A/N: Well folks, here's a story for you. There's a criminally low amount of M!SS/Cait fics out there, so here. You're welcome.

So a little backstory: I am having a shamefully good time playing the biggest chem-addicted asshole in Fallout 4 right now, which is so strange - normally I can't help but be a sarcastic goody-two-shoes in RPG's. Weird. Also, I love raiders and their twisted, insane ways, and I wanted to make a story that included them in more detail.

Also, I love Cait. And Hancock. And MacCready. And Deacon. All of the shady assholes that the Commonwealth has to offer.

So, like the description suggests, this story does have a plot that is separate from the game plot. However, the main quest line and some side ones will be looked at. This story will be told through Cait's perspective. I might switch it up and tell it through Hancock's, too, and maybe MacCready's, but we'll see. Expect some pretty crazy adventures from our favourite shady Fallout 4 characters.

Rated T for excessive swearing, drug use, blood, gore, all that fun stuff. No overly descriptive sex, though. Might change it to M depending on what people think. But hey, this is Fallout, guys. You have been warned.

Chapter One: Daye One

All stories have their beginnings.

No shit. This isn't one of them.

This is about the ending.

This is a story about the most ruthless bitch and the craziest bastard in the Commonwealth.

This story has some pretty fucked-up shit in it. There's raiders and drug deals and broken bones and way too much swearing. There's some sex and drugs and bad choices. There's an asshole ghoul, a mercenary prick, an annoying synth, and some other people who are apparently less important.

This story doesn't have a happy ending. Also the guy dies at the end. Spoiler alert.

In a world as fucked-up as this, crazy will keep you grounded.

Part One - In Which Cait Loses Her Shitty Job and Meets a Crazy Asshole

The sound of shotgun blasts and screaming wasn't all that out of place in the Combat Zone. Not since those raiders chased everyone else off, at least. Though the raiders didn't scrap too often amongst themselves anymore, they were still brutal motherfuckers and it wasn't uncommon for Lonegan to drag one or two out the back door, blood and brain matter trailing on the floor behind. That was fine with Cait – she rather enjoyed watching the fat bastard huffing and puffing, bent over like some cheap whore.

But today was different. After smashing in the skull of her latest opponent, one of them absolutely demolished the entire gang of them. Kicked the front doors in – literally kicked them in – and started shooting off a shotgun and roaring at the top of their lungs "Die motherfuckers! Fucking KIIILLLL!" Every single raider in the place now had his head blown off and smeared across the wall like some sort of sick twisted art project. Cait had seen her fair share of morbid things in this shitehole of a fight club – and done more than a good deal herself – though she could honestly say that this was the goriest, most fucked-up bloodbath since the Great War itself, probably.

"What the fuck?!" Tommy Lonegan squealed like a pig, cowering behind the rusty sheet metal in the pit cage.

Tommy never swore. Said he had to balance out all the messed up stuff with some old world class. How the Combat Zone qualified as anything but was one of the greatest mysteries of the world. Shit must be bad.

"Fuckin' tearin' em to shreds!" Cait breathed, heart thumping madly against her chest. Yeah, sure, this raider might be clinically insane and probably too hopped up on whatever the fuck they'd jammed in their arm, but dammit if she wasn't impressed. No one even looked funny at anyone else here without getting a shiv to the throat. This guy – or girl, you never know – shattered the last few years of that in about twelve seconds.

So yeah. Colour her wowed, sirs.

A bullet from a raider's ramshackle rifle whizzed by her head and pinged off the sheet metal near her ear, and she ducked back down again beside Tommy.

Hey, she wasn't one to run from a fight, but she wasn't stupid, either. You couldn't fight another day if you were dead. Rule number one of being a pit fighter – fight like you were dying. But don't actually die. Better than Tommy's stupid rules. And it wasn't too often she got to watch someone else fight it out.

Fuck it. She had to look.

"Woo!" she laughed, watching a pissed-off raider with a blue Mohawk – that must've been Roach, the bastard, he always cheated at cards – from the balcony lob a grenade down below. The lone raider swan dove behind the bar and the explosion blew at least half a dozen theatre seats soaring into the air, bits of cushion fluff and plastic raining down like snow.

"What's happening? What's going on?" Tommy growled. "He fuckin' my theatre up?!"

Cait didn't hear him. She was pretty good at ignoring the prick anyways.

Roach shouted something not too nice but was cut off by the wide spray of the dude's shotgun throwing bits of bullets into his face. Ouch.

What the fuck was this guy's problem? Cait was no stranger to the violent ways of raiders, and she'd heard a story once about how one of them flew off the handle after taking too many chems and mixing them with hubflowers and brutally slaughtering his entire gang. It would be her shit luck to be caught in the middle of something like that.

Another raider – Tags, Cait thought, by his gangly little arms and baseball bat – rounded the corner of the bar, attempting to be sneaky, and ended up getting his brains painted across the counter he loved getting hammered at. Poor Tags. Cait probably hated him the least.

