I wrote this for the Fallout Big Bang, and I am so excited to finally share this! Here are the two artworks, by AdLibber on Deviantart. 1 and 2.
At 3:34 AM on the morning of the G.O.A.T, Thomas got out of bed and puked directly into the garbage chute. He stood there for a moment, sweaty and shaking, hands braced on the chute's metal frame. He wanted to wake his father up, but he reasoned that there was nothing James could do for him that he couldn't do for himself. He rinsed his mouth out and went back to bed.
He lay awake until 7:30, when James came in and roused him. He dressed and took his seat at the breakfast table with his father. He pushed his eggs around his plate and left for school at 8:00, dodging a good-luck hug from his father on his way out the door.
The five-minute walk to school was uneventful until he turned the final corner towards the classroom and saw Amata, her back to the wall, surrounded by Butch and his gang. Butch, flanked by Paul Hannon and Wally Mack, had her pinned there, his face inches from hers, lips pulled back in a grin. Thomas knew without hearing, what Butch was saying: "Want to see a real Tunnel Snake?"
He had been asking her the same question for three years, ever since Amata got slide-tackled by puberty and sprouted double D's overnight.
Thomas wanted to hang back and wait for someone else to break it up, but Amata caught his eyes and Butch turned around to see what she was looking at.
"Morning, Tommy," he said. His boot heels clicked against the metal floor as he closed the distance between them. He draped a chummy arm around Thomas' shoulders. "We were just talkin' to your girlfriend."
"She's not my girlfriend," Thomas said, immediately. Amata glowered at him, Butch smirked.
"Whatever. I was just talking to your not-girlfriend. We had a little disagreement, her and me. I said, 'Tunnel Snakes rule,' she said, 'Eat shit.'"
Thomas realized he could smell Butch's pomade. It wasn't a particularly useful realization, with four sets of eyes fixed on him and the Tunnel Snakes standing between him and class. His empty stomach churned, and Thomas wondered what Butch would do to him if he threw up on his jacket.
Thomas didn't throw up. Instead, he shrugged Butch's arm off and shoved him away.
"Leave us alone, Butch."
He took a half a step towards Thomas. Their faces were only inches apart, and Thomas forced himself not to shrink away Butch.
"I was just being friendly," Butch drawled. He plucked at Thomas' zipper.
Thomas swatted his hand away, and growled, "Why don't you fuck the fuck off?" surprising even himself with the acidity of his tone.
Butch's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. His mouth opened to say something scathing, but Thomas interrupted him with a solid right hook.
The crack of the punch was followed immediately by the half-silence of collective shock.
There was blood on Butch's jacket and his white undershirt, unnaturally bright against the desaturated blues and greys of the Vault. Paulie found his handkerchief and passed it to Butch, who put it to his nose to stem the flow. The white cotton went red immediately, and the sight of it made Thomas' knees go weak.
"What the fuck, freak," said Butch, his voice distorted by blood and muffled by the handkerchief.
"Sorry," he said, weakly. "I didn't-"
"Shut the fuck up," Wally growled. "We ain't interested in hearing you talk." He took half a step towards Thomas, who took the moment to appreciate how very screwed he was, but Butch stopped him.
"Leave him alone, Wally. Overseer'll have our asses if we kick his ass for this."
"Bullshit!"
"Scrawny freak'll get his," said Butch. "Jus' not right now. Hear that, Tommy? You're fucking dead."
Butch spat a gob of blood on Thomas' boots and stomped into the classroom. Paul elbowed him in the stomach on his way past and Wally called him a cocksucker, but they left him alive and in one piece.
Thomas let out a tremendous whoosh of breath. All of the adrenaline left his system, and its absence compounded his shame. He leaned against the wall and took a breath to steady himself.
"What the hell was that?"
For the first time in his life, Thomas heard something like reproach in Amata's voice. He looked up at her and shook his head.
"What's wrong with you?"
Thomas almost said, "Butch DeLoria," but he thought better of it.
The results of the G.O.A.T. held no surprises. To his tremendous relief, Thomas didn't get garbage burner. He was sorted into medicine and research, just like his father.
Amata got management, Paul ended up in engineering. Susie got education, Christine maintenance.
Butch got hairdresser.
