Going topside wasn’t an easy decision.
In fact, bile bitter regret often lingers in the back of your throat - a lump that stifled the air in your lungs.
And while you might’ve been bioengineered to survive better under these harsh wasteland conditions, every time you find yourself in a less than ideal situation, you're catapulted headlong into paralyzing self doubt; alone and rudderless.
No one lives in the vaults - not truly.
Birdie (and the others) warned you of what awaited beyond those lead-lined walls. But you couldn’t abide spending the rest of your life trapped in a cage, albeit a gilded one.
Not anymore.
Oh no, you wanted to feel a real breeze instead of air pumped through the HVAC. Experience the sun baking warm into your skin like fresh bread instead of the artificial heat of the UV lamp used for mandatory light therapy sessions. Complain about the chafe of sand in your shoes and hear the crunch of dirt under foot instead of a hollow clunk of sterile metal.
To witness first hand all the sights, sounds, and smells this world offers.
Only… you didn’t expect it to be this hard.
Nor did you expect to be pregnant when setting off into the great unknown on your own (a definite oversight on your part [you really shouldn’t have had one last hurrah before hitting the road]).
Through trial and error, motion sicknesses that swing into crippling nausea as manic energy - your first taste of true freedom! - dwindled into dragging fatigue, you found a happy medium. None of which would have been possible had it not been for the most unlikely of companions.
Ghouls; who knew, huh?
Sure, you’d heard of them from the rotating door of visitors that found themselves at Vault 4, but you’d never seen them. While you grew up surrounded by visible mutations, seeing the battlefield of his body was off putting; how a person could survive a patina of burns and patchwork slices without unraveling at the seams was beyond you.
And kind of frightening.
But he took it in stride, introducing himself as Ghoul. Refused to divulge anything else of substance no matter how much you poked and prodded. His life pre-bomb was a complete mystery filled with plot holes and unanswered questions (which is exactly what he preferred).
You learned to be comfortable with his meandering conversations, and all the words he spoke that said much of nothing. And what you did glean, you did so through observation alone.
He was alone - had been for a very long time.
He was very old - one of the last of his kind.
And he was, in his own way, very kind - at least by wasteland standards.
“The f*ck you doin’?”
Pausing, you stop mid push and hover awkwardly on your hands and knees. The vault suit pulls taut across your hips, pinching behind your knees uncomfortably. Your toes squeak in your shoes, socks thoroughly soaked through with sweat.
It’s been unseasonably hot (or it’s the hormones). Whatever the case, this is the first semi-decent lodging you’ve camped in for weeks, and you’re not about to miss an opportunity to freshen up.
And maybe find a way to soothe the building ache in your tit* - flesh swollen tender and nipples rubbed raw.
“I’m just, uh, gonna,” you motion towards the back of the house, the askew bathroom door clinging to its hinges by a corner, “y’know, f-freshen up. See if they don’t still have some water.”
The Ghoul scans you up and down, gimlet-eyed. “S’that so?”
You huff, your knees starting to ache.
Being five months pregnant throws your center of gravity for a loop, the atmosphere weighing extra heavy on your bones. It doesn’t help that the baby’s decided sitting directly on your bladder with a foot tucked under your ribs is the best position.
“Didn’t know I needed permission to take a piss now,” you snipe. Usually, you try to reign in the hormones but the day’s been too long and you’re in pain. Anyone would be a little snippy (right?). “Can I do that on my own or do you need to watch, Mr. Ghoul?”
A faint smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, his gaze glinting from beneath the rim of his hat as he tips his head. “Better watch it, sweetheart,” he says. “Otherwise, I might have’ta wash your mouth out with soap.”
Pushing yourself up with a grunt, you determinedly ignore the raspy chuckle that follows as you waddle towards the bathroom. Cussing him out all the while in your mind.
While he’s been ‘nicer’ today - stopping for extra breaks, even packing it in several hours earlier than usual because he noticed how weary you looked - he’s still an asshole.
The toilet’s gone, the tub’s tipped sideways, the linoleum’s cracked, and closing the door sounds like a pack of howling mole rats but its functional. When you catch your reflection in the spider web fractures of the mirror, you grimace.
The wastes have certainly left their mark on you. Gone is the prim-and-proper vault dweller, replaced by a gremlin of a woman Overseer Benjamin would surely scowl at.
A true ‘surfie’ now.
“Great,” you groan, scrubbing a palm over your face. “Just - ugh!”
You’re caked in grime, a steak of dirt smeared across the bridge of your nose. Mysterious stains darken the blue fabric, the golden stripes of your suit an off-putting grey.
Your hair clumps in greasy chunks. You’re glossy with sweat, and while your curves have plumped up over the last few months, you didn’t realize just how much until now.