Some more yelling behind the bar, a couple more shots went off, and some glass shattered from above, causing Cait and Tommy to duck and cover their heads.

And then the shooting stopped. A few groans from half-dead raiders could be heard, and the reloading of a shotgun. Travis was blubbering on the radio near the exit. Something about a blue guy. It was quieter in here than Cait could ever remember – no raiders threatening or jiving or harassing her to shag. It was peaceful, almost, if one could ignore the mass of bodies littered around the place and the metallic stench of blood and gunsmoke.

"D'ya think they're done out there?' Cait whispered, peeking out at Tommy. The ghoul shrugged.

"WOO!" a voice thundered out, rough and male and pumped full of adrenaline, echoing up high into the vaulted ceiling. "YES! YES! FUCKING AWESOME!"

"He's still alive, dammit," Tommy grumbled.

"Seems so."

"Listen," the ghoul pleaded, and the voice stopped again. "We don't want any trouble. Whoever's out there, we were rooting for you the whole time!"

"Oh, just peek yer head up, ya damn coward," Cait growled, legs already aching from crouching.

"No way, little bird. Guy's a raving lunatic."

"He's got a shotgun, fatass. Ain't no way he can reach ya from down there."

"To heck with that. I'm too pretty to go out like this."

Pampered little fuck.

She shot the ghoul her customary hostile glare, earning Tommy's customary disappointed frown.

Well, if the raider guy hadn't killed them yet, then maybe he wouldn't. Wishful thinking, though. Worst that could happen was getting her own head blown off. At least that way it would be quick. Cait sighed before peeking her head just above the metal and out into the seats below.

It looked like a herd of rabid brahmin had stampeded through the place after a séance with a deathclaw. Blood and gore and dead raider parts were scattered and splayed across the old theatre, and not a single chair or table stood upright. Roach's bullet-riddled body hung over the balcony, teetering over the edge. One gush of air and he'd fall, probably. And Tommy's stage and mic setup were splinters now. He was gonna be pissed.

In the centre of the carnage stood a man.

One man did all this?

Cait's first thought of raider wasn't too far off the mark, just maybe upgraded and crossed with some sort of fucked-up mercenary. His tattered road leathers were dusty and sprayed red with blood and black with grime. Filthy wraps looped round his hands and arms – and shoulders and legs – really, wherever a tear in his leathers would have shown skin. His once-black boots were dusty grey and patched up with duct tape, and a brown leather belt round his middle and chest looked like the only thing that held the shambling mess together. A sniper rifle hung off his shoulder and the shotgun was still in his hands, pointed directly at her.

"Who the fuck are you?" he growled from under his gas mask, voice tinny and muffled only a little. Cait stood up, hands in the air. The baseball cap and hood covered the glass so she couldn't see his eyes. How many layers did this guy need?

"Hey!" Tommy called out, peeking up above the metal now. The intruder shifted the muzzle of his shotgun onto the ghoul, who tried his damnest to look like he wasn't about to piss his checkered pantsuit. "Why don't you come over here and show us you don't mean us no harm?"

Was Tommy fucking crazy? Did this asshole not just reduce the Combat Zone to shrapnel and blood? She was gonna kill him if they made it out of this alive.

The man didn't move.

Cait had been prepared to die so many times in her life before now, but she suddenly found herself torn between afraid to – at least, not until she found out who this guy was – and a strange peace that if anyone in the entire Commonwealth was going to blow her head off, it might as well be this guy.

"So…" Tommy continued carefully. "You wanna talk or not? Or you not done tearing my theatre to shreds?"

The intruder held up his shotgun for a moment longer, hesitating almost, before shrugging and lowering the weapon.

Tommy sighed in relief and Cait let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Damn that Tommy Lonegan. He could talk his way out of a mute symposium.

"Well, that could've gone worse," the ghoul said, hobbling up (Cait refused to help the bastard) and dusting off his suit as the intruder skipped the three steps up to the stage and entered the arena.

"Ha! I dunno," Cait smirked, eyeing up their new guest. "Seemed like quite the performance from where I was standin'."

This guy was even more terrifying and weird up close. Looked as if he'd been on the road all his life. Grenades and knives and Molotov's strapped to his belts. Shotgun modded and almost unrecognisable as a shotgun. Gas mask crusted with dirt, face obscured. His fingers – the only skin showing – bruised and scarred and brown with grime.

A drifter. Maybe ex-raider. A merc? Fuck if she knew.

She knew he was intimidating, and Cait wasn't intimidated easily.

"What are you, fucking high or something? What am I saying, of course you are."

She frowned at her employer. "Still won the fight, didn't I?"

"You're strung out and getting sloppy is what you are."

"Oh, not this again, Lonegan," she growled. "I told ya it was nothin' to worry about. Just need a quick breather and I'll be ready to go."

"Doesn't work like that, little bird."

"I told ya to quit callin' me that!"

