be thinking about it. He let Hancock's hand stay on his shoulder, though. He even seemed to lean into it, just a little. Hancock didn't think about it too much, but he left his hand where it was. Just because, all right? Just for that.
"I'm sorry about this," Nick said at last. "I'm a mopey old bastard at the minute, I know that. It just ... it comes over me at times, ya know? Especially lately. Everything's changing. The Institute, the Brotherhood. Life's gotten exciting, yeah, but it's also ... It's gotten bigger. It's gotten darker. Something goes wrong now, I can't help but think it'll go wrong big, and it'll go wrong for one heck of a long time. And I ... I'll be there for it. I'll watch it happen. You know?"
He looked up at Hancock then, and Hancock almost flinched instinctively from what was staring up at him from that battered old face. There was despair in those tired yellow eyes, and fear edging on terror, and Hancock did not want to be looking at it. He didn't want to be thinking about it, didn't want to know it was there. Nick was a rock. Nick was the most solid, gentle thing in the universe. It there was one person in the whole goddamn world that Hancock didn't want to be afraid, it was Nick. It knocked the whole world off kilter.
He didn't look away, though. Almost, almost, but he damn well didn't. He wasn't going to leave Nick alone like that. That thought was still in his head, how many other nights Nick had sat up alone, thoughts like this knocking around that head of his, and Hancock wasn't leaving him to that again. He wasn't sure why, beyond the vague notion that Nick was a friend, that Nick was his in some odd, indefinable way, but Hancock didn't flinch.
"... It's not going to come to that," he said, quietly but vehemently. "We're not going to let it. None of us. You know that, Nick. Whatever the hell goes down out there, we're not going to let it go bad. Not like that. They're going to kill us first."
Nick smiled crookedly up at him. He reached up, his metal hand warm and careful as he settled it over Hancock's. Just a grip, more gentle than a lot of people thought to be these days. Nick had never been otherwise. The thought was a lump in Hancock's throat.
"There's always that," the detective agreed softly, and Hancock frowned at it, at an oddness lurking in the man's tone. "There's always the hope they'll kill us first." At Hancock's expression, he twitched slightly, a half-shake of his head. "Don't look at me like that. I ain't hopin' for it either. But there's worse out there. You know that. There's worse things can happen to a man, and there's folks out there lookin' to do it to 'im. If this goes bad the wrong way ... Well. You and me, we'd be among the first to know about it and, unless someone goes out of their way, among the last to die of it. Can't help thinkin' that sometimes."
"... Jesus, Nick." Eloquent, maybe, but it was the best Hancock could manage. He'd known Nick could get introspective at times, he'd even known the man had a tendency towards existential angst now and then, but this ... Thanks. Thanks for that thought. Jesus.
Nick realised that. Saw it in Hancock's face, saw the stark, empty sort of shock in his eyes. It stirred the guy as no amount of his own terror could have done. Maybe that figured, Hancock thought distantly. Maybe that was always the way with Nick. He cared a lot more for other people's troubles than he did for his own. He stood up, his shoulder slipping out from beneath Hancock's hand, and took to pacing awkwardly around the office. Hancock slumped back against the desk behind him, jarring his hip against the wood as he let it take all his weight all of a sudden. He stared blankly after the man.
"No, I know it's not like that," Nick growled, sketching his hands in aggravation in the air. "I mean ... Look, I'm banged to hell as it is, chances are good I'd not make that far. Which, no, not exactly any more cheerful either, I know. It's not like I'm thinking this all the time. It ain't like I'd let it stop me, either. There's good in this world, and I'm gonna do somethin' about it, and hell, maybe we'll even win. Maybe we will. Maybe you and me, a hundred years down the line, maybe we'll be standin' in a shiny new Commonwealth. Of the people and for the people, who knows. It could happen. I just ..."
He faltered slowly to a stop, those mismatched, worried hands falling still and to his sides, that head tilted back and those yellow eyes staring tiredly up into the shadows. The long watches of the night. Damn but they were bad for a man. Nick trailed to a stop, and when he started again his voice was old, and quiet, and very, very tired.