The vault suit’s always been tight - now it clings and creases in unflattering places. And there’s nothing you can do about it, unless the Ghoul is willing to spare a sewing kit.
You could let the waist out some…
What the hell am I gonna do if he won’t? There’s no way I’ll fit if this baby gets any bigger. sh*t, I look like a f*cking sausage. Your hand cradles the side of your stomach, stroking over the bump with a frown. This is all your fault, you little parasite.
“You better be so f*cking cute - the cutest goddamn baby in the wasteland. Or I will riot.”
Tugging down the zipper over your breasts is heaven, the swollen flesh spilling out of the parting fabric, no longer compressed. It’s almost enough to make you cry as you struggle to tug the lycra off your shoulders, the fabric putting up a fight.
After some awkward contortions that pull uncomfortably at the muscles of your shoulder blades, you manage to wrangle yourself free.
The temptation to burn the stupid goddamn suit is almost too much to resist, but then you’d really be traipsing around the wasteland in the nude and just… no.
Peeling off your undershirt is another story altogether, the soft cotton feeling like sandpaper as it scrapes over sensitive skin. Your nerves tingle with awareness, bolts of pain shooting through your nipples with every shift.
Quick like a bandaid, you think, taking a steadying inhale.
It’s a miracle you don’t scream.
Tears cling to your lashes, your nose running as you toss the shirt to the side with one hand and cradle your chest with the other. Sure, you’ve had tenderness with your period but this kind of pain? A whole new level.
You almost don’t know what to do with yourself.
How is this fair - aren’t you suffering enough?
Sniffling, you peer down at your tit* and gingerly cup them with your palms. Swollen hard and warm to the touch; a heavy weight crushing your ribs.
Do I really have to milk myself like a f*cking brahmin? Another bolt of lightning crackles through your nerve endings as if in response. Fine. God, this is embarrassing.
Only any attempt at touching your nipples produces pure agony, shards of glass biting into delicate skin.
No matter how slight your touch, no matter how gentle your fingers - it doesn’t work. Leaves you more distraught and in pain than when you began as inflamed nerve endings crackle and burn.
And when the tears truly start, the dam breaks. It’s not long before they drip down your cheeks in fat rivulets, your breath hitching from you in pathetic little exhales.
Your fist shoves against your mouth in an attempt to smother the sounds, teeth sinking into your knuckle until you leave sore indents.
But you should know better, not only does the Ghoul have heightened senses (he’s taunted you constantly with this fact like the asshole he is), but he’s uncannily perceptive in a very annoying way.
You don’t hear the squeal of the door, but you do sense his presence behind you; the rad warm burn of his body as he stops a scant few inches away. You feel his breath against the nape of your neck, the barest brush of his chest as he inhales.
“You ready ta stop bein’ stubborn?” he hums. “I thought I told you not ta wait s’long.”
Your voice warbles from you, “G’way.” You curl into yourself, shoulders hunching as you hang your head. “Don’t need your help.”
The Ghoul snorts. “Cuz you doin’ so well on your own, huh?”
“I resent that.” You shoot him a weak glare, the animosity ruined by the crumble of your lips. “I really, really do.”
You hate always having to rely on him, so desperate to prove that you can take care of yourself only to have every effort to do so thrown back in your face.
sh*t, you hate how right Birdie was, “Honey, you won’t last five minutes on your own. Please stay here with us where it’s safe.”
“Well, maybe so. But pickers can’t be choosers, sweetheart,” he shrugs with a languid roll of the shoulders. “Ain’t no use cryin’ over spilled milk. C’mon, the longer you wait, the worse it’s gon be.”
“I just - you don’t understand…”
He reaches around you to set his hat on the sink, the dwindling light of twilight creeping in through the holes in the roof to bathe him in its bloody light.
He looks like a grotesque demon that clawed its way from the depths of hell. It gets your pulse thudding, electric awareness an unwelcome visitor as it roosts behind your navel.
“I understand plenty. Now, let me.”
Not an offer - not really.
More akin to a demand, one wrapped up pretty like a gift. You’ve been here many times before, and while the Ghoul proffers his help under the guise of not wanting to hear your bitching and moaning, the hungry gleam of his eyes as they rake over your face say otherwise.
If it’s one thing you’ve learned in your travels with him, it’s this: he is entirely self-serving. He offers because he wants to suck on a set of pretty tit*. If you happen to cream your panties while he does, well, he counts it as a win-win.
Quid pro quo.
And what you hate more than how utterly correct everyone is about life on the surface, is how needy he makes you. How desperate and dumb and dripping he’s got you by the end, drunk off the flick of his tongue and the rasp of his touch.
Because it’s so hard to be strong in the face of pain when the solution is right there; open-palmed.