"You wanna stop arguing and tell me who the fuck you both are?" the raider guy hissed, voice coming out sort of metallic from behind the gas mask.

Tommy frowned at the shotgun aimed at his ugly face. "The name's Tommy Lonegan. Owner and operator of this fine establishment you just smashed to bits."

"Looks like a shithole to me."

Cait smirked. She could almost see Tommy's hackles raising.

"Hey, asshole! This is the Combat Zone. Finest pit-fighting arena in the Commonwealth. Or was until you blew it all to hell. And all my patrons."

"You looked fucked sideways from where I was standing."

That was true. Cait knew it, Tommy knew it, all the raiders knew it – as soon as they'd grow bored of them, they'd kill 'em and take everything they owned. Part of the reason Cait fought so hard, maybe.

"Yeah, well…" Tommy sighed, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. "To be honest, you're right. We used to serve a more legit clientele, but about two years ago a gang of raiders rolled in and we became a more… exclusive establishment."

"Well then, I accept your apology," the guy said, lowering the shotgun.

"Apology? Listen here Joe Schmoe, they weren't the friendliest bunch but keeping those idiots entertained at least kept the lights on. Forgive me if I don't rush to embrace our saviour. I'm not sure if I should kiss you or have my little bird here feed you your own entrails."

"Dammit Tommy, quit callin' me that!"

The guy nodded over to Cait. "Who's the broad?"

She rounded on the stranger, bristling. "Broad?"

"Cait here's the headliner. Hundred plus matches undefeated."

"That so?" The drifter raider stranger guy looked her up and down, from her tatty boots to her mess of red hair. The raiders used to call out lewd things to her after fights, and more than once she'd given them a bloody nose for staring at her a little too long. She couldn't even see his face, but he still sent the shivers up her spine.

"Yer damn right," she snapped. "Never lost a fight."

"Doesn't matter much though," Tommy grumbled. "Seems our new friend here just put us out of business."

Cait blinked. "What?"

"Come on," the guy said. "It's not that bad."

"Are you fuckin' high? Look around, pal! You trashed the place! You took my entire client base out of the gene pool and smeared their brains on the walls!"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Gives it a splash of colour."

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose. "Jesus Christ. You sick fuck."

Again, Cait couldn't help but smile. This guy didn't have to say more than a dozen words and he'd already ruffled Tommy's feathers right good. She'd never heard the ghoul swear as much in the whole three years she'd known him.

Maybe this guy wasn't so bad, you know, under that layer of fucking weird.

"What, you think this is funny?" her boss hissed, rotting face twisted with rage and only making Cait's grin wider. "You think he's so fuckin' funny?"

"A little, yeah."

"You know, little bird, if you weren't so fuckin' coked I'd get less insane Mel Gibson here to blow your fuckin' head off. Right after he paid me for the mess he made."

"Mel Gibson? Really?" the stranger mused, resting the shotgun on his shoulder. "Mm, I like to think I'm more of a morally-grey John Wayne sort of guy."

Cait had no idea what the fuck they were talking about.

"Whatever. Doesn't matter. Point is, you're crazy, she's out of a job, and I'm out a whole pit club! I doubt you can afford the recompense. Ain't no way I can support both me an' Cait here."

The guy shrugged. "Maybe I should've let the raiders fuck you over then."

Tommy let out a livid whoosh of air through thinned lips. Cait was almost sure his head was going to explode. That would've been funny. "No. No. No, you know what, I got a better idea. I think this was a blessing in disguise."

"Jesus Tommy, always somethin'!" Cait carped. "What're ya –"

"Shut up. You saw the end of that bout, didn't ya?" the ghoul asked the drifter. "What'd ya think of Cait's work?"

"Why?"

"Consider it professional curiosity. Now answer the damn question."

"I don't know. It was alright. I've seen better."

"Ha! Like hell ya have!" Cait hissed.

Fuckin' asshole.

"And while she's still armed and in closing distance?" Tommy chuckled darkly. "You're a brave one, ain't ya?"

"More like fuckin' blind, ya dunce."

"I'm sorry," the guy snapped, whipping up his shotgun and aiming it at Cait in half the blink of an eye. "Sounded like you said dunce."

"I might've."

There was a reason Cait had won all those matches. She wasn't slow. The pistol on her belt was out and in the guy's face just as quick.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ, it's like an episode of Laurel and Hardy!" Tommy howled, throwing his hands up in defeat.

"I don't like people calling me names, bitch."

"I don't like people talkin' shit about my fightin' skills. Asshole."

Cait glared at the stranger on the receiving end of her pistol. Somewhere behind that wind-blown glass mask was another set of eyes belonging to the biggest asshat Cait ever had the displeasure of meeting. And that's saying something.

"Cait, put the gun down before you piss off Tony Montana. And you… guy," Tommy hesitated, eyeing the shotgun warily. "Come on, pal. Just listen to me."

Cait scowled at the man a moment longer. No fuckin' way was she putting her gun down first.