"I think about it sometimes, that's all," he said, looking sideways at Hancock. "We're made to last. We are now, anyway. Not the prettiest work ever, not the most reliable, but we can live through a lot, and we can live for one hell of a long time. Whatever happens, whether it goes wrong or it goes right, there's a decent chance we'll be there to see it. Heaven or hell, or some mismatched thing in between. We'll be there. We'll have to live with it."
He stopped for a minute there. Let the thought settle, let it drop hollow and heavy into the waiting silence. Hancock didn't answer. He just stared at the man, feeling scraped and thin, feeling like something heavy was sitting on his chest. He'd never seen Nick look so fragile. He'd never seen Nick look so old and so tired and so scared. It hurt something in him. He couldn't have told you why.
But Nick stirred, after that minute. Nick moved himself, lifted his chin, a quiet gesture of defiance that seemed to mean something more with that torn throat beneath it, that wound bared to all who cared to take a shot at it. Nick straightened himself up, warm and stubborn as ever, and Hancock felt that thing in his chest loosen out again.
"Then I remember you guys," the detective said softly, turning to Hancock fully, a wry, tiny smile on his face. "Folks down in Goodneighbour. There's some down there saw the bombs drop. Some that made it through that, through all the shit that happened afterwards, and fetched up here at the end of it. Still sorta sane. More or less." He flickered a grin at Hancock. "That's what I mean, when I say I find ghouls comforting. It's proof, isn't it? Proof how much a person can bear, and still be decent at the end of it. I mean, what are we likely to endure that's worse than the end of the world, huh? Someone can live through that, live through two hundred years of hell, and then try to make something out of it afterwards. Build something, build lives. Help other folks out where they can. You look at that, how are you supposed to give up? No matter how big and how bad things are getting, how are you supposed to just lay down and die?"
Hancock stared at him. He'd have said something, he'd have answered, but nothing ... nothing came to mind. Nothing at all. People thought a lot of things when they looked at a ghoul. The ravaged skin and black eyes meant a lot of things to a lot of people, and Hancock had heard most of it over the years, either pointed at himself or others. He'd almost never had someone look at people like him and see hope, though. He'd never had someone take it as a badge of survival, and a reason to keep going themselves.
"... It's not always like that, you know," he managed after a second. Quietly, warily. "The older you are, the more likely you are to go feral. Even the ones that don't, some of us aren't that nice. Some of us weren't that nice to start with. We're not any shinier than anyone else."
Nick shrugged, that perpetually wry expression on his face. "Works that way for everyone," he said, ambling back towards Hancock again. "Don't matter what you look like, there's good and there's bad, and some folks pick one more than the other. Some don't get much of a choice, either. I'm not saying you guys are better. I'm just saying some of you have been around longer, some of you have managed to stick around longer, and there's something kinda hopeful about that. Even if good doesn't always beat the bad, maybe sometimes it gets to outlast it. The nights don't last forever. No matter how dark it gets, it's not gonna last forever. Sometimes you just ... batten down the hatches and hang on 'til dawn. There's folks out there who've done it already. There's folks out there that prove it can be done."
He settled in beside Hancock, shoulder to shoulder with him and leaning against the desk, and Hancock stared at him some more. He'd gotten into the habit now, might as well. Nick leaned his head back, tipped it up towards the office ceiling and the sky somewhere out beyond it. The long watches of the night, slowly heading on towards morning. Introspection was contagious, apparently. Hancock had to agree, though. Looking at Nick in particular, same as when he looked at their currently-absent survivor, he had to agree.
Some of the people who'd stuck around, who'd managed against all the odds to hang on and do some good at the end of it, they made you think. They made you hope. Even when you'd long ago given up thinking things like that would make one scrap of difference.