He scowled and slunk down in his seat when results were read. Everyone turned to look at him, and titters broke out throughout the room. It took Brotch a full minute to calm everyone down and get them back on task, while Butch turned bright red and tried to make himself as small as possible. For a few seconds, Thomas felt sorry for him.
Until Butch caught his eye and mouthed, "You're dead, Tommy."
Thomas scratched his nose with his middle finger and decided that justice had been served.
There was another year of school after the G.O.A.T. Three days per week were spent in apprenticeships, the other two in class, studying American history, science, and mathematics. Home economics alternated days with English.
Thomas enjoyed the time spent with his father in the clinic. His work was mostly observational, watching as his father lanced boils and took blood samples. James assigned readings from medical textbooks and taught Thomas how to operate the lab equipment.
Thomas was valedictorian of his small class and took Amata to prom. He got puke drunk on spiked punch and tried to start a fight with Susie Mack. Amata talked him down and they made out in a supply closet, knocking teeth and foreheads and noses. It was Thomas' first kiss, and it was completely unextraordinary, as far as first kisses go.
The party ended at midnight when Security came around and cited everyone for "excessive noise making." Wally Mack got ticketed for public intoxication and underage drinking, and Officer Gomez caught Freddie and Chrissy necking in a stall in the men's bathroom.
Thomas got away with just the citation for noise making, but James smelled the alcohol on his breath and grounded him for four weeks.
Thomas spent the month in his room, taking notes in the margins of his father's ancient anatomy texts. He did his best to act sullen whenever James came in to check up on him, but he was privately grateful for the excuse to avoid Amata.
It was only starting to occur to Thomas how much Amata liked him. He'd be midway through a lengthy passage on the musculature of the jaw, and his thinking brain would suddenly shut down. His memory would dredge up evidence that she liked him, and he'd spend the rest of the afternoon staring into space and drumming his pen against his desk.
It all seemed obvious in retrospect. Amata had been his only friend, and he was certain that she'd been infatuated with him since grade school. She'd always been quick to take his side in any argument, quick to stand up to the other kids on his behalf. He'd thought that was just how she was. He couldn't escape the deeply that he'd been missing her cues for years.
Thomas was starting to wonder if he wasn't a moron, after all.
The whole thing was absolutely terrifying. He liked Amata, but not in that way. She was like a sister to him, and he had no idea how to rebuff her without losing her as a friend.
It was times like these that made Thomas wish his father was more approachable. James often reminded Thomas that he was there if he ever needed to talk, but he couldn't bring himself to be honest with his father.
James liked order. He couldn't bear to let anything go. There had to be a solution for every problem, and he always tried to offer advice when all Thomas needed was someone to listen. He had a hard time opening up when he knew James would spend most of the conversation forming his responses instead of listening.
Thomas didn't want anyone to tell him how to handle the situation with Amata. He just wanted was a sounding board while he worked through it on his own.
As it was, Thomas was lost. As frightened as he was of losing Amata as a friend, he was even more afraid of confronting her about her crush. He decided his only recourse was to throw himself into his studies. With school over, he spent four days a week in the clinic with his father, and the remaining three shut in his room with his books. He declined every invitation and refused every visitor, and gradually, they stopped coming.
Even Amata gave up on him.
James worried about him, but Thomas did his best to ignore his father's concern. He had more important things to worry about than his ailing social life.
Thomas finished his training on June 3rd, 2277, almost a year to the day after graduation. He wasn't a doctor (and he wouldn't be for years), but he was authorized to examine patients and operate most of the lab equipment. His official job title was "assistant medical technician," and he would continue to study and train under his father.
His first day of work in the clinic was June 10th.
He barely slept at all on June 9th. His nerves kept him up past midnight, and he woke not long after, sweat pooling on his lower back and upper lip. The silence in his room was stifling, more so than the heat.
Noise was a part of everyday life, from the buzz of the fluorescent track lighting to the respiratory churning of the ancient ventilators and fans in the reactor room. Humming, whirring and the clank of distant pipes meant 'all clear,' and the sounds were conspicuous only in their absence.
Silence meant failure.
The Vault's creaky climate control system, tasked with cooling and circulating 200-year-old air, had failed again. Thomas knew from experience that there was nothing to do but wait until morning, when Stanley would venture into the Vault's lower levels with Andy and repair whatever needed fixing.
