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ladybirdswritings · 2 days

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Pretty Thing - Cooper Howard (Ghoul) x Reader

Summary: You're a shiny, pretty prize worth more caps than can be counted on ten hands altogether. There's something special about you, and the Ghoul is determined to figure out just what it is.

Notes: Guys I am actually so invested in this fic it’s criminal but anyways lmk if u love this and I'll write more (feel free to leave me lots of comments and interactions, they motivate me!!)

last chap | A03 | masterlist

part 4

The scorching sun was a thing of your wild imagination. A figment, a flash. So familiar, yet so far away in that ocean above you. That dull, gray ocean.

There were ropes round your wrists, and you felt like every bit the mutt as the wide-brim hat before you walked you in any direction he pleased.

Thing was, it had been days.

Days since your last meal. A can of soured peaches and a bitter clementine. No water, no sustenance.

So, this scorching diamond above you that you’d never seen but you somehow understood, it was burning at your flesh. Enough so that within an hour’s time, you’d be about as red and mangled as the Ghoul.

Your breaths were heavy and labored, your steps more like jagged stomps into the sandy dunes. You were still dressed in your ratty hospital gown and your feet were bare. You felt disgusting.

Your hair was matted in knots, your feet covered in dirt and grime, your body blanketed by a soft sheen of sweat making you glisten like a diamond in the rough.

You stumbled, pins and needles itching at your sight for a long moment. The cowboy halted so sudden you were two steps away from colliding with his coated back. You didn’t though.

He turned his head to the side, regarding you in his peripheral with a glare that silently declared: “walk straight, or I’m gon’ make ya’…”

You glared back at him in turn, and abruptly— he pulled on his makeshift leash and kept walking. The sandy dunes burned at the bottoms of your feet, scorching them entirely. You’d passed four signs now that promised life, and yet there was none to be found.

Your gaze fell to the happy shepherd braving the dunes behind the cowboy, tale wagging and tongue hung out her mouth as she panted. She had no leash. The thought? It angered you. You halted, digging the soles of your feet into the sand so to keep yourself still and put. When his tug did no good, his jaw ticked and he slowly turned round. Swiping his tongue over his golden teeth, expectant.

“This is some even exchange.” You practically spat. “The girl gets walked and the mutt roams freely. What exactly are you teaching me?”

His gaze stalled for a moment, as if assessing how to approach you. It took a moment too long but soon enough, it narrowed into a glare. A cold, challenging glare. Your own eyes, they begged to falter, to fall, to be coward enough to lose this challenge and yet? You were in too deep.

One slow step, then another. Heavy boots nearing closer, closer. You would have stumbled back if your feet weren’t so pressed into the ground. Buried there, keeping you still as a stick in the wind. He halted before you, boots stepping on the layer of sand above your feet, looking down at you and shadowing your eyes from the scorching sun with his hat.

“You oughta mind that dirty mouth o’ yours… n’ to answer your question— s' a dog-eat-dog world, sweetie...”

It was your own gaze that narrowed to slits now, tilting your chin up to hold his eyes.

“I’m not a fucking dog.”

A small, soft laugh at that— eyes wandering to the place beside you to gather his vicious thoughts. He sucked at his teeth, tilting his head slow at you.

“Y’ thirsty?”

… what?

Your tired eyes softened, a widening so gentle and subtle it could almost be missed. But you were— god you truly were beyond parched. The thought of even a singular droplet on your sandpaper tongue and you’d melt.

“Mm, yes you are.” He mused, eyes never once leaving you. Even as his hands dug deep within his coat to pull out a dilapidated, circular flask filled to the brim with fresh, sweet water. You gulped, eyes wide with anticipation now.

You patient, sweet thing— gaze shifting from patience to confusion as he unscrewed the cap and drank every single last drop right before you. A frown settled on your soft lips once he finished with a satisfied “ahh” and tossed the useless thing to the side so to further prove his point.

