How to Hug a Deathclaw

-Notes-

I wasn't planning on continuing this series, but a lone guest comment made me rethink that. Out of all my series, this one is doing the worst and doesn't have that many follows/comments. But I'm a sap. As long as one person is encouraging me, how can I say no?

This scene takes place after the events in chapter 1. Also I fixed (what I thought was) a quest error in MacCready's quest dialogue.

Chapter 5: Cuddles' Debut

"Onward!" chant Sole, who was sitting on the shoulders of her precious pet Cuddles.

MacCready grabbed the deathclaw's horns to keep him from falling off as it shook the ground with every running step it took.

"Are you sure this is safe?" he called over the whipping night winds.

"Absolutely not!"

Riding Cuddles was much faster than walking. It cut their projected time to the Mass Pike Interchange in half. Sole insisted that her pet needed "real life experience" and the best time she could think of doing that was when they were going to take down an entire group of trained killers. Good thinking Sole. Well at the least, it should work as an intimidation tactic because no one wants to face off against a deathclaw.

At least they were traveling under the cover of night. That made it much easier to snipe the gunners in secret once they got close enough. When Cuddles dropped them, MacCready and Sole took off in stealth mode through the long grass and took out most of the gunners. Cuddles stayed crouched in the grass, wiggling its butt like it was getting ready to play.

MacCready rolled his eyes, "Yeah, your pet is a real killer. Maybe you should've named him Slashy, or Ripper. Maybe then he'd live up to his name."

Sole shot him an offended look, "he just has cold feet! Just give him some time to warm up. I'm sure he'll come to!" she assured, holstering her gun. Then she called to Cuddles, "Come here buddy, come to mommy!"

Cuddles bolted towards her and tackled her to the ground. MacCready ignored their public display of affection and proceeded to scrounge the Gunner layout for an elevator of sorts. He made sure to check every dead chap's pockets for caps on the way. Can't forget that. He shoveled everything he could into his pockets before whistling to Sole.

Sole stood and jogged over to where MacCready was waiting on the elevator platform. Cuddles the deathclaw followed. The elevator strained at the weight. MacCready clicked the button again. Nothing. MacCready gave Cuddles a look of disapproval. Then, after hitting the button once more, the elevator lurched upwards. Sole and MacCready crouched into attack position, readying their rifles.

"Winlock and Barnes are the ones we need to kill. They'll be up here somewhere with the commander." MacCready whispered.

"Got it. Ugly and uglier" she replied.

"Alright, this is probably the biggest mission you've been on only using a gun. You think you can handle it?"

Sole grinned confidently to him, "definitely."

She couldn't.

Apparently coming through the front door of the gunner hideout wasn't the best idea after all. As soon as the gunners spotted the not so inconspicuous deathclaw, they all started firing at once. Unfortunately an assaultron was also rather close to where they entered and immediately lunged at them with sharp claws. Sole let out a high-pitched squeal and hit it with the butt of her gun. Geez…

MacCready whipped up his gun and aimed at the Assaultron's legs as he continuously backed up. Within seconds the assaultron was down. However! Instead of dealing the execution shot, Sole thought it would be a brilliant idea to keep hitting it in the head like a cavewoman.

"Your gun" MacCready hissed as loudly as he could to be heard over the plethora of bullets whizzing past the bus they ducked behind. Sole nodded and whipped her gun around to kill the robot. She dashed over where he squatted and patted him on the knee. He lifted his gun and shot three grunts that were coming up on them from the other side of the overpass. "Barnes should be this way."

MacCready was almost excited. As he easily took out two more gunners he wondered why he ever ran with these weaklings. With just a two person team, the duo was easily sweeping the floor with them. Yes, just a two person team because Cuddles decided it would sit in the dormant elevator and just watch everything transpire. Some debut.

Bam! Another gunner dead. Bam! Another one. He was so close to Barnes he could barely contain himself. Sole was starting to lag behind, ducking between cars and providing a nice line of cover fire for him when the gunners got too close to him. It worked. She hit the close targets, he hit the far.