The guy paused a moment, too, then lifted his gun. "Fine. I'll listen. Then I'll blow her head off."

Cait smirked, holstering her pistol.

"She's going with ya."

Tommy could've thrown a brick at her head and it would've shocked her less.

"What?"

"You're fucking joking," the stranger huffed. "She's not coming with me.'

"Just listen –"

"No," he said, aiming the gun at Cait again, cocking it loudly. "I think I'll kill her now."

Fuckin' Tommy. Again. This time she really was going to kill him if she lived through this. Too stunned to draw her gun, she stood there like a useless sack of shit at the party end of this asshole's shotgun.

"She's got a contract," Tommy interjected. "Five years. I bought it from her three years ago. She works for me. Anything I tell her to, she does it. Well, supposed to do it. I'll give it to you."

The stranger paused, and Cait waited for her death. It wasn't coming fast enough.

"Shit or get off the pot," she hissed.

The man snorted, cocking his head in amusement, almost studying her a moment. Well, probably. Hard to tell with that stupid mask on.

"Alright," he said again, laxly strapping the shotgun to his back before crossing his arms. "I'm listening."

With the gun out of her face and a few seconds to think, Cait regained her composure. Bad for Tommy.

"What the fuck, Tommy?" she screeched, making the ghoul flinch a little. "Ya can't be serious!"

"Hey! What did I say about swearing at me?"

"The fuck with that! Why the hell ya tryin' ta get rid of me?"

"I got no audience, little bird. Our new friend here managed to put us out of business in a matter of four whole minutes. No audience means no caps comin' in. And if you ain't bringin' in no caps, you ain't an asset. You're a liability."

Cait could almost actually feel her blood boil, her anger rolling in like thunder and stewing overhead like old shit in a broken toilet.

The thought of leaving – of actually leaving the Combat Zone – was so foreign to her now. She'd had a pretty shitty life – unloved, sold into slavery by her own parents, exacting cold revenge that never really satisfied her, and selling herself back into slavery just to earn a few caps and have a place to crash at night – something like that could really fuck a person up. It did. Cait was a fighter, a ruthless bitch, and she'd live and die fighting, probably under some raider's crusty boot in the arena.

She was a pit fighter. She always would be. Tommy, the rotten bastard, was probably the closest she'd ever come to actually liking anyone in her sad, short, miserable twenty-six-year existence on this dead space rock. The motherfucker.

"I can't fuckin' believe this. Just what are ya gonna do without me here?"

Tommy shrugged. "Fix the place up. Make contacts. Who knows. It'll be a whole lot easier if you ain't here."

"Three years, Tommy! Three fuckin' years I've been here with ya, makin' your fat ass rich off the bets! And now yer just gonna toss me to the curb like some two-cap whore?"

"Yeah, I am."

Wrong answer.

Cait's fist snapped out and caught the ghoul square in his ugly face, right where his nose should have been.

Tommy clutched at his sunken nose hole, shock and anger hilariously spun together on his putrid, pocked features. The new guy roared with laughter. Cait let out an unholy string of both pre-war and post-apocalyptic curse words that would sure as fuck bar her from the pearly gates for the next eight lifetimes.

"Jesus Christ, you crazy bitch!" Lonegan cried, though Cait could hardly hear him over the blood roaring in her ears and the stranger's tinny cackling. The ghoul looked down at his hands. "You made me bleed!"

"And I ain't sorry for it, Tommy Lonegan. Fuck you."

She spit on the floor by his feet and spun round to face the stranger. "Alright," she growled, fists clenched in hot fury. "I'm comin' with ya."

"Alright," he chuckled. "Well, I'm not gonna say no. Hate to see you real pissed off. Get your things, then. Meet me out front when you're done. And be quick."

Positively fuming, she stormed out of the arena and into the side room where she slept on the soiled mattress in the corner. Grabbing her old travelling pack, she jammed what little valuables she owned inside – a few water bottles, some cram and mac n' cheese, an extra pair of pants, her old bloodstained baseball bat, a rusty blue lunchbox with all her chems, and her small bag of caps. Nothing else.

About to storm back out, she paused a moment and looked around the room. Small, dark, damp, cold, with nothing but that old mattress and a door on two milk crates for a table – but it had been her home for the last three years. More of a home than her parents ever gave her, may they burn in Hell, and more than what she'd had those years as a slave.

Still, she wouldn't miss it.

Rule number two of being a pit fighter – don't get attached to anything, because one day you might have to bash its skull in. Or it'll leave you, or hurt you, or break you. She'd added that last part. Still better than Tommy's stupid rules.

She slung her trusty double-barrel shotgun over her shoulder and left.

The stranger had gone outside, apparently, but Lonegan managed to catch her on her way up the aisle between the splintered seats and raider corpses.

"Hey, Cait –"

"Fuck off, Lonegan."

"Just listen –"

"No."

"Cait." He grabbed her arm and she whipped round, ready to clock him again, but the look in his eye – dare she say concerned? – gave her pause.