"... You're not so bad at that yourself," he said after a minute. Softly, and a lot more seriously than many people would have thought he was capable of. Nick turned to look at him, raised his eyebrows in surprise, but it was at what Hancock was saying, not that he was the one saying it. Hancock believed that. Nick had always believed the best of people, even when he damn well knew better. It was one of the things that had always attracted Hancock to him. That kind of hope, that kind of faith ... it was addicting. Worse than the hardest-hitting Jet, and just about as costly once the high fell through. There were few chems out there with a low as devastating as the one hope could give you. Nick didn't tend to let people fall, though. Not so long as there was a single thing he could do to help it.
"... Thanks, I think," Nick tried at last, scratching idly at his damaged cheek. "Wasn't fishin' for compliments or anything, but thanks, Hancock. Means a lot from you."
Hancock raised his own eyebrows, pulling levity back in around him, not without some relief. "What?" he asked. "I don't strike you as the happy and hopeful type? I think I'm offended."
Nick chuckled, fishing his cigarettes out of his pocket, tapping one out to hold in his hand. Needing a hit, maybe, after that conversation, or maybe just something to do with his hands. Probably the latter, knowing Nick. The former was more Hancock himself right now. Which, when he thought about it, had him holding out a hopeful hand towards the pack. Nicotine wasn't exactly his drug of choice, made about as much of a dent on his system as it did on Nick's, but it was the thought that counted right now. He had a feeling Nick needed semi-lucid company a little longer right now, the conversation they were having.
Nick looked at him askance a little bit, but handed over a cigarette without much fuss. And a light, too. It felt a bit odd, but it was nice to share at least.
"You strike me as a guy who's not had too many reasons to be happy or hopeful a lot of the time," Nick said quietly, while Hancock was too distracted to see it coming, and then waited patiently for him to stop coughing again. "You also strike me as someone who's made an effort to be anyway, or at least to look like he is. It doesn't always work, and you don't always go about it in ways I'd approve of ... but I guess that's not the point really. Not anybody's job to live somebody's life for 'em. Just to be there, especially if it's a friend, and try to look out for 'em if things go wrong." He paused, rolled his cigarette thoughtfully for a second, and then looked at Hancock, deep and steady and earnest. "I count you as a friend, John. Hope you know that. I hope it's something you feel you can rely on."
... Goddamn it all to hell. Hancock looked away rapidly, swivelled smartly around to face the door instead. So Nick wouldn't see. So the bastard wouldn't see what was on his face. Jesus Christ, Nick. Don't go pulling any punches there or anything.
He couldn't stay pointed away for long, though. For a start, because he wasn't a wimp like that, but also because ... because this whole conversation. Because they'd had it, because they'd done this whole philosophical trawl through the dark end of immortality at stupid-o-clock in the morning, because Hancock had managed not to flinch through all of that, because damned if he was starting to flinch now, and just for that. Just because the man decided to be ... be all weary and honest and sympathetic with him now. That was no reason to be running for cover. Probably. Probably not. Hell, you'd think he'd be used to it by now. Nick wasn't the only one who'd been letting him open up of late.
Nick might be the one who stuck around longest, though. Not by choice, necessarily, so much as by default, but that's what they'd had this conversation for, wasn't it? That's why Nick had picked him to unload this little nighttime interlude on. Because chances were, barring accidents and misfortune, that the two of them might be toughing it out together a bit longer than most.
With that in mind ...
"I'll do my best, you know," he said. Still facing the wrong way, still not looking at Nick. He felt the guy's attention anyway, felt that yellow stare calm and steady on the back of his neck. "Can't make any promises or anything. Like you said, I'm not the best at being careful at the best of times. But ... I'll try to stick around, you know, long term. Hundred years down the line, heaven or hell. So long as you're still knocking around ... I'll do my best to do the same, all right?"
So you won't be stuck there alone, he didn't say, but he figured Nick heard it loud enough anyway. Stupid thing to promise, really. Stupid thing to even try. Like Hancock was anything special to hold onto, like he was anything that would help against the kind of fear, the kind of despair, that he'd seen in Nick's face just now. Hancock wasn't the kind of person people looked to and saw hope, not like some others he could mention. But it was ... Hell. Maybe it'd help. Maybe it'd make a difference just to not be alone.