The quiet was enough to remind him that a blown fuse could turn his home into a tomb. Anxiety crawled up his spine and into his limbs.
According to his officially licensed Vault Boy wall clock, it was 3:20 AM.
Thomas sat up and stripped off his sweat-soaked standard-issue flannel pajamas. He let the threadbare shirt and pants fall to the floor in an unceremonious heap. After a moments hesitation, his blankets joined his pajamas on the floor.
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but he couldn't relax. His fitted sheet was soaked through with sweat, and he felt like he'd swallowed a furnace. He rolled from his stomach to his back. He glanced at the clock again. 3:24.
He was exhausted, but he had lightning in his veins and he couldn't lay still.
Without his thinking about it, his left hand had gone to the waistband of his underwear. He was half-erect despite the soul-sucking beat. He rolled onto his back, cupping himself through his briefs, and felt around on the floor for his discarded pajama shirt. He shimmied out of his underpants and spit in his hand. Self-consciously, he closed his fist around his dick and started pumping himself.
He closed his eyes. He tried, dutifully, to think of Amata, dressed in a slip and a smile, posed like a girl in one of the magazines his father thought he didn't know about. The image felt wrong, borderline incestuous. He forced it from his mind after a few seconds, and tried, instead, to picture Christine Kendall. Everyone said she put out, and Wally Mack swore up and down that he'd seen her giving Mr. Brotch a handjob in the hallway after school.
Chrissy didn't do any more for him than Amata did. He was pretty sure her appeal was supposed to be in the things she was rumored to have done, but they were blatantly untrue (and Thomas was pretty sure Wally started them in retaliation after she turned him down).
He pictured Susie Mack, then the pin-ups in his father's magazines, then Mrs. Mack, even though she was forty and married. He was desperate to make something work when Butch's face came to him, unbidden. It occurred to him that Butch must masturbate, too, probably to the same girls. It was a strange thought, but it clicked in a way that the girls hadn't. He tried to push the image away, but it refused to go, and after a moment, he stopped trying.
He thought about Butch, lying in bed, legs spread, underwear around his ankles, hand on his dick. He wondered if Butch was a moaner, whether or not he bit his lip. It was a potent fantasy, and indulging in it felt more than a little strange.
Butch, naked except for his stupid fucking Tunnel Snakes jacket, his legs spread obscenely, his fist closed around his cock, his voice low and husky. "This what you want, Tommy?"
Thomas came with a long, low whine.
He cleaned the spunk off his stomach with his pajama shirt and fell asleep before his arousal could cool and turn to shame.
He was queasy when he woke up two hours later. He was absolutely certain that people would take one look at him and know that he had gotten off to Butch DeLoria.
Thomas stripped his bed with a mortician's detached efficiency. He hid the soiled pajamas in his sheets, trying not to look at the crusty stain on the shirt. He focused his complete attention on the task, but the image of Butch on display kept slipping through the cracks in his consciousness.
He walked to the laundry room -Butch, undoing the zipper on his Vault Suit- and dumped his bundle into one of the ancient machines without separating the load into darks and lights -shit-eating grin plastered across his face- he put a ration ticket in the dispenser, and waited for his cup of powdered soap -he'd run a hand down his body- The machine wasn't quite big enough to handle the sheets and his pajamas, and he listened to the churning water and wondered if the damn thing would unbalance again and flood the laundry room -saying "You like this, Tommy? This make you hot, freak? You fucking-"
"You're up early."
Thomas jumped at the sound of his father's voice. "Couldn't sleep," he muttered.
James tsked sympathetically. "It was awful last night. Stanley was up at 4, looking at the system. He finally got it running at 5."
"I just wish it hadn't been last night."
"Still worried about the clinic? You'll do fine." He put a cool hand on Thomas' shoulder to massage his back, but Thomas shrugged him off.
"I know," he muttered. "Just tired, is all."
James' hands dropped to his sides. "You can go back to bed for an hour and a half. I'll take care of this." He gestured at the washing machine.
Thomas shrugged and made a noncommittal, teenaged sound.
"You can sleep in my bed if you like, and I'll remake yours-"
"It's fine," he snapped. The queasy feeling was returning, and he wanted to be anywhere but there, talking about laundry with his dad like he hadn't just fantasized about his male classmate. "Stop fussing, god."