"This guy looks like a real hard-ass. Looks trouble. I don't think he'll try anything, but just in case – here," he said, handing her a small, wickedly-accurate and expensive-looking pistol.

She turned it over in her hands, frowning. "The fuck's this gonna do?"

"I don't know, I thought –"

"The guy has a shotgun."

"I know. But just in case. And here," he added, handing her a decently-sized caps purse. Cait's eyes widened as he set it in her palm. "For food and ammo. And those tight spots, you know? And for god's sake, get some decent armour. I expect you here alive and well when this place is back up and running. Can't have my headliner out rotting in some ditch. Gotta pay for the renovations somehow."

Cait hesitated, looking Tommy in the eye, at his bloody face hole. She suddenly felt a little… Bad? No. Not really. Whatever it was, something pinged inside her chest. This was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. How pathetic.

"You're a real son of a bitch, you know that, Tommy?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he smirked, wiping the blood from his face. "Now get the hell out of my theatre."

Part Two - Well, Not Really Part Two, Because This Part Happens Immediately After Part One, But Anyway - In Which Cait Realises This Crazy Asshole Is Crazier Than She Thought, and Also Addicted to Chems

The sun almost blinded Cait when she stepped outside the old theatre doors. It was orange and red and all mixed together, going down slowly off over the hills in the distance. It was hot and dusty and the shadows of buildings cut strange shapes across the cracked pavement. And out east, sticking out against the landscape like a giant piece of floating shit, was that strange ship that had flown over Boston almost a month ago, hovering over the old airport.

She didn't get out much – the raiders never really let her walk the streets – but it didn't smell like old wood and raider piss. So that was an improvement.

"Hey," a voice said behind her, making her jump a little. "You ready then?"

She turned round to find the voice. It was the drifter, leaning against the brick wall, his gas mask pulled off his face and resting on his forehead, and he was smoking a cigarette.

Jesus Christ but Cait had not been expecting that.

The guy was… strange. Different. She didn't really know why or how, but something about him just seemed a bit off. Not really in a bad way, even, just not what she was used to. Sort of like a splinter, or like day-old brahmin steak.

In all honesty she expected some reedy little raider with a bad Mohawk. But this guy's face was… fuller? Stronger jaw, rounder chin, wider cheeks. His time out here had done him no favours, however long he'd been on the road – but he hadn't always been, that much was certain. She'd seen people who had travelled all their lives. He wasn't one of them. His eyes might have sunken, cheeks might be more gaunt since then, but there were no sharp edges of the malnutritioned scavvers.

His white face was smudged with old dirt, a week or two's worth of unshaved stubble there, brown hair short and uneven, almost like he'd tried to hack it off with a blunt knife. A yellowing bruise lined his jaw, and an old burn scar took up almost half of the entire right side of his face. Puckered and splotchy, it went from his temple, across his cheek, pulling the corner of his mouth up into a sort of unwilling half-sneer, and down his neck below the collar of his road leathers. His right eyelid was fucked up, too, that eye not quite opening as wide as the other, and his nose had been broken more than once.

But it was his eyes that really made her stop. Cait had seen a postcard one of the raiders left behind once – an old pre-war one with a lake and trees and shit. It was stained and torn and curse words were scribbled on it, but all the colours made her keep it and pin it up on her wall for a while. She couldn't even imagine a world like that, so clean and bright and free from radiation. This guy's eyes were the same vibrant green of those trees. Red-rimmed and bloodshot with dark tired bags beneath, but still.

All in all, this guy looked rough. Cait could tell he'd been through some shit. But despite everything, there still lingered something there – something normal, even, or maybe more. The ghost of a handsome man still lingered.

"You got a staring problem?"

Cait blinked, realising she had, indeed, been caught doing just that.

"No."

"Something on my face?"

"No."

He took a long drag of his cigarette, waited a moment, then blew it out slowly, the smoke twisting in the dry, dusty air.

"Listen..."

"Cait."

"Whatever. I'm hungover and coming off a high, so I'll be straight with you – I'm not really into the whole slavery thing so, yeah. Do whatever the fuck you want. I don't really want you here but I kind of need someone with me for a while. After that you can leave – come back to this shithole or make your way out in the wasteland, doesn't matter to me. You're free to go when I'm done with you. Until then, I'm in charge. Watch my back and I'll watch yours."

He took a quick look at his cigarette then flicked it on the pavement. "I only got three rules, so listen carefully: Sell me out to anyone and I'll shoot you. Steal any of my shit and I'll shoot you. Try to shoot me and I'll shoot you. Got it?"

A straight dealer. Fair enough. Cait could appreciate that, at least.

"Yeah. You'll shoot me and I'm free to go, whatever. Got it." Cait watched him pull the gas mask back down and push off the wall heading past her, leathered arm brushing against her travel pack.

And the guy was tall.

She turned round, frowning. "But don't go thinkin' even for a second that I'll let ya stick yer dick in me. I'll rip it off before ya touch me."