It'd be worth sticking around to give that to a guy, right? That was worth making promises for, and at least trying to keep them. He hoped, anyway ...
Nick put a hand on his shoulder. Gently as always, and silently, but it stopped Hancock's thoughts in their tracks regardless. He turned his head, looked at it there, looked at the battered old face and the hopeful yellow eyes behind it. He looked at those, and felt something warm and easy settle in his chest that, not so many years ago, he hadn't believed could exist.
"... You're a good kid, John," Nick told him softly. "A good friend. You always have been."
Hancock snorted. That was a damned lie, right there, and Nick knew it too. Of anyone still knocking around, Nick Valentine ought to know better than to say shit like that. That was the thing about Nick, though. It always had been, and that more than anything else was probably the reason Hancock was standing here right now, making stupid promises and feeling like somehow, a hundred years down the line, they might still be worthwhile.
A man hopes the best for you that often and that consistently ... maybe now and then you want to take a chance on proving him right.
Nick got philosophical in the long watches of the night. It'd startled Hancock a bit, the first time he'd both stuck around long enough and been lucid enough to witness it. Not surprised him, exactly, Nick tended to be a bit philosophical at the best of times, but it was different at night. Enough to bemuse him. Nick was ... freer with it, he guessed. In the quiet of the long hours, when most people were asleep, Nick sometimes let himself go a little bit.
"Ya know, I always found ghouls kinda comforting," the detective came out with one night. He was sitting in his office chair, watching his cigarette burn down with thoughtful yellow eyes. Hancock, sacked out on the guy's cot and coming down off a high, squinted at him a bit.
"Yeah?" he asked, though mildly enough. "I guess it's always nice to know there's folks out there as ugly as you are. I can see how that'd be comforting."
Nick huffed at him for that one, deliberating blowing smoke in Hancock's general direction. Hancock grinned, and saluted him lazily in response. It lightened the mood for a second, but that didn't last very long. Nick's thoughtful moods could be hard to budge.
"Didn't mean that," the detective said wryly. "Though yeah, that's nice as well. Especially when this old mug'll only be getting worse from here."
Hancock smiled at him. "Ah, it's not so bad. I mean, it's not king of the zombies, but you've got the whole 'world-weary sympathetic soul' thing going on. I know a few ladies would find that right up their alley, if you wanted me to swing 'em your way."
Nick slanted him a long look. "Thanks," he said, "but I think I'll pass. Prefer to do my own scouting, you don't mind?" When Hancock shrugged gamely, he sobered again. "Anyway. You got me all off track. Shaddup a minute, won't ya? Can't think in a straight line for two seconds with you around."
Hancock laughed at that, leaning back into the cot and stretching his neck to try and get comfortable. A while back, he might've gotten offended, but Nick didn't mean anything by it. Nick never meant anything by it, unless he was well and truly pissed off, and you could always tell when that had happened. Had his heart on his sleeve, Nick Valentine. Which was funny, really, considering.
"You ever think sometimes how long some of you have been around?" Nick continued eventually. He was back to staring at his cigarette when Hancock looked back at him. Tilting it from side to side, watching the reflected gleam off metal fingers. "That's what I was on about. Makes me feel better sometimes. Knowing it can be done, ya know? Knowing that there's folks who've lived through that much hell, and come out of it more or less okay."
Hancock coughed a little, thinking of a couple of cases where 'okay' was maybe stretching it a bit, but he didn't say anything. He knew a few more where Nick wasn't wrong, after all. Not everybody went feral. There were some kinds of stubborn that took a bit more than the end of the world and a couple of centuries of hell to shift.
Which, yeah. Now that Nick mentioned it, that actually was pretty comforting to think about.
"We'll be like that, you and me," Nick said quietly, and Hancock nearly choked on his own spit. Shit. Inhaled wrong, startled the hell out of him. What the hell, Nick? The detective paid him no mind, though. He was still lost in his own meandering thoughts. "You ever think about it? We skipped a lot of hell to get here, but we're made to last from here on out. Whatever happens next, we'll be there for it. Heaven or hell, don't matter. The two of us are gonna see it."