Then the tip of Barnes' beret came into view through MacCready's scope. Barnes was looking around for the killers but couldn't find him. MacCready could have easily taken him through the windows of the hollowed out car, but where was the fun in that? So he climbed up to the top of the car and called,

"Hey Barnes!" Barnes looked up at him and started to raise his gun. "Suck on this!" MacCready already had his gun ready before Barnes could fumble with his. Blew his head right off. Oh man that felt good. Now that the henchman was dead, time to go for the boss: Winlock.

The two turned around to clear the other half of the interchange, looting the trailer of its valuables. Cuddles sat lackadaisically on its rear, scratching its bum head with its foot. Sole waved enthusiastically at him. The second MacCready locked eye contact with him though, Cuddles growled. How uncalled for!

"Useless" he muttered.

"Don't talk about him that way" Sole scolded, smacking him in the stomach.

Sole and MacCready ducked behind another row of cars at the other half of the overpass and monitored the remaining gunners that were yelling at each other to find the infiltrators. There were only two more gunners left, the commander in full power armor (she would be tough), and Winlock somewhere too. The duo looked at each other in silent agreement and stood up simultaneously to kill the gunner guards before they knew what hit them. MacCready then made a dash for the side of the interchange, trying to position himself for a shot at the commander's combat inhibitor. Meanwhile, Sole already had three grenades lined up. She threw them. It definitely confused the hell out of the commander, who shot randomly through the smoke to try to hit Sole.

Bam! MacCready landed a shot in her combat inhibitor. Instantly, her suit began to spark and whir. The commander quickly aborted her power armor and dove out of the way before it burst into flames.

"Damn you MacCready, I know it's you!" She screamed over the flames, black war paint smeared over her eyes menacingly. Sole jumped up out of her hiding place and leveled her rifle, tongue sticking out. Humans were much easier to kill without power armor. Just as she was positioning her shot, her thought process was interrupted by a voice.

"Hey there commander, miss me?" MacCready cooed. The commander whipped her face around angrily to the man who was sitting atop a crate. When she came face to face with the barrel of a sniper rifle, it was too late: Bam! Headshot.

MacCready hopped off the crate smiling, as a grumbling Sole threw her gun over her shoulder. She was murmuring something about it being 'her kill' but MacCready was just too elated to care.

"Hey there boss, why don't you take Winlock down then? I already killed Barnes and the commander, so I already got it out of my system" he offered.

Sole nodded, agreeing to the deal as they crouched back down into stealth mode to try to hunt down Winlock. There wasn't much freeway left so he couldn't be far. They eventually found their target near the edge of the destroyed bridge, guarding another elevator in case any other miscreants decided to join in. MacCready pulled Sole off to the side and pointed at the man with the obnoxiously edgy hairstyle and over muscled torso who was staring off in the distance. Then he pointed to her gun.

Grabbing her gun, Sole snuck out from behind a hollowed out car and began to slowly approach Winlock. What was she doing? He meant to shoot him from here. She gingerly stalked towards Winlock who was smoking a cigarette with her gun out. She was getting too close. MacCready stood up and wildly waved his arms, trying to silently get Sole's attention. It worked because she turned around and shot him a confused look. MacCready pointed exaggeratingly towards his gun.

'Use your gun from here!' He mouthed to her. Sole grinned confidently at MacCready and gave him a thumbs up in understanding. Phew.

However, as he should have known, it was a mistake. MacCready watched in silent horror as Sole crept up right behind Winlock with her gun out, raised it high above her head, and smacked him as hard as she could across the head. She used her gun like a baseball bat. Like. A. Baseball. Bat.

It didn't knock Winlock out, of course. He could've told her that. It did however, piss him off as he whipped his now-bleeding head around at the wide-eyed woman and shouted,

"What the fuck you little bitch!"

The man lunged towards Sole who had enough sense to bolt before he could touch her. Shit. MacCready rose his gun up. It was hard to get a good aim on a moving target.

"Cuddles!" Sole called.