“Wh—”

“Oh m’ sorry, pretty thing. Did you want some uh’ that? Tsk tsk, gotta open that dry mouth o’ yours next time. Tell you what, I might have some more.”

You blinked, throat feeling as sandy as the dunes your feet were buried within. His mangled hand travelled upwards, settling on a firm grip to your cheeks. You didn’t have much time to react, no. He squeezed them tight— muttering “open.” You had no choice, and as soon as those lips of yours were parted? The Ghoul gathered all the saliva packed within that golden mouth of his and spit it right upon your pink little tongue.

Your eyes became saucers, so surprised by his most degrading, cruel actions that you stumbled and fell to your bum.

“Where you think you’re goin’ hmm? Up… you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

His saliva settled into your own, mixing with it— familiarizing with it. A foreign, unpleasant thing.

His grip on your shoulders was firm, and despite his cold gaze— there was droplets of expectation sprinkled like silver stars in his midnight eyes. What he was waiting for, whatever it was, it never came.

The Ghoul tugged you back up on to your feet, and his hands held you tight enough to bruise your skin.

All of it, all at once, it settled. The cage, the sun, the sand, the ropes, the dirt upon your feet, the knots within your hair— the spit within your mouth… tears prickled at your pretty eyes too quickly to stop, making them glossy and blurred. Your jaw tense.

“Wipe those god damn tears and get to fuckin’ steppin’… else I’m gon’ drag you in all the shit you’re standin’ on.”

Your lips swelled pink like posies and trembled at his words as all the breath you had left departed you. He didn’t much care, turning and tugging harshly again so you had no choice but to step.

It would be inaccurate to say he was treating you like an animal, because the shepherd was happily trotting along. No ropes keeping her, no cruel words.

Yet you?

Another sign slid past your peripheral. Wherever he was dragging you? You only hoped it was close…

•••

If there was a God, you were whispering your praises to him now as sand turned to emerald blades— and emerald blades turned to creaky, dilapidated cherry oak.

A lake. A crystal lake that mirrored the dreary sky in its reflection. Water, so much of it you could just melt.

The cowboy regarded you with pointed eyes as he slowly unraveled his ropes. Each circle falling to the ground made you sigh in relief, immediately stumbling forward toward the lake. An endless supply of all the water you desired.

You were just about ready to fall to your knees in defeat when a firm hand reached out and gripped at your matted locks. Halting you.

“Settle down, sweetheart. See, that water right there s’ poison. Less you wanna look like me, I suggest you follow orders.”

You slowly turned your glare toward him as he stepped around you and tugged you after him by your locks. Brutish. His boots were heavy stomps against the creaking deck, and they matched the pitter patter of the shepherd’s paws.

“Here.” He spat, pushing you down to the deck with a firm hand. Your eyes shifted to a makeshift bowl filled to the brim with rainwater so ancient, it made him look like a spring chicken.

You felt every bit the mutt he was treating you like as you turned your head to face him, on your hands and knees.

He tilted his head once more as if challenging you to complain. You considered, but your thirst was far too fervent to let you. You cautiously dipped your head, cupping the water in one purpled hand and sucking from it. Christ… you moaned. It was unpleasant, hot by the sun and dirty yet— it was water.

“There you go, now you’re gettin’ it.” The Ghoul mused in approval.

You were desperately lapping every last, soiled drop up. Every last drop till you heard even more feverish lapping from beside you. You halted, gaze shifting to see the shepherd happily drinking up the lake water with a wagging tail.

The clean, pristine lake water.

You waited. Watching the poor, doomed thing. Any minute now and she’d fall to the deck, foaming at the mouth as the poison plagued her. She licked at her lips when she was satisfied.

A minute passed, then another…

The lake water was settled in her stomach…

…and she was completely— fine.

Unharmed.

Immediately, your expression shifted to one of disgust, frustration, defeat? No…

Anger.