"Fine. Do whatever you want. I'm going back to bed." James ended the sentence with a sigh and stomped out of the laundry room. He sounded exhausted and old, completely unlike himself. Thomas immediately felt guilty.
He couldn't look James in the eye during breakfast that morning. He picked at his plate of reconstituted eggs and played with the salt and pepper shakers, half-hoping James would reach across the table and squeeze his shoulder and tell him not to worry. But his father ate silently and carried his dishes to the sink without a word, evidently still sore about their earlier argument.
Thomas felt like complete and utter scum. As a general rule, James and Thomas did not fight. Thomas was closer to his father than he was to anyone, except maybe Jonas or Amata. His outburst in the laundry room was a complete anomaly, almost unprecedented.
"Dad," he said suddenly. "I don't feel so good."
The use of 'dad' rather than 'James' was enough to ease some of the tension on his father's face.
"It's just nerves, Thomas. Nerves and the heat."
It was, but it was also Butch DeLoria. It was a fevered, drowsy fantasy and a load of dirty laundry. It was a lot of things, and Thomas knew that if he tried to articulate that thought, James would fix him with a serious look and say "sounds like a bad case of growing up," and Thomas would laugh and his dad would muss his hair and remind him that he was always there to talk if he needed to.
So he didn't say anything, and James said "Don't worry. You'll do fine."
Thomas threw the rest of his breakfast into the waste disposal chute when James' back was turned and left for the showers before his father could say anything else to him.
James was sitting at his desk when Thomas arrived at 8:30. He started at the sound of the pneumatic door opening, and quickly slid his notebook into his desk drawer as Thomas crossed the threshold.
"You're early," he said cheerily.
Thomas shrugged, and James cut him off before he could respond. "There aren't any appointments scheduled for today, so you're going to go through the store room today."
Thomas groaned. "What for?"
"It's a mess," James said. "I don't think anyone's cleaned it out in years. I have no idea what all's in there."
"I didn't study for two years to be a janitor." It was the most openly defiant thing he'd ever said to his father. He wasn't sure if he should be proud or ashamed.
James fixed him with a look that clearly said, 'you're being ridiculous.' "And I didn't study for 10 to be back talked by an 18-year-old. You can clean the storeroom or you can go home." His tone made it clear that there would be no further argument, and Thomas' newfound defiance died in its infancy.
The overhead light didn't turn on immediately when Thomas hit the switch. It flickered for a moment, then turned on. The fixture was coated with dust, and its lazy, wan light didn't do much to dispel the darkness.
The clinic storeroom was long and narrow, with low, sloping ceilings. It was a labyrinth of industrial shelving units and broken-down machinery. Every flat surface was stacked high with metal crates and dusty cardboard boxes. 200 years of doctors had filled the room with their cast offs and miscellaneous supplies, and not one had ever bothered to organize any of it.
Thomas spent thirty seconds despairing at the mess of stray crutches, expired medications, and broken-down wheelchairs. It would take at least a week to clean the room out, longer to decide what was worth keeping and what could be relegated to the incinerator.
He pitched a heavy sigh, made a mental note to add 'clean the light fixture' to his to-do list, and opened the box nearest to him.
It contained pamphlets for the racks in the clinic. Thomas rifled through the box, pausing to read the titles. There were a few hundred copies of Nicotine: the Wonder Drug and Is Your Child Retarded?, along with You and Your Illegitimate Child and The Transorbital Lobotomy: A Primer.
He was about to consign the entire box and its contents to the incinerator when he noticed a stray pamphlet at the very bottom of the pile, half-hidden underneath the box's interior flaps.
It had an illustration of a pensive Vault-Boy, a heart in a thought bubble over his head. The title was printed discreetly in the corner: The Dangers of Homosexuality.
"Homosexuality," the pamphlet began, "is a disease of the mind. Homosexual individuals demand intimate relationships with persons of the same sex. It is as contagious and potentially dangerous as smallpox or polio."
Thomas suddenly felt faint. The nauseous feeling of that morning returned in force, but he couldn't make himself stop reading.
"The homosexual is a perverted and deeply disturbed individual. He or she is a threat to Vault security and the American way of life. If you suspect that you or someone you know may be homosexual, report to your overseer or physician for a mental evaluation."