"Fine by me. Don't like redheads anyway."

Nine days later they had sex.

But we'll get to that.

"So," she asked a few minutes later, trailing a good six steps behind the guy. "Ya got a name or what?"

"Yeah. It's Daye."

She could barely hear him through the stupid mask.

"Day? As in, the sun?"

"Yeah. With an e on the end."

"The fuck kinda name is Daye?"

"My kinda name."

"Maybe ya should call me Night."

"Maybe you should shut your face hole."

Cait smirked. If there was one thing she was good at, it was pissin' people off. There was this one time in the arena some exceptionally short raider asshole went psycho with a pool cue when she mentioned he was almost the perfect height to suck his buddy's dick if the other guy stood on a chair. That had been one of the more entertaining fights in recent memory. She'd really enjoyed smashing his head in with her bat.

Daye's boots crunched on the gravel before her, the only other sound the wind whistling off the crumbling buildings.

"It's Nate," he said after a long moment. Cait almost forgot what he was going on about. "Nathaniel Daye. Daye's my last name, and the only one I go by. I ever hear you call me Nathaniel I'll shoot you in the fucking throat."

Cait smiled. There was no fucking with this guy. "Alright, boss."

"Daye. None of this boss shit, either. Or Mr. Daye. Mr. Daye was my father, and he was an asshole. Just Daye."

"Fine, Just Daye. So, where we off to?"

He stopped suddenly and Cait almost ran into him. He turned round, dirty gas mask glinting in the setting sun. "No idea. Where's the nearest raider hole?" he asked, looking up at the ruined buildings and down the broken streets.

"'Bout two miles west of here."

"There, then," he said, twisting left and taking off again.

Cait blinked and stood there a moment in the empty street. "What?" she cried, following after him. "Ya can't be serious!"

He didn't turn around. "Why?"

"You just – you just murdered an entire building of 'em!"

"So?"

So? So what, Cait? She didn't really have an answer.

"I dunno," she admitted.

"Didn't think so."

Asshole.

"I have a bone to pick with raiders," he continued. "They shot my partner a few days ago, and now he's sitting on his ass back in Goodneighbor high on Med-X and bitching about the fucking air. Stimpaks don't pay for themselves. One of has to make some caps."

Cait frowned. She was pretty sure this guy was the lone wolf type. The type of lone wolf that ate everyone else. "Partner?"

"Robert Joseph MacCready the Fourth. Not really," he huffed in amusement. "I added the Fourth. The stubbornness bastard in all the Commonwealth. Decent shot with a sniper, though. Maybe you've heard of us."

"Can't say I have."

"No?" he asked, glancing back over his shoulder for a moment. "Daye and MacCready? Mercenary duo extraordinaire?"

"No."

"Really?"

She had, yeah. Some of the raiders had mentioned a couple of mercs raising Hell for some of their groups closer to the downtown area. And being a general pain in the ass to the Gunners, too. Now that she thought about it, she'd heard the name somewhere. But she wasn't about to let him know that.

"MacCready and Daye sounds better."

"That's what Mac always says."

"Mac?"

"MacCready. Jesus, keep up."

"Yeah. Right," Cait said, shaking her head. Everything was growing prickly and hot in there, a low dull throbbing working its way inside her brain. She was slipping, forgetting. The sun was too bright. The air was too hot.

Oh, fuck.

She realised then she hadn't taken any Psycho after the last fight. Normally, when it was all over, she'd crawl back to her tiny room, bruised and battered and beaten, and jam a tube of the shit in her arm. It kept the pain away, and helped her forget, and even though it kept her awake for hours on end, it was better than hurting and remembering.

"…and took out that entire band of Super Mutants up near the satellites? Hey, you listening?"

"What?" No. She hadn't been.

"You really never heard of us?"

Cait shook her head again, sneering. "This is botherin' ya way too much."

"A little," he admitted. "Honestly, though. You live under a rock or something?"

"Kinda, yeah."

"You need to get out more."

"I'm out now."

"Touché."

"So your plan is to go round Boston shooting up every raider dive ya come across? Just because they pissed ya off?"

"I don't really have a plan. But yeah," he shrugged. "I guess you could say that."

Cait smiled to herself. A man after her own heart. You know, maybe this whole arrangement might not be such a shitshow after all.

"How many?"

"Today? Four. This'll be the fifth."

"Jesus Christ," she whistled, eyeing him only a little warily. "Not sure whether to be impressed or scared by ya."

"You wouldn't be the first to say that."

Cait watched him from behind as he walked on ahead, his duct-taped boots kicking up dust in the dry choking air. A hot wind blew through the city, twisting between the buildings and making the loose parts of Daye's ratty outfit whip around him. His modded shotgun strapped to his back, the sniper rifle hanging off his shoulder.

It was kind of badass, in a terrifying way.