More solidified anger when the bastard in the cowboy hat and boots began to snicker.

“You made me drink this on purpose.” You forced through clenched teeth, so angry now you couldn’t even meet his eyes.

Pins and needles prickled at your fingertips, they lay dormant there.

“N’ what f’ I did, huh?” He challenged, shifting so to squat before you and catch your sight again. Your cold, furious sight. “What you gon’ do bout it, pretty thing?”

Oh you got it now. You got it completely.

He liked this. He liked torturing you and it took only one day spent together for you to understand that entirely. His speech about even exchanges and teaching you, it was sour in your mind now. In that hazy, clouded mind of yours.

You thought of all the words you could spit at that mangled, hideous face of his and yet? None of them seemed to surface. He knew you were weak, he knew he had the upper hand. He was using that.

Just like your keepers.

The thought, it made the pins and needles more prominent. More unpredictable. Burning at your hands ready to burn at another and yet?

The only thing you could do was gather the spit in your mouth and project it right onto the Ghoul’s cratered cheek.

He didn’t do so much as flinch, closing his eyes for a moment and sucking a deep breath through the place where a nose once settled. He was silent, but the jump in his jaw gave him away.

You did it now.

You truly, pissed him off.

Not another moment passed before his eyes shot open again. Darker now. Too dark. The Ghoul was quick, hand burying itself in your knotted locks again as he dragged you against the wood— leaving splinters and cuts in your soft skin.

“Now you’re gon’ learn, smooth skin.” He spat.

You were weak, but you kicked away and tried to steel yourself with something. You weren’t in the dunes any longer, so the only thing to be buried was you.

“Wait— wait!” You cried out, breaths quickening now as he pulled you up by your frayed locks. Your fear-stricken gaze looked on at the reflection of the lake water. He was a looming shadow, and no part of his expression offered you ease.

Your mind wandered back to the flashes tucked within it. When he circled your cage and pushed the hair from your face. The shadow before you now, he was every bit what you would expect another creature who got their clutches on you to be like. He was no different, despite what you had conditioned yourself to believe.

Maybe he was worse…

Your breath was interrupted by the plunge, into the lake head first— his hand keeping you under. One hand gripping at the hair before your neck, the other clutching at your bound wrists.

You struggled, your mind a cloudy sky as water invaded your throat and lungs.

He was drowning you.

He picked your head up at once, so abrupt. You were robbed of the chance to suck in precious air as you could only cough up the water lodged within your throat. None of it was poison, all of it was demise.

You wondered for a moment if he was showing you mercy— but soon realized he had only lifted you to plant cruelty in your mind. Perhaps so it would be the last thing you’d hear.

“Some weapon you are. Look at ya’, useless lil’ thing— you gon’ be dead n’ a god damn second. Ain’t got no use for ya’.” He spat, golden teeth pressed against your ear.

“Please—” you gurgled, and he only growled as he slammed your head back into the lake.

Your mind became a haze, feet kicking and body flopping about like a fish deprived of its ocean. If it couldn’t get more sour for you, your eyes widened to find a large, scaly creature slowly swimming toward you. A very large, very scaly creature.

This was how you’d die.

That thought, it settled then.

All this survival— all this uncontrollable chaos. Your body a temple so strong and still, it forced you to survive— and your demise would be caused by a lake and a golden-toothed cowboy?

You cried out, watching as the eight-finned creature slithered closer and closer.

Closer…

Closer….

Some people claim that anger is the strongest emotion. Some people claim it to be love. For you? Fear. Cold, paralyzing fear.

Perhaps you were a mutt. One backed into a corner so doomed that you had no choice but to bite the hand keeping you under the water.

You didn’t intend to do it, no— you never did. It just happened; and it was a thing your keepers were trying to figure out before you were taken from them.

Yet the pins and needles grew to nails and knives, clutching at your slashed palms and supple skin. A crimson so scarlet and deep, the blood within you was boiled, it ignited you. Like a moth set ablaze.