“...Fine, just don’t - don’t leave marks this time, okay?”
A slow waking smile creaks across his face, and he says, “I ain’t makin’ any promises, sweetheart.”
Your stomach swoops, and your thighs clench.
sh*t.
Scarred lips work over tender flesh as a talented tongue flicks and swirls over the bumps of your areola, the tip digging into your nipple and drawing the swollen nub into a hot mouth. You whimper, arms tossed over the Ghoul’s broad shoulders.
Cold ceramic digs into the base of your spine, your body crowded back against the sink as he plasters himself to your front. Cuts off any escape routes and refuses to let you squirm away from the overwhelming sensations as he suckles.
Heavy palms grope at the plush curves of your hips, fingertips digging into the fat.
His lips pop off your nipple with a sticky smack. “Always taste s’f*cking good,” he groans against your sternum. “Got the prettiest set a tit* in the wasteland.”
“Hnn! N-Not so hard.”
While you say that, you don’t mean it - not really. Your puss* throbs in time with your heartbeat, cl*t swollen and aching for friction. Your inner thighs are a mess of slick, your vault suit caught around your knees.
He never touches you below the waist directly (some boundaries still exist between you two), but at this point in your pregnancy, you’re so sensitive a gentle breeze could set you off.
“Heh, ain’t you know lyin’s a sin?” he says.
A scarred cheek drags over the swell of your breast, the rasp of rad burn alighting your nerves. Bolts of desire ricochet down your spine, fizzle like Nuka Cola on your tongue. He presses an open mouth kiss to your nipple, his tongue flicking out to massage the tender bud.
At the taste of your skin, his co*ck twitches where its grinding against your thigh. You feel him through his ragged pinstripe slacks, his shaft a thick line of heat.
It’s probably the hormones (you refuse to admit its anything else) but just the thought of touching him, of sinking down onto his erection - feeling how f*cking good he’d stretch you out and fill you up - makes you dizzy.
You pant, your voice distinctly whiny when you say, “Please, d-do something. It still hurts.”
His grin reminds you of the mongrels roaming the wastelands. “Sh,” he hushes you. “I got you, sweetheart.”
The tips of his fingers brush along the side of your swollen stomach. Your heart flips in your chest, your breath catching as he follows the contours of your body, reaching down to brush over the skin of your mound. This is new, he’s never done this before. It’s simultaneously as arousing as it is terrifying.
“Can smell how wet you are for me,” he says, tone low and gruff. “You gonna be a good girl for me, ain’t you?”
“I-”
Then his mouth is slurping at your tit, his teeth biting down on your nipple gently as those strong fingers dip between your thighs. Blunt nails scratch through your pubic hair, a calloused pad swirling circles around your slippery cl*t. Your hips jump, your head rolling back between your shoulders as a loud moan rips itself from your throat.
You arch back so far your belly presses against the Ghoul’s, your tit* smothering his face.
You think, half deliriously, it’s a good thing he doesn’t have a nose otherwise you might’ve broken it.
“sh*t, that’s so - oh, f*ck, please, please, please!’
Your legs widen to make room for his hand as yours fly up to grab his biceps, nails biting into the rough leather of his duster.
His tongue flutters across your areola. “C’mon, pretty mama, give it ta me.”
“Oh.” Sparks dance behind your eyes, your knees shaking as the Ghoul strokes over your folds, tests your wetness and the give of your c*nt as he plays with your entrance. “Right there,” you gasp. “I’m gonna…”
He grunts, tugging on your nipple with his teeth.
The sharp bite of pain shoots through you, deepens the kindling warmth behind your navel that steadily builds and builds and builds. You feel on the very edge, nerves plucked like the keys of a piano.
So close you can taste it.
Then a tingling starts in the tips of your fingers.
Burns its way up your arms to settle in the weight of your chest, pins and needles pricking across the skin of your tit*, lancing through the swollen buds of your nipples.
You tremble, the relief bringing tears to your eyes as tears the heaviness releases in a warm flood, your milk letting down to flow into the Ghoul’s eagerly pulling mouth.
“f*ckin’ finally,” he moans, chasing after the taste by nuzzling into your chest. His co*ck ruts against you. “Took you’re sweet damn time, didn’t you, darlin’?”
Your head spins, hazy thoughts scattering like confetti.
Endorphins simmer through your veins as you float on a cloud of cotton softness. Reality seems worlds away, your vision blurry as you focus on the points of contact between your bodies. The stretch of his fingers plunging into your puss* to stroke over the front wall.
Mouth slack, your hands creep up the Ghoul’s arms to trace over the sides of his neck, watch the dance of your fingers over his skin. “It feels s’good,” you slur. “Please don’t stop - wanna cum just like this.”
“Heh, wouldn’t dream of it.”
