Work Text:
As the sun dropped down, saying goodbye to the land that it had kept awakened for many hours, and saying good morning to the other side.
And Nick Valentine kept still at his desk, even after Ellie had gone to sleep. Still flipping through his files, notes, and holotapes, and yet there was still no answer that could have this mystery all wrapped up.
He sighed, he knew that he should have taken a break an hour ago, but he just couldn’t. He couldn’t just stop, he felt the need to obsess over and over at all the evidence he had gathered up to this point.
He reorganized the file he had endlessly looked through, flopping it on top of the other ones. He slumped back in his chair, rubbing his forehead as he started to flip through his notepad, trying to seek a clue that he may have batted an eye to.
At the sound of the creaking from the Agency’s door, all he did was pray that it wasn’t another damsel in distress that would only stack up more work on his already overfilled plate.
He turned his head to the door, opening his mouth to dismiss whoever entered his Agency, only to shut it real fast as he saw nobody other than his favorite vault dweller- “What the hell happened to you?” he stared at them, appalled at their disheveled appearance.
Their head hung low, eyes full of shame, and they sat down in front of Ellie’s desk. Nick jumped up from his desk, standing next to Sole, “what happened?” He speaks in a hushed tone. The lone survivor kept quiet, only sniffling and panting. Nick steadily placed his hand on their shoulder, rubbing it tenderly.
“Will you at least look at me?..” the synth breaks the silence that’s been holding up between the two. The survivor sighed, moving their head up but keeping their eyes away from Nick as their whole body was filled up with shame.
Nick kept his hand on their shoulder as he inspected their rugged face; cuts and scratches, there were no major wounds to be dealt with which Nick was relieved of. “Are there any other injuries?..” he walked away, checking if any of the cabinets had bandages, Sole nodded. “Yeah…there’s a few on my arms and shoulders…but it’s not that much, just a few scrapes…” They roll up their sleeves, their arm is littered with small scratches that appeared due to several incidents.
“Here kiddo.” Nick hands them purified water, trying to cool them down. After Sole had quickly downed the water, Nick started to clean and bandage their arm up.
The room was filled with silence, only occasional coughs and loose hums of song lyrics from the radio. After bandaging Sole’s arm up, Nick started to move up to their shoulder, he carefully removed their armor, placing it next to him as he moved their loose shirt over their shoulders he couldn’t help but scrunch up his nose, wincing as he stared at their shoulder that wasn’t just covered with a few scrapes but bullet wounds, and large rough cuts that almost cross over to their collarbones.
He felt squeamish at the sight, he gulped as he tried to tenderly as possible clean up their wounds. The survivor hisses, pulling away from Nick and he grabs them by their shoulder blades, forcing them to sit back down and to keep still.
“There there…” Nick whispers, “It'll all be over soon, just gotta be patient..”. Sole holds their breath, closing their eyes tightly, nodding.
It took a while for Nick to bandage Sole’s shoulder as they would keep on squirming and pulling away making Nick have to quickly pull them back to not mess up the process and make a bigger mess. In full honesty, Nick felt like being ambushed by the wasteland's creatures would be much simpler than having to deal with any of this. And in full honesty, he felt bad for thinking this way about his dear friend, but he already has to deal with stubbornness so he would rather deal with anything else but stubbornness.
Nick pats their face, bringing their attention upwards towards him. “Are there any other ‘scrapes’ that I should be worried about?” He jokes, Sole points to their knees, Nick takes a deep breath, ready for a nightmare fuel of an injury, only to see red and actual scrapes, it wouldn’t need any bandaging, just some cream that will make it all better, but it was already late so he would buy the cream in the morning. He rolled their pants down.
Now he only had to deal with their rugged face which would be a bit easier than the other injuries. Just clean the cuts, add a bandaid, and maybe some cream.
They stared at each other, both knowing that they would have to approach the topic of what happened one way or another. Nick put his hand on their shoulder once again, this time trying to be as tender as possible to not cause any pressure to the wounds below their bandaging.
“So…you gonna tell me what happened now?” He asks, even if Sole doesn’t answer, he’ll just wait till they're better, no matter how long that might take.
Sole kept quiet, looking down to the floor with the same shameful expression from when they walked into the Agency.
They sighed, finally deciding to open up.
“...I...I fought a bunch of raiders…” they hid their face in the palms of their hands, “but…there were too many…too many to handle on my own…”
Nick frowns, “...why? Did one of the factions put you up to it without knowing?” Sole shakes their head “...no…I did it on my own…”, Nick can’t help but feel disappointed in them. They should have known better than to mess around with raiders, especially with a large amount, everyone knows that.
“Why would you do that? Even if you didn’t know that there were vast amounts of them, you still should know when and how to handle yourself in those situations! Even if so, you should have at least brought someone else with you! Hell, dogmeat can’t shoot but he’s still helpful! Were you trying to get yourself killed?”
The synth detective scowls at them, he knew he shouldn’t speak towards them in this tone but it was the stress of this endless case that was speaking for him now.
“I know I know!” They looked up at him, “I heard that the ring leader knew something or someone about the case! And I just wanted to make you proud so you can finally relax for once!” Their hands find their way to their forehead as they rub the sides of it.
Nick stays silent, he murmurs nonsense. He pats their back “I understand your efforts…but you gotta learn if you can handle certain situations, especially like those.” they look up at him, their expression not changing one bit, “How about this? When you’re all healed up, me and you go back to those raiders and teach them a lesson? Whatcha think, kiddo?”
A hopeful grin slyly pops up on their face, they nod “Yeah…I would like that” Nick grins back at them, grabbing their armor and placing it down near his bed “You’re probably tired, how about you take the bed?” He helps them up, walking over to his bed, “what about you? Where are you gonna sleep?” They ask, taking off their boots before lying in bed.
“I’ll be fine kiddo, I can take the chair for one night.” he pats their head, turning off the light “Goodnight” he whispers and they whisper back before tucking themselves in.
Nick walks back to his desk, looking down at his papers. He grabbed them, placing them back in his file cabinet before he turned off the last source of light and sat down in his chair as the darkness surrounded him.