The creature in the water halted, and the creature above the water’s grip on your neck loosened. Yet it was far too late to take it back now. They had hold of you.

You could taste the poison in the lake. He wasn’t a liar after all.

Radiation.

Thing was, for you, radiation was about as poisonous as whipped, cherry pie. No… radiation was fuel.

That fuel was settled deep within your lungs now. That fuel was flooded in your nostrils and throat. That fuel was chaotic, unpredictable and deadly; and it was driving now.

With a scream of pure agony as the inferno begun to melt you, all the radiation within the lake anchored you down and like a can of shaken pop? You burst.

“Shit…” The Ghoul muttered, releasing the nuclear bomb before him and trying to stumble back. Wasn’t far enough…

The lake erupted, water shooting so high up into the sky it could reach the clouds. The reflection was now crimson, the same crimson that shadowed you and burned away at anything in sight.

The Ghoul was a strong, ancient thing— yet even he could not withstand the powers clutching you hostage. His body was flown back by the very graze of them— back slamming into a wooden post hard enough to crack it in two.

Your scream, muffled by the water, it faltered to a cry of agony. Pain, pure and unforgiving as you lifted your head from the lake and slumped over against the deck.

Blood dripped from your nose, staining the cherry wood beneath you. Your coughs were weak yet vicious, vicious enough to burn at your ribs enough to make you curl.

Exhausted.

The water from the sky rained back down to the lake after stalling, a barbaric storm settling into the once calm waters.

The Ghoul coughed, his next breath a wheeze as that cold gaze of his wandered to the fizzing bubbles above the water. Sluggishly, the husk of a creature so powerful it was the exact reason why nobody roamed these parts, it floated to the surface and turned by force of the settling waves. Its eyes gray, its ungodly tongue hung from its snarling mouth.

Dead.

Every minnow and small, poor fish followed— bellies bloated as they surfaced.

Entirely… dead.

The Ghoul halted for a second at the thought, breath catching in his throat. If he wasn’t so smart, if he hadn’t let go— that would have been him. A dead fish in the water.

Yet still, the mad man, he was satisfied.

As he said to himself— as he ensured; he poked at the bear enough and finally? The bear showed him just what it was worth.

“There you are… you lil’ killa…” he murmured slow, eyes settled on your shivering figure now with victory and— awe.

Not horror, not disgust… no.

Simply?

Awe…

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ladybirdswritings · 3 days

Text

Pretty Thing - Cooper Howard (Ghoul) x Reader

Summary: You're a shiny, pretty prize worth more caps than can be counted on ten hands altogether. There's something special about you, and the Ghoul is determined to figure out just what it is.

Notes: Part threeee :) Lmk if u love this and I'll write more (feel free to leave me lots of comments and interactions, they motivate me!!)

last chap | A03 | masterlist

part 3

Ache.

Vicious and prominent throughout each and every bone and dip within your body.

Horrible, familiar ache.

The sun was blinding, scorching redness onto your skin like ripe cherry tomatoes.

A few soft, scattered blinks and your gaze parted to white. Squinting amongst the hazy glow, the silhouette of an old, brimmed hat and a noseless shadow centered.

It was him.

“Mornin’ sweetheart.”

Your back was stiff, pressed against the decayed, withered roots of an old weeping willow. Your body was postured straight, tied tight by ropes you wanted to scratch at with haste if you could.

It took you a few more blinks, a few more moments past the confusion to remember just about everything that had transpired.

The experiments, the cage, the brunette and the Ghoul. The same Ghoul who was chewing on rotted straw with dark, curious eyes admiring his rope-work, running up and down your pallid figure.

Your heart rate sped then. You didn’t much like being contained— and it seemed as though you had only been traded from one cage to another.

You gon’ make me lots of money…

His distant words pounded against your skull in an infinite echo, swelling at your brain like a bee sting.

