I'm starting to think you guys might need a hug or something

A grown woman might have sought the mysterious murderer in the checkered coat with more simmering wrath, more wiles to spare. A grown man might have approached the gates of the Strip with more confidence in their posture, more strength in their jaw. It was easy to imagine a world where the courier was one of them, some fabled hero with a fantastic past that culminated in their footprints on the Hoover Dam, their hand drawing the shape of New Vegas for years to come.

The real courier wasn't this twig of a teenager, feral in appearance and quick to avoid you if you held a threatening look in your eye. Couldn't be. And yet, what else would this world produce? The wasteland, cruel in its nature and lack thereof, had separated countless children from their parents by death and by circumstance. Age didn't matter to a hungry rad storm, a ravenous night stalker, a Legion patrol or an NCR warrant. Age didn't matter to the courier either, and they made their way to the city of neon lights as they had to, as they were always destined to.

TW: Blood (maybe obviously)

Also I don't normally feel some type of way about AUs but the idea of Joshua Graham encountering a vampire courier is giving me shivers

The courier was a little... strange. Not in any way that stood out to the average wastelander just by looking at them, everyone in the Mojave had their quirks and the courier was no exception. Hell, you get shot in the head and come back, you're bound to have a screw or two loose. They were unquestionably a night owl, but so were half the people on the Strip, who only started to wake up after the sun had gone down and the slot machines were singing their loudest. They usually had bags under their bloodshot eyes, but every caravan driver from here to the Hub was short on sleep.

On the other hand, the courier had some habits that were a little beyond surface-level eccentricities. For one, no one had ever seen them eating, not once. Even when the King laid out a spread of pre-war snacks and liquor or when the buffet at the Tops was refreshed, they politely declined and took a swig from the canteen that they never offered to anyone else. They were also rather odd about bathrooms, insisting that anyone accompanying them remain outside on watch and let no one else through the door until they were finished. But the undeniable moment of oddity came one night in October, when their companion rounded a corner in Freeside after a trip to the Atomic Wrangler and discovered the courier behind a rusted dumpster, holding a man against a brick wall with their teeth buried in his neck.

The courier drew back at the interruption, blood smeared across their face. "I'm not- it's not what- he- oh, fuck."

Fo4 Companions With A Child!Sole

No, you wouldn't know them, they live up in Arroyo and I only see them during the summer, but they're prettier than Red Lucy and smarter than Robert House

Despite all the other responsibilities they kept acquiring in the Mojave Wasteland, the courier never actually quit their day job. They still collected packages and instructions at drop-off points when they weren't trying to ease tensions between the area's residents, still made their way through all kinds of weather to deliver parcels from Goodsprings to Jacobstown and everywhere in between. At least once a month they made the trek to the Mojave Express outpost in Primm, and their spirits were always sky-high by the time they made their way to the Nash family's front door.

The courier's mood usually dampened by the time they were halfway through the higher-paying deliveries that Johnson Nash handed out, but one cloudy day in September they failed to hide their absolute joy when Ruby Nash handed them a worn letter, sealed with beeswax and marked all over with directions that eventually led to Primm. The courier tore it open immediately, ignoring their companion's curiosity as they flew through the contents. When they had read it over twice, they sighed and sank against the outpost's counter. "They're okay," they said with relief. "Oh, thank the..."

The courier realized their companion's confusion, and they folded the letter up again with a sheepish smile. "There's a, uh... a 'special someone' that writes to me. From way up north. I don't see them much, but they always find a way to let me know how they're doing. I think... I think you'd like them."

New Vegas and its surrounding communities couldn't get enough of the courier once they pieced together that the person who had saved Goodsprings and Primm, laid eyes on the smoking ruins of Nipton, and eventually made their way inside the mysterious Lucky 38 was, in fact, one person and not a handful of random individuals. As with anyone who set the dust of the wasteland swirling, their name popped up regularly in Mr. New Vegas' news reports, which earned them fans, would-be challengers, and curious eyes whenever they left House's casino with their face uncovered.

There were endless questions about their whereabouts and plans, of course - but there were also questions about who they were, where they had come from, and why they were so different from anyone who had earned a name on the Strip up to that point. They were an outsider in dress and mannerisms as much as they were in name and title, content to let the tall tales around them grow tall and wild as the trees in the mountains rather than give so much as a solid hint about their identity. Mr. New Vegas only fed the public's fascination by reporting on them as if they were a new, strange celebrity each time they made the headlines. Spotted trying on dresses at the same tailor's shop that the King visited regularly. Seen two days later dodging mortars in their usual duster and bandanna on a suicide mission to Nellis. Cool and calm the next week at Gomorrah, cutting as fine a figure in a suit as any of the Omertas. They waved off anyone who tried to chat them up about anything beyond business, and they flat-out refused to answer to anything but their own name or Mojave Express designation.

And all this interest in the courier and their refusal to clear up the mysteries surrounding them inevitably landed at the feet of their companions, for better or worse.