Hancock blinked for a bit, and then levered himself up to sitting. Well, hell. This wasn't a conversation to have lying down. It also wasn't a conversation to have sober, but he had a feeling Nick wouldn't look kindly on him taking something to ease it down right now. Man was in one hell of a mood, apparently.
"... You don't know that," he pointed out at last. "I mean, I'm not saying I'm wishing for it or anything, but there's plenty of stuff out there that could put us out of our misery at any time. More, recently." He smiled faintly. "Life's gotten real exciting lately. And I mean that in the best possible way."
Nick allowed himself a little grin at that as well, yellow eyes shining brightly at Hancock. Their bit of excitement was away at the minute, off doing something mysterious and probably ill-advised with Deacon, but that didn't stop the two of them from thinking about 'em. The opposite, really. That damned vault survivor was getting to be a permanent lodger in Hancock's thoughts, and he figured Nick wasn't in too dissimilar a boat. For better or for worse, and most days Hancock was pretty sure on the former.
The detective didn't stay smiling long, though. Hancock watched it fade and made a little note to himself. Three in the morning was bad for the guy. That was what happened when you didn't normally sleep, he supposed. Though it was worse, maybe, when Nick didn't have anybody to vent it at. He could imagine Nick sitting here by his lonesome, just thinking depressing thoughts to himself all endless night long. It was ... not a nice thought. Wow. That was not a happy thought at all.
"There's a good chance we'll outlast 'em, ya know," Nick said quietly, and holy Hannah, Hancock needed to do something about this. He needed to get the guy out of here, take him somewhere nice and lively. Get him out of his own head for a bit, 'cause right now Nick's head didn't look like a nice place to be living. He didn't get the chance straight away, though. Nick steamrolled on down his merry mental road to depressionsville. "Outlasted a few people as it stands, and nobody's bein' particularly careful right now. Don't know how much you've noticed that, seein' as you're rarely all that careful yourself."
He cocked an eyebrow at Hancock there, which at least proved that he was still aware he had company. Hancock had been starting to doubt it. He heaved himself up, now that Nick was looking at him. He got to his feet, scrubbed a tired hand over his face, and ambled over to lean against the desk beside the man and peer down at him. Nick blinked placidly at him. Bastard could be harder to perturb than a Raider hopped up on Psycho at times.
"You have this sorta mood often, or did something happen?" Hancock asked him, and didn't bother to hide the edge of concern to it. They were friends, right? Him and Nick? After everything that had happened recently, it couldn't hurt to open up to the guy a bit. "No offence, pal, but if you were drinking this'd be the point where even I'd be thinking about cutting you off. Something wrong? More than usual, I mean?"
He hesitated, just for a second, and then put a hand on Nick's shoulder. It felt odd, weightier and more purposeful than slinging his arm around the guy's shoulders would have been. This was a different sort of gesture, and it seemed Nick took it as such as well. The detective blinked at him, hesitating a little himself, and then reached over to stub his cigarette out in the tray. He didn't look at Hancock, not yet. He laced his newly-freed hands in his lap instead, and seemed to be thinking about it. He let Hancock's hand stay on his shoulder, though. He even seemed to lean into it, just a little. Hancock didn't think about it too much, but he left his hand where it was. Just because, all right? Just for that.
"I'm sorry about this," Nick said at last. "I'm a mopey old bastard at the minute, I know that. It just ... it comes over me at times, ya know? Especially lately. Everything's changing. The Institute, the Brotherhood. Life's gotten exciting, yeah, but it's also ... It's gotten bigger. It's gotten darker. Something goes wrong now, I can't help but think it'll go wrong big, and it'll go wrong for one heck of a long time. And I ... I'll be there for it. I'll watch it happen. You know?"
He looked up at Hancock then, and Hancock almost flinched instinctively from what was staring up at him from that battered old face. There was despair in those tired yellow eyes, and fear edging on terror, and Hancock did not want to be looking at it. He didn't want to be thinking about it, didn't want to know it was there. Nick was a rock. Nick was the most solid, gentle thing in the universe. It there was one person in the whole goddamn world that Hancock didn't want to be afraid, it was Nick. It knocked the whole world off kilter.