It all settled, then.

Your eyes widened, breaths more labored now as you struggled against the ropes with the very small amount of strength you had gained from your slumber. It wasn’t much.

He only watched you for a moment with a rather unimpressed expression on his mangled face. But then he smirked.

“Don’t get too rowdy now, sweetie. I won’t hesitate to tighten them ropes.”

The ropes cut into your purpled skin the more you fought against them. They were knotted in more places than you could count. Effortlessly crafted to keep you.

Keep…

“Where are my keepers?”

God…

Your voice was an awful rasp. A horrible, guttural sound. You didn’t recognize it. Then again, you didn’t recognize anything about yourself.

Your question, too. What a silly thing to ask. As if you’d prefer being with them instead.

The horrid creature, the place where his brows would be lifted in surprise. He took his time, his sweetened— honeyed time getting up. Swinging a leg round the scraps he sat upon and lifting to tower over everything in sight. A chill met your spine, acquainted with it.

He was silent, silent as his boots crunched against the bloodied ground. Closer and closer, even closer and never once did his eyes fall from your face.

“Oh… don’t tell me you miss em’ now, darlin’. Yous a masochist behind all them chains and ropes, pretty thing? Hmm?”

He smelled of bitterness and smoke, invasive and poisonous. It didn’t take him long to be a mere step before you— but he invaded it. Your breath left your lips, you poor— confused thing. You were in disarray as you turned your head so to escape him.

That wasn’t allowed.

His hand was a rough, unpleasant thing. Torn up and stitched together by frayed threads. It was foreign yet warm against your chin as he roughly redirected your gaze to him again. Demanding your attention. He hummed in dark approval when you lifted your wide eyes to find his.

“Hope not. They took all that meat off them bones o’ yours. We gon’ have to sweeten you up again, ain’t we?”

He was suffocating you. Every fiber of you. So close now that his breath was kissing your cheek.

Your gaze narrowed, jaw blooming with tension-coiled poppies.

“I could kill you.” You practically spat and God— how right you were.

You didn’t know the how or the why, the reason or the answers. No, you didn’t know any of that at all. What you did know, however, was that whatever fueled the crimson laced in your palms was enough to bring any ghoul to their knees. He could be no different.

And yet?

He laughed. A raspy, weak sound. Golden teeth on full display. Your head fell into a tilt of confusion, he followed it— huffing out a breath when he was done getting a kick from your words.

“Oh I know, sweetie. I know. But do you?”

But do you…

Three simple words forming a question that brought more fear to you than any ropes or chains ever could. You couldn’t remember. That was just the problem.

The sound of sharp metal scraping against worn leather made your wide eyes dart toward his free hand. The mangled Ghoul lifted a shined, silvered blade from his holster and pointed it right to the most vulnerable place at your neck.

You gulped, lips parting as your chest rose and fell. The cruel creature… he was teasing you, and he was enjoying it. There was mischief lit up like golden globes in his eyes, a soft and sadistic kind of smirk just ghosted on his lips. He scraped the blade against your soft skin, dragging it from your collarbone, up to your jugular, then right to your chin— all the while following the dangerous path with his eyes.

He could have sunk the blade in. Ended it. Turned in your body for far too many caps to count but… he didn’t. No… instead he brought the blade to the same ropes he caged you with and he set you free.

Your body was a home for every pin and needle in existence to dwell. Soon as your ropes fell to the dilapidated ground, you fell with them. On your hands and knees before his scruffy boots.

He stood there like that for a moment, looking down at you kneeled at his feet. Perhaps he was waiting to see if you’d run. You didn’t. Not because you didn’t want to but rather because you were afraid.

Afraid and confused.

Your eyes darted to your surroundings and every single inch of them was unfamiliar. How would you survive?

When the Ghoul was certain you were staying put, he parted from you; walking slow back to his seat of scraps as he ruffled some papers away from his coat.