Then the interchange started to shake with loud booms. Within seconds, Cuddles was charging towards their position. He knocked MacCready over on the way. Totally wasn't even in his way. He did it just because he could. Dick.

Cuddles then proceeded to grab the petrified man up with one hand and chuck him off the side of the interchange as far as it could. Winlock's cries got smaller and smaller as he descended into the distance. Holy crap! MacCready laughed at the ridiculousness of it all and dusted off his hands.

"Well, well Cuddles! We could've gotten this done a while lot sooner if you were helping us" MacCready joked in admiration at the ferocity of the beast. Cuddles barged up to MacCready, grabbed him with one hand, and started to reel its arm back. The realization that he was about to be thrown hit MacCready with a jolt as he cried out, kicking his legs frantically.

"No! Bad Cuddles, put him down!" Sole scolded, throwing herself in front of the deathclaw with open arms.

Cuddles obeyed and gently set MacCready down who shakily regained his balance and scooted away as far as he could from the deathclaw. Jesus, this thing was going to kill him once Sole wasn't around! He exchanged a distrustful glance with the beast and hopped on the elevator platform where Sole had gone to wait for them. She grabbed his arm protectively just in case Cuddles tried something again. MacCready glanced down. Her hands were totally checking him out. He smirked as he grinned smugly at her. But she wasn't looking at him at all; she was looking at Cuddles who guiltily climbed onto the opposite side of the platform in response to her reproachful gaze.

"Well, we killed the bullies that took your lunch money. What now?" Sole asked, finally glancing up at MacCready.

He puffed out his chest and replied, "This should send a message to the gunners to stay off my back."

Sole scanned the earth below with her gun ready before the elevator halted to a stop at the docking station. All clear.

"You aren't afraid the Gunners will retaliate?" She asked. Heh. She still wanted to get in some target practice. Such a cute bloodthirst.

MacCready slung his rifle across his back, "The way these lunatics act, you'd think they would… but I know better. For the Gunners, it's always about the bottom line. They just lost this entire waystation and that cost them big. Besides, they have no way of knowing I was involved."

Sole finally glanced her quizzical eyes back at him. "I thought the point was for them to know you were involved. If they didn't know it was you, how are they going to know to stay off your back?"

"There are no more gunners in this area. They're not going to send out more goons just to harass me all the way out here. The next nearest settlement they got is in Quincy, and that's miles away!" he shrugged. "Anyway, I guess I owe you a favor now. After all, you hired me but I'm the one that dragged you out here."

Sole finally gave up looking for enemies and shot him a mischievous smile that made men swoon. MacCready felt his heart skip a beat.

"Well, I wasn't about to let you have all this fun alone" she chuckled, lowering her voice seductively.

MacCready laughed, taking a few steps closer to her. "Ha ha, glad you enjoyed it." He put a hand on her back, "Tell you what. I'm going to give you back the caps you paid me in Goodneighbor. I'll still stick with you because that was part of the original deal, but now we're even. There you go"

MacCready fished out the money pouch Sole had given him weeks before and plopped it down into her hands. Sole coyly turned sideways and leaned back into MacCready, curling her head up his chest.

"Oh come now Mr. Mayor, we both know you're sticking around because you like me sooo much" she teased seductively. The hand not holding the pouch came up to stroke his chin. Man this woman and her wily charms.

"Pfft. I'm just here to make sure that you don't kill yourself. I mean… who the fu-hell hits guys over the head with their gun?"

"I the hell do!" She retaliated, spinning around to face him.

"It has bullets."

"I panicked!"

"And this is why I stay" MacCready asserted, playfully jostling her.

Sole turned around and folded her hands behind her back. In one swift movement, she planted a little kiss on the squishy part of his cheek.

"Thank you" she said with a smile. Gods that smile. Then, she bounded down to where Cuddles was so she could mount him, motioning for him to follow.

MacCready pulled his cap down over his face to hide the blooming red blush that had overtaken him. Well… maybe there were a few more reasons why he was staying.