He didn't look away, though. Almost, almost, but he damn well didn't. He wasn't going to leave Nick alone like that. That thought was still in his head, how many other nights Nick had sat up alone, thoughts like this knocking around that head of his, and Hancock wasn't leaving him to that again. He wasn't sure why, beyond the vague notion that Nick was a friend, that Nick was his in some odd, indefinable way, but Hancock didn't flinch.
"... It's not going to come to that," he said, quietly but vehemently. "We're not going to let it. None of us. You know that, Nick. Whatever the hell goes down out there, we're not going to let it go bad. Not like that. They're going to kill us first."
Nick smiled crookedly up at him. He reached up, his metal hand warm and careful as he settled it over Hancock's. Just a grip, more gentle than a lot of people thought to be these days. Nick had never been otherwise. The thought was a lump in Hancock's throat.
"There's always that," the detective agreed softly, and Hancock frowned at it, at an oddness lurking in the man's tone. "There's always the hope they'll kill us first." At Hancock's expression, he twitched slightly, a half-shake of his head. "Don't look at me like that. I ain't hopin' for it either. But there's worse out there. You know that. There's worse things can happen to a man, and there's folks out there lookin' to do it to 'im. If this goes bad the wrong way ... Well. You and me, we'd be among the first to know about it and, unless someone goes out of their way, among the last to die of it. Can't help thinkin' that sometimes."
"... Jesus, Nick." Eloquent, maybe, but it was the best Hancock could manage. He'd known Nick could get introspective at times, he'd even known the man had a tendency towards existential angst now and then, but this ... Thanks. Thanks for that thought. Jesus.
Nick realised that. Saw it in Hancock's face, saw the stark, empty sort of shock in his eyes. It stirred the guy as no amount of his own terror could have done. Maybe that figured, Hancock thought distantly. Maybe that was always the way with Nick. He cared a lot more for other people's troubles than he did for his own. He stood up, his shoulder slipping out from beneath Hancock's hand, and took to pacing awkwardly around the office. Hancock slumped back against the desk behind him, jarring his hip against the wood as he let it take all his weight all of a sudden. He stared blankly after the man.
"No, I know it's not like that," Nick growled, sketching his hands in aggravation in the air. "I mean ... Look, I'm banged to hell as it is, chances are good I'd not make that far. Which, no, not exactly any more cheerful either, I know. It's not like I'm thinking this all the time. It ain't like I'd let it stop me, either. There's good in this world, and I'm gonna do somethin' about it, and hell, maybe we'll even win. Maybe we will. Maybe you and me, a hundred years down the line, maybe we'll be standin' in a shiny new Commonwealth. Of the people and for the people, who knows. It could happen. I just ..."
He faltered slowly to a stop, those mismatched, worried hands falling still and to his sides, that head tilted back and those yellow eyes staring tiredly up into the shadows. The long watches of the night. Damn but they were bad for a man. Nick trailed to a stop, and when he started again his voice was old, and quiet, and very, very tired.
"I think about it sometimes, that's all," he said, looking sideways at Hancock. "We're made to last. We are now, anyway. Not the prettiest work ever, not the most reliable, but we can live through a lot, and we can live for one hell of a long time. Whatever happens, whether it goes wrong or it goes right, there's a decent chance we'll be there to see it. Heaven or hell, or some mismatched thing in between. We'll be there. We'll have to live with it."
He stopped for a minute there. Let the thought settle, let it drop hollow and heavy into the waiting silence. Hancock didn't answer. He just stared at the man, feeling scraped and thin, feeling like something heavy was sitting on his chest. He'd never seen Nick look so fragile. He'd never seen Nick look so old and so tired and so scared. It hurt something in him. He couldn't have told you why.
