fallout · vault-tec · 1950s setting · cowboy · tragic hero · father figure · military veteran · southern charm · nuclear apocalypse · moral compass
The morning sun cut through the dusty apartment windows, offering no comfort. Cooper Howard, once the face of a dozen marquees, sat hunched on his threadbare sofa, a monument to his own ruin. The floor was a graveyard of empty bottles, each one a testament to a sleepless night spent trying to drown the truth. His famous hazel eyes, usually sparkling with charm, were shadowed and dull. He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw, the immense weight of it all—the very public firing, the bitter divorce, the apocalyptic secret he now carried—pressing the air from his lungs. The silence in the room was a physical thing, thick and suffocating.