With a clear of his throat, he began…

“Y/N Y/L/N. Age? Unknown. Species? Radioactive superhuman. Now ain’t that some wild shit, darlin’? You. Little ol’ you and you ain’t the least bit scarred or mangled, huh?”

You blinked, his words only a blur of nonsense you couldn’t quite break apart enough to be coherent. You cautiously lifted your head, gaze settling in on him again. He sat proudly, satisfied with all this. Right ankle rested atop left knee and stained paper gripped in ancient hands.

He looked on at you once, satisfied to know he had earned your attention again. With a deeper smirk now, he continued louder.

“Subject can absorb harmful radiation n’ process it to gain sustenance. Oo’ wee… n’ there’s more. Y/L/N possesses the innate ability to manipulate any form of power er energy and project it from her very hands— my my. Look at you. A god damn X-Man, ain’t you?”

His words, though understood in your conscious mind, you didn’t understand the importance of them. All you knew to be true was that people were afraid. Horrified.

Yet not him.

Not him…

Your breath left you, exhausted by the heat and position, and you bowed your head again. He silently skimmed through whatever else was printed on that precious page, and when he was satisfied? He tossed it aside and focused his attention back on you.

“Now I had thought that I was real damn lucky to have found you, you little money maker. But no, oh no darlin’— that just ain’t true. See, I ain’t got no use for ya’ if you kill me fore’ I get my payout. N’ you can— kill me. Ain’t a fool to admit it. You ain’t like me, you ain’t like vaultie or any of those tin soldiers. Nah, yous real special. Different. I thought bout’ dumpin’ you when I read this ol’ thing but damn it, sweetie… I must have a lil’ thing for strays.”

His tangent was laced with only parts you could keep up with. You were worth something, but he was unlucky to have you. He had a thing for strays, but he was set to dump you. You weren’t like him, but he too was a monster.

“You’re awfully contradictory…” it left your lips far before you could stop it, moving to sit or rather slump back against the tree as you spoke. Your ribs poked against your skin.

“Mm.” Is all he offered, staring on at you for a few more painfully long moments before he lifted again. He was even slower now, even more cautious in his approach. Towered before you and shifting so to squat— eye to eye you were again.

“See truth be told, sweetie, s’ you that needs me. Even exchange, really. Gon’ use you for all you’re worth, and you gon’ be fed real well. Ain’t gonna be held by no chains or rope. N’ I’ll teach you how to really, truly hurt a man enough to keep m’ down— understand?”

He wanted to help you…?

You didn’t have much experience at all with being, well, alive. That you remembered, at least. Living truly, not just breathing. Even so, if you searched hard enough beneath the surface of his words, you understood them. He needed you for your powers, as everyone else seemed to, and as a courtesy in return? He’d teach you all the things your keepers wouldn’t dare to, all the things orbiting planet freedom.

He was a stranger.

Then again… everyone was.

Your silence, your unspoken dilemma confined in your aching mind— it was enough to provoke his voice again.

“You can go on n’ run into that city, you know. Oh I ain’t gon’ stop you, pretty thing. No I ain’t. You know what will, though?”

Your gaze became a glare, and yet he was expectant.

“Go on, ask me.”

You didn’t quite follow, and yet if one thing was clear in your gaze and your consciousness? It was him… his commands.

“What?” Is but all you whispered, and it satisfied the mangled man enough to make him sigh.

The same awful, torn up hand that had lifted you into his arms. The same hand that had tied you hostage with rope and flipped through your dilapidated file, that same hand, it lifted once more so to brush away the hair sticking against your dampened forehead. You shivered at the sensation.

Gentle… the most gentle you’d ever felt in your entire consciousness; and from a Ghoul.

His eyes glazed over you like jam to buttered scone and with a twitch of his jaw and a tilt of his skull, he gave you the answer you were silently seeking…

“You will…”

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