Cait smirked. "So what's yer stor –"

A whiplash crack split the air and a spray of bullets tore across the pavement, and before Cait could even register what the fuck had happened, a sharp pain ripped through her left leg.

"Fuck!" she screamed, her leg giving out on her. She crashed into the pavement hard, skinning her knees and elbows, smacking her chin.

Bullet fire shredded the quiet air of the street, popping and snapping against the asphalt and brick and metal all around them, and she could hear screeching and screaming and laughing, and someone swearing – oh fuck, that was her.

Her head swam and her throat was suddenly way too dry and goddammit but she would be so lucky as to die right fucking now, not even half an hour after she'd left the fucking Combat Zone.

Someone grabbed her arm way too hard and was dragging her somewhere, tugging her across the gravel and hot pavement. No fuckin' way was she being taken by anyone. Not again. She clawed at the hand, swearing and growling and scratching with everything she had.

"Stop – fucking stop!" someone hissed, and through her watery eyes she saw the stupid dirty gas mask. She let go – hands bloody, but whether it was his or hers, she had no idea. "Stop – stay here. Don't move." She felt cold concrete against her back, and she hissed as Daye jabbed something in her leg – a stimpak, she knew, because hot relief flooded her veins, numbing her searing pain.

He'd dragged her to safety. The bastard.

They were crouched behind something concrete – a road block, maybe, because it was crumbling and the iron supports were sticking out, twisting beside her head. Blood was everywhere – soaking through her pants, all over her hands, in a gruesome line across the street from where Daye had dragged her out of the firefight. It wasn't stopping, it was pooling around her legs in a dark shiny puddle from two – no, three different spots.

"Raiders?" she rasped over the roaring gunfire, throat so dry.

"Yeah."

"How many?"

"Dunno. Few up top, more behind the bus. Maybe a dozen."

Goddammit. If only she had taken some Psycho… she wouldn't be sitting here like a lump on a useless piece of shit.

Daye must have read her mind. She leaned her head back against the concrete, watching as he fished one of the chems out of his gross old travel pack – and jab it in his own arm, right through his clothing.

"What the fuck?"

She hadn't really meant to say it out loud, but it made him laugh.

"A quick pick-me-up," he said, misinterpreting why she'd said it – she wanted it for herself. "Helps me a little."

A little? More like way too much.

"Give me some," she growled, leaning towards his bag, and recoiling as some asshole from a window laid his finger on his assault rifle, letting his bullets come way too close. Fucking pinned.

"No. They're mine. You can't help me either," he said, slapping the part of his arm where he'd stuck himself. It helped the shit get flowing good. She did it sometimes too. "You can't even walk."

"I'll be fine!"

He ripped the gas mask from his face, hair matted from sweat and dirt, green eyes too wide and darting from the Psycho. She knew that look real well.

"No. Stay here. Throw these if you need to," he said, pulling two or three grenades from his belt and pushing them into her bloody hand. "I'm gonna go back behind the bus there, get that fucker up in the window. Then I'll get the rest."

Daye didn't move, though. Shotgun in hand, he peeked his head round the road block out toward the bus, pulled back, then looked again.

"Holy shit, I know him."

"What?"

"Holy shit – Chuckles, is that you, man?"

The fire barrage slowed then stopped. A heavy pause, one so suddenly quiet it almost hurt Cait's ears.

"Nate, you greasy motherfucking son of a whore!"

Daye sighed. "I told him not to call me – I told you not to call me that!"

"You goddamn good-for-nothing lying sack of molerat shit! Where's my fucking money?"

"Shit," Daye groaned to himself. "Shit shit shit."

"The fuck is this?" Cait whispered angrily.

"Just – shh. Don't say anything. I'll deal with this."

"Nate!"

"I don't have your fucking money!"

Yeah. Dealing.

"Well you better get it right fucking now or I'll blow your fucking head off!"

"Nice friends ya got there," Cait smirked, because she was dying and they were pinned and surrounded now, and the sudden lancing pain in her leg was so totally worth the nasty glare Daye threw her way.

"Look, Chuckles," he called out, not daring to poke his head over the road block yet. "You're a decent guy. You know I'll get you the money. You just –"

"That's what you said last time, asshole!"

"You just caught me at a bad time. Mac got shot and he –"

"Ohhh, no, Nate," the raider laughed, "I'm not falling for that tripe again! You give me my money now or I'll kill you and stick your ugly head on a pole!"

Cait knew this Chuckles guy wasn't lying. It seemed a favourite pastime of raiders.

"Do you have his money?" she hissed, pressing a hand to her wound, blood seeping between her fingers.

"Yeah… no. I did, but I spent it."

Cait closed her eyes. "Fucking perfect."

"Nate!"

Daye growled. "What!?"

"I'll give you ten seconds to come out of there and give me my fucking money or I'm sending my guys in to take it off your dead body!"

Daye sighed again, and Cait saw his hands twitching from the Psycho. Setting his shotgun against the concrete block, he reached into his travelling pack and pulled out a jar of Buffout, and then a puffer of Jet.