But Nick stirred, after that minute. Nick moved himself, lifted his chin, a quiet gesture of defiance that seemed to mean something more with that torn throat beneath it, that wound bared to all who cared to take a shot at it. Nick straightened himself up, warm and stubborn as ever, and Hancock felt that thing in his chest loosen out again.
"Then I remember you guys," the detective said softly, turning to Hancock fully, a wry, tiny smile on his face. "Folks down in Goodneighbour. There's some down there saw the bombs drop. Some that made it through that, through all the shit that happened afterwards, and fetched up here at the end of it. Still sorta sane. More or less." He flickered a grin at Hancock. "That's what I mean, when I say I find ghouls comforting. It's proof, isn't it? Proof how much a person can bear, and still be decent at the end of it. I mean, what are we likely to endure that's worse than the end of the world, huh? Someone can live through that, live through two hundred years of hell, and then try to make something out of it afterwards. Build something, build lives. Help other folks out where they can. You look at that, how are you supposed to give up? No matter how big and how bad things are getting, how are you supposed to just lay down and die?"
Hancock stared at him. He'd have said something, he'd have answered, but nothing ... nothing came to mind. Nothing at all. People thought a lot of things when they looked at a ghoul. The ravaged skin and black eyes meant a lot of things to a lot of people, and Hancock had heard most of it over the years, either pointed at himself or others. He'd almost never had someone look at people like him and see hope, though. He'd never had someone take it as a badge of survival, and a reason to keep going themselves.
"... It's not always like that, you know," he managed after a second. Quietly, warily. "The older you are, the more likely you are to go feral. Even the ones that don't, some of us aren't that nice. Some of us weren't that nice to start with. We're not any shinier than anyone else."
Nick shrugged, that perpetually wry expression on his face. "Works that way for everyone," he said, ambling back towards Hancock again. "Don't matter what you look like, there's good and there's bad, and some folks pick one more than the other. Some don't get much of a choice, either. I'm not saying you guys are better. I'm just saying some of you have been around longer, some of you have managed to stick around longer, and there's something kinda hopeful about that. Even if good doesn't always beat the bad, maybe sometimes it gets to outlast it. The nights don't last forever. No matter how dark it gets, it's not gonna last forever. Sometimes you just ... batten down the hatches and hang on 'til dawn. There's folks out there who've done it already. There's folks out there that prove it can be done."
He settled in beside Hancock, shoulder to shoulder with him and leaning against the desk, and Hancock stared at him some more. He'd gotten into the habit now, might as well. Nick leaned his head back, tipped it up towards the office ceiling and the sky somewhere out beyond it. The long watches of the night, slowly heading on towards morning. Introspection was contagious, apparently. Hancock had to agree, though. Looking at Nick in particular, same as when he looked at their currently-absent survivor, he had to agree.
Some of the people who'd stuck around, who'd managed against all the odds to hang on and do some good at the end of it, they made you think. They made you hope. Even when you'd long ago given up thinking things like that would make one scrap of difference.
"... You're not so bad at that yourself," he said after a minute. Softly, and a lot more seriously than many people would have thought he was capable of. Nick turned to look at him, raised his eyebrows in surprise, but it was at what Hancock was saying, not that he was the one saying it. Hancock believed that. Nick had always believed the best of people, even when he damn well knew better. It was one of the things that had always attracted Hancock to him. That kind of hope, that kind of faith ... it was addicting. Worse than the hardest-hitting Jet, and just about as costly once the high fell through. There were few chems out there with a low as devastating as the one hope could give you. Nick didn't tend to let people fall, though. Not so long as there was a single thing he could do to help it.
"... Thanks, I think," Nick tried at last, scratching idly at his damaged cheek. "Wasn't fishin' for compliments or anything, but thanks, Hancock. Means a lot from you."
Hancock raised his own eyebrows, pulling levity back in around him, not without some relief. "What?" he asked. "I don't strike you as the happy and hopeful type? I think I'm offended."