The pamphlet went on to list signs and symptoms of homosexuality: lingering in the showers, lack of appetite, interest in musical theater, secretive behavior, hairy palms, blindness, a lack of interest in sexual relations with members of the opposite sex.
According to the pamphlet, homosexuality caused marriages to fail and children to disobey their parents. "An outbreak of homosexuality can damage the very foundations upon which traditional family values are built. The untreated homosexual is as dangerous to life, liberty, and the American way as the communist."
The pamphlet ended on an optimistic note. Homosexuality could be cured, through diet, exercise, and early marriage. "With early detection and proper treatment, the homosexual go on to lead a normal life," the pamphlet concluded cheerily.
Thomas's hands were shaking. He refolded the pamphlet and shoved it unceremoniously into the back pocket of his Vault Suit. He stood and pressed his forehead to the cool metal paneling of the storeroom wall. The cold eased his developing headache, but it did nothing for the shakes in his hands or the knot in his stomach.
All the guys his age were interested in girls, and the girls were all interested in guys. He feigned interest whenever the other boys talked about whose tits were biggest and who put out. Such talk was inescapable, even for someone who'd never really been one of the guys.
He'd always been the odd man out, but he had assumed that he was a late bloomer, that he'd develop an interest in girls someday. Nevermind that he had a crush on Jonas when he was little, never mind that he was more interested in bodybuilding magazines than in his father's pin-ups.
It didn't help that there was a word, a real word, with a Latin root, for what we was. Homosexual. He supposed it was better than 'faggot' or 'fairy,' but not by much. He didn't like the clinical sound of it.
He had heard of homosexuality before, of course. Mr. Brotch had never married, and rumor had it that Beatrice Armstrong was "funny like that." There were the usual epithets and slurs scrawled on desks and bathroom stalls, and in health class, they had watched an educational video about a series of boys who'd been caught up in unspeakable relationships with older men.
The topic was taboo. Thomas had only ever heard of it spoken of in cautionary tales and rumors. It was something that happened to other people, people with dirty minds and weak constitutions.
It was certainly not the kind of thing that Thomas would involve himself in.
Thomas wasn't a criminal. His parents had been married; he had been valedictorian. The worst thing he'd ever done (besides breaking Amata's heart and Butch's nose) was getting drunk off spiked punch at prom. And he hadn't even been caught doing that, his only citation was for noise making and rowdiness after prom.
He wasn't like Butch, with his single mother and mile-long criminal record. Thomas didn't drink or shirk duty or question authority. He was a model citizen, and it just seemed so unfair that he should be homosexual while Butch and his cadre of thugs were completely normal.
The thought of Butch made his stomach lurch. He sat down amid the boxes and dust of the storeroom and wondered if he was in love with Butch DeLoria. He thought he might be; Butch had always inspired the kind of feelings that he was afraid to talk to James about. The kind of feelings, he realized, that he should be having for Amata.
"Thomas?" James poked his head through the open door. "I didn't hear you moving around in here. Are you feeling alright?"
"I think I'm coming down with something."
He didn't have a fever, but he looked terrible enough that James let him leave early, with orders to make himself a mug of tea and go straight to bed.
Thomas didn't go home; he went to Amata's apartment, the phrase diet exercise early marriage echoing through his mind. He let himself in and found her sitting on her bedroom floor, looking at an ancient copy of Ladies' Day and listening to a Little Richard album.
She looked up when he came in. Her face registered surprise for a moment before she regained her composure and put on a mask of cool indifference.
"Hey," she said.
Thomas stopped short, not really sure what to say. It was his fault that they'd grown apart in the last year. He had been the one to shut her out without explanation; she had every right to be angry with him.
He decided to start with the basics. "I'm sorry."
Her nose wrinkled, but she didn't respond.
The silence was unbearable. He talked to fill it, rather than out of a genuine desire to explain himself. "I- I've been a crap friend this past year. You don't deserve it. I'm sorry."
She stared at him, evidently at a loss for words. "Well," she said finally, "What are you going to do to make it up to me?"
He took a deep breath to steady himself. "I was hoping you'd let me take you out sometime," he blurted.
"Out? Like on a date?"
"Yeah," he said, lamely.
She stared at him for so long he was afraid she'd burst out laughing. "Please, Amata," he said, "Let me make it up to you."
She shook her head and set the magazine aside. "I can't believe you."
Thomas' stomach dropped into his knees.
