You should've left him there. Nobody would blame you for it. From the moment he lassoed you in Filly the ghoul had been nothing but uncourteous. He dragged you through the Mojave by his rope like a mule, refused you any food or water, threatened you at every turn. He refused to call you anything but Vaultie despite damn well knowing your name.

He had been planning to GIVE you to ORGAN HARVESTERS, for pete's sake!

But seeing him collapsed on the ground, his signature cowboy hat knocked from his head.. it didn't sit right. You didn't know what it meant when a ghoul went feral but you could make an educated guess. And the way he was coughing and groaning in pain right now seemed like a big warning sign.

Chem vials. You remembered what he'd come here for. Ghouls need chem vials.

The harvesters were a struggle to take out. You knew how to use your pistol, sure, but fighting was never something you'd been exceptionally good at. It was never something you'd been allowed to do. But your reluctant travel companion needed the contents of that Super-Duper Mart, so you would fight your way in.

Cooper could feel his mind slipping, and it was terrifying. In the 200 years since the bombs dropped he'd never been this close to going feral. But wandering the Mojave without any chem vials left after being freed from Dom Pedro's graveyard wasn't exactly the best idea.

He was mumbling. Half-words, half-groans. Janey. Barb. Run. Over and over until he couldn't quite remember who Janey and Bab were and why they needed to run. There was a buzzing in his head and a sickness in his stomach that made his leathery skin crawl.

Then a blurry shape came into view. The Vaultie he'd captured on his hunt for Dr. Wilzig's head. And you were holding a case of familiar yellow vials. You were coming right up to him, despite knowing how violent he could be when he wasn't this close to going feral.

"What the Hell are you doin', Vaultie?" Cooper's voice didn't lose that Southern twang, even when he was wheezing.