I have secret, I find Poe and Lovecraft extreamly wordy and hard to read. Most of their stories could be a third shorter if they just weren't so damn flowery when it comes to language. Which is probably hypocritical of me, i tend to write in a very flowery manner. This story was for the FalloutKinkMeme Cthulhu and Courier: Bff's, so I wrote it as a bit of a joke, and stuffed it full of really unnecessary descriptors. Yet I still feel like there are not descriptors enough. Enjoy.

Around the neck of the parcel carrier swung a medallion, ancient in origin, and terrible in demeanor. The long grey bauble reached downwards, slim tentacles warped around a skull, eyes jeweled with rubies on fire with a smoldering flame, antiquarian and dark. The stone necklace seemed to writhe against the chest of the courier, as if mussels existed beneath the smiley geological surface.

A man, simple in nature yet complex in destiny walked into the derelict town that made up Freeside. He moved past disheveled buildings that existed amongst bricks and gravel remains. A cold air moved through the gates, bringing a northern wind into the long lean streets that made up this gated place of dwelling. The man moved down the streets, a stranger cloaked in darkness, moved silently behind him. All turned to see the Courier and his stranger as they moved through the streets, a few sputtered, leaned over, felt their mental sharpness pulled thin along behind the men as they moved quietly through the streets. Hope faded from Freeside.

Languishing at the gates, the man who fate had sent to this placed his hands against the mildewing brick of an old world fort located in the center of the city. The mud walls pealed and cracked as the man with the cloak followed his solemn friend through the doors to the Followers of the Apocalypse. The workers shivered and turned a chilling wind settling down from the gaping maw of the cosmos over head. Men wept and women felt a primal stirring bewitching them to desire to rip their clothes from their bodies and dive into a dance that would rack their very mussels with a horrible lusty fit.

"I have come for supplies," the man said as all listened, enrapt, least he betray the curse, in some simple nod or gesture, that seemed to loom behind him as a man just beyond his shoulders.

"We have no repast for you, my son," A woman with hair like an exotic bird responded, pulling her white lab coat closed that the spilling cold would fail to manipulate her flesh. She avoided the courier's stare, praying the Gods would smile and send this man from the earth he now haunted. Inhaling a singular stench that oozed out from beneath the cloaked figure behind the Courier, the woman realized it was not the Courier who was cursed more or less than any human who came to the gates of Freeside, but rather the enshrouded thing that cloaked itself in preternatural shadow.

"I will have quarter here," The man said, his voice raspy, sure, almost possessed. "You will satisfy my needs, verily tend my wounds, and I will sup under the protection of your tent as you cleanse my body of this sick radiation."

"We have no room for evil here," Dr. Farkas responded, her eyes a raw pleading, begging that the man would go find respite in places more suited to inhabitation.

"You refuse me, and then refuse me again. My money is as material as my hand and expands a thousand times beyond that which I can reach. Yet you force my hand and refuse my money. Come now, perhaps it is this that you must see," the courier said as he walked back to his dark companion. Both hands moving along the silk of the dreadful shade's cowl, the Courier pushed back that which contained the mystery that had peaked the curious nature of all in the ancient fortification. The material slid down to the shoulders of the thing, betraying a face not human but otherworldly in a manner beyond comprehension.

The courier remained behind in safety's fair grasp, as the face of his grey companion glared out into the compound. He looked not at his fellow traveler, knowing the effect of staring into the face of one so old and debased could warp the minds of even the strongest and purest of men. A single green tentacle moved around from the region where a mouth would be, and caressed the hand of the courier. Its touch like frozen acid, moving across skin that could not resist such a shock of anguish to its defenseless state. The Courier pulled his hand back, and his mind raced to comprehend how no wounds appeared caused by liquid bubbling its way to the bone.

He looked up to the Followers of the Apocalypse, as his companion shielded his face from the man wearing the amulet that afforded the only control over the ancient being. The people who had not the good fortune to reside behind the monster at the time of its revealing, having dug their hands into their flesh and carefully trailed their innards across the fort. Meeting in the center, the bodies fell upon each other, leaving a spiraling trail of intestine and blood to rot on the floor. Small animals, fond of cadavers, began to draw in, moving in a festering swarm towards the bodies, and ending the lives of the unfortunate people with a thousand small bites from tiny mouths.

"Next time just sell me some fucking stim packs and we won't have this mess," The courier said as he and his companion turned and left the fort.