"Haven't you heard? I'm going steady with Paul Hannon."
His head snapped up. "What?"
She shrugged, and a faint, self-conscious smile tugged at her lips. "Yeah, stupid," she said. "Six months now."
Thomas did the math in his head. They had to have dated for at least four months before they'd gone steady, which meant that Paul had asked her out in August or September of the previous year, barely two months after prom.
Which meant she'd gotten over him quickly, or she hadn't cared as much about him as he thought she had. He realized that he didn't really know her, not as a person.
Amata was smart. She was charismatic. She'd always stuck up for him because she was brave and loyal and a good friend. Not because she loved him. She was impatient and stubborn, and she didn't always say what she meant, but she was principled and clever, and she was a lot better friend to Thomas than he deserved.
Thomas wasn't a good friend. Not in the last year, and not ever. He was fatalistic and narcissistic. He was a coward.
"Really?" he said, weakly. "Six months. Wow."
Six months was practically an engagement.
"Yeah," she said, and an absent-minded half smile crept across her face. It was a private smile, and Thomas recognized it as the one his father wore whenever he talked about Catherine.
In that moment, he knew he'd lost.
Amata was in love with Paulie Hannon. And seeing her, silly and stupid and changed by love, Thomas wondered how he ever could have thought she was in love with him.
She'd be Overseer one day, and Paul would be chief Engineer. They'd get married and be good Vault citizens and have hordes of kids. And Thomas would be alone, unmarried, butt of jokes and subject of malicious rumors.
His stomach seized up, and he thought he might be sick. In that moment, he hated Amata for falling in love with Paul and closing herself off to him. He knew he was being unfair to her, he didn't love her as anything but a sister (and he didn't he ever would), but he was going to be alone forever, and it was all her fault.
That night, Thomas crumpled The Dangers of Homosexuality into a ball and threw it in the garbage chute. James was still at the clinic, so Thomas fixed himself dinner and ate alone in the kitchen. He went to bed early and laid with his back to the room.
He couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned, kicked the covers off the bed and got up to retrieve them, but he couldn't get comfortable. He checked the clock periodically. Time moved slowly, in irregular, five-minute stretches. He stared at the ceiling and calculated how much sleep he'd get if he fell asleep at that exact moment.
He heard his father come in at 8:30. Thomas wondered, not for the first time, what his father was doing in the clinic after hours. There were no patients after six in the evening, and no work that couldn't be left until the next day. But as always, whenever Thomas caught himself wondering, he reminded himself of his own need for privacy. Everyone was entitled to alone time, so what if his father took his in the clinic? It was nothing he should worry about, at any rate.
He laid still until 9:30, listening to the night sounds of his father readying himself for bed and the Vault settling around him. It was comforting, familiar, and the muted rushing of water through pipes and humming of distant machinery eventually lulled him to sleep.
Months passed, and Thomas settled into a routine. He did menial, administrative work around the clinic, leaving James and Jonas free to focus on patients. Thomas filed paperwork, filled prescriptions, and kept the appointment book. It was uneventful, but it kept his mind off Amata, Paul, and Butch. Nothing happened, and liked it that way.
Things didn't start going downhill until that summer. In the months leading up to his 19th birthday, climate control shut down four times. Even with Stanley Armstrong, Christine Kendall, and Andy working maintenance, the reactor couldn't supply enough power to run the HVAC system. The Overseer instituted a ban on "energy wasting personal electronics" and run the system at half power between 8 in the evening and 5 in the morning to conserve energy.
Everyone grumbled about giving up their record players and toasters, but for a while, it seemed like it would be enough to prevent the reactor from overloading. That was before the rest of the Vault's systems began shutting down.
He was counting pills the first time the sprinklers went off. The tepid deluge instantly soaked through his suit, drenching him in rank, brown sludge. Decades of sitting unused in pipes had turned the water in the emergency sprinklers to rusty ooze.
The downpour continued for another thirty seconds before stopping. Thomas had enough time to gag and stagger out of the clinic. The stench of stagnant water followed him into the hall, where he almost collided with Butch DeLoria.
He'd seen little and less of Butch since they'd graduated the year before. He'd been too busy helping James in the clinic while Butch read 200-year-old fashion magazines and tried to keep his gang together.
Or, at least, that's what Thomas told himself. The