"It's a real shame, Chuckles," he called out, shaking a couple of tabs of Buffout into his hand. "I sort of liked you, you know."

"Fuck off, Nate!"

"It's true! Remember the time you punched me back at Corvega? And then Mac punched you back? Good times."

"No, what I remember is catching you and your boyfriend in my hideout red-handed tryin' to steal back my half of the bargain!"

Daye tossed the tabs back, swallowing them whole. "Come on, now, Chuckles. Would I ever do such a thing to you?"

"Yes, you slimy motherfucker! That wasn't the first time!"

"I think you're blowing this whole thing way out of proportion, man."

"Nate, give me the fucking caps right fucking now or I'm going to blow you off the face of the fucking earth!"

"I think he's angry," Daye smirked to Cait, pulling the safety cap off the Jet. "Oh well. I really did kind of like the guy."

"You goin' in, then?" She asked kinda sloppily, suddenly very tired and heavy. Dying wasn't too fun after all.

"Yeah. Guess so."

"Good luck then, Cap'n," she sniggered, saluting weakly.

"It's Daye. Daye."

"Real shit cover, by the way."

He smirked, the nasty burn scar twisting a smile that might have once been charming. "Hey. It's better than bleeding all over the fucking street. Want to go back?"

Cait grimaced – well, tried to smile, but her fucking leg hurt. Everything hurt.

"I think I'm good."

"Good," he grinned, "because you're heavy as fuck."

Before Cait could muster up the last of her strength to punch him, he huffed the Jet, tossed it to the side, and then darted off, a spray of bullets and maniacal raider laughter right on his ass.

Holy shit.

Peeking round the corner lazily, Cait had never seen someone so fucking insane in her entire life. Again, that was saying something – she had been the undefeated headliner for a raider-exclusive pit fight club. For three years.

He taunted them, laughed at them, called them names, and blew their heads off with his shotgun. Every single one. Must've been at least eight, maybe ten. Didn't matter. Splat. Heads gone. Except one – Daye's shotgun blew a hole in his chest so big a molerat could've crawled through.

The shooting stopped, eventually, and Cait dragged her sorry ass up high enough over the road block to see Daye clutching his side, leaning painfully against the rusted bus in the middle of corpses littered all over the street. She glanced up to the window and saw the raider's headless body hanging out over the ledge, blood and gore sprayed over the shattered glass.

She shook her head, though out of pain or withdrawal or slight horror or respect she couldn't say.

"Fuck, that was fun," he wheezed, grinning. He wiped the blood from his face and hobbled over her way, through the mess smeared and scattered over the pavement. "Here," he said, nudging a headless raider with the tip of his boot. "Taker her armour. You're not gonna break any hearts in it but I won't have to drag you out next time."

Cait didn't know what to say. Not only once, but twice – in the same day – some asshole absolutely massacred an entire group of people right in front of her without getting a fuckin' scratch. It wasn't often Cait didn't have something bitchy or snarky to say. But here she was.

He came back over to the road block and nearly fell over, still clutching at his side. Cait, as best she could, helped him sit down against the concrete.

"You alright?" she asked, eyeing him. "Bullet get ya?"

He collapsed against the road block, leaning his head back against it, his eyes closed. "Naw. I'm fucking crashing. Too many chems in one day."

Cait fell down beside him, her leg aching and hurting like a motherfucker and her head swimming and her vision sort of fuzzy but hey, at least she wasn't bleeding anymore.

"Want some water?" she asked, vaguely aware that her pack was nearby somewhere, and she had a few cans of clean water in there.

"No. I'll just puke it up. But thanks."

As if on cue, Daye turned to the side and heaved onto the cracked pavement, his retching sounds making Cait's stomach a little queasy. As if watching heads explode wasn't worse.

When he was done, he sat back up beside her, leaning against her shoulder. Wiped his mouth. Closed his eyes again.

"Fuck. That sucked."

She looked at him – at his sweaty, dirty skin, his ruffled mess of hacked hair, his ugly burn scar, and all the blood and grime soaking his road leathers and hair and spattered on his cheeks, and in the low light of the setting sun, behind a crumbling road block on some intersection in downtown Boston, after she'd lost her job and punched her employer and decided to follow this drifter into God-knows-where – she smiled. A real one.

"You got a staring problem?" he grunted.

Cait shook her head, still smiling. "You're one mad son of a bitch, you know that?"

"Yeah," he smiled, eyes still closed. "I know."

This insane first day would go down in history – well, as an inside joke between Cait and Daye and maybe a few of their friends – as Daye One, Cait's raging admittance into the life of the craziest bastard in the Commonwealth.

A/N: Thanks for reading this far! If you liked it, let me know. If you hated it, let me know too. I am also not above taking story ideas/advice from people - if you want to see a certain quest or anything, let me know. I might work it in.

Also for readers of Oblivious - I have not stopped writing. Just met massive writers block. Working on tackling that beast. Hold tight.