Nick chuckled, fishing his cigarettes out of his pocket, tapping one out to hold in his hand. Needing a hit, maybe, after that conversation, or maybe just something to do with his hands. Probably the latter, knowing Nick. The former was more Hancock himself right now. Which, when he thought about it, had him holding out a hopeful hand towards the pack. Nicotine wasn't exactly his drug of choice, made about as much of a dent on his system as it did on Nick's, but it was the thought that counted right now. He had a feeling Nick needed semi-lucid company a little longer right now, the conversation they were having.
Nick looked at him askance a little bit, but handed over a cigarette without much fuss. And a light, too. It felt a bit odd, but it was nice to share at least.
"You strike me as a guy who's not had too many reasons to be happy or hopeful a lot of the time," Nick said quietly, while Hancock was too distracted to see it coming, and then waited patiently for him to stop coughing again. "You also strike me as someone who's made an effort to be anyway, or at least to look like he is. It doesn't always work, and you don't always go about it in ways I'd approve of ... but I guess that's not the point really. Not anybody's job to live somebody's life for 'em. Just to be there, especially if it's a friend, and try to look out for 'em if things go wrong." He paused, rolled his cigarette thoughtfully for a second, and then looked at Hancock, deep and steady and earnest. "I count you as a friend, John. Hope you know that. I hope it's something you feel you can rely on."
... Goddamn it all to hell. Hancock looked away rapidly, swivelled smartly around to face the door instead. So Nick wouldn't see. So the bastard wouldn't see what was on his face. Jesus Christ, Nick. Don't go pulling any punches there or anything.
He couldn't stay pointed away for long, though. For a start, because he wasn't a wimp like that, but also because ... because this whole conversation. Because they'd had it, because they'd done this whole philosophical trawl through the dark end of immortality at stupid-o-clock in the morning, because Hancock had managed not to flinch through all of that, because damned if he was starting to flinch now, and just for that. Just because the man decided to be ... be all weary and honest and sympathetic with him now. That was no reason to be running for cover. Probably. Probably not. Hell, you'd think he'd be used to it by now. Nick wasn't the only one who'd been letting him open up of late.
Nick might be the one who stuck around longest, though. Not by choice, necessarily, so much as by default, but that's what they'd had this conversation for, wasn't it? That's why Nick had picked him to unload this little nighttime interlude on. Because chances were, barring accidents and misfortune, that the two of them might be toughing it out together a bit longer than most.
With that in mind ...
"I'll do my best, you know," he said. Still facing the wrong way, still not looking at Nick. He felt the guy's attention anyway, felt that yellow stare calm and steady on the back of his neck. "Can't make any promises or anything. Like you said, I'm not the best at being careful at the best of times. But ... I'll try to stick around, you know, long term. Hundred years down the line, heaven or hell. So long as you're still knocking around ... I'll do my best to do the same, all right?"
So you won't be stuck there alone, he didn't say, but he figured Nick heard it loud enough anyway. Stupid thing to promise, really. Stupid thing to even try. Like Hancock was anything special to hold onto, like he was anything that would help against the kind of fear, the kind of despair, that he'd seen in Nick's face just now. Hancock wasn't the kind of person people looked to and saw hope, not like some others he could mention. But it was ... Hell. Maybe it'd help. Maybe it'd make a difference just to not be alone.
It'd be worth sticking around to give that to a guy, right? That was worth making promises for, and at least trying to keep them. He hoped, anyway ...
Nick put a hand on his shoulder. Gently as always, and silently, but it stopped Hancock's thoughts in their tracks regardless. He turned his head, looked at it there, looked at the battered old face and the hopeful yellow eyes behind it. He looked at those, and felt something warm and easy settle in his chest that, not so many years ago, he hadn't believed could exist.
"... You're a good kid, John," Nick told him softly. "A good friend. You always have been."
Hancock snorted. That was a damned lie, right there, and Nick knew it too. Of anyone still knocking around, Nick Valentine ought to know better than to say shit like that. That was the thing about Nick, though. It always had been, and that more than anything else was probably the reason Hancock was standing here right now, making stupid promises and feeling like somehow, a hundred years down the line, they might still be worthwhile.
A man hopes the best for you that often and that consistently ... maybe now and then you want to take a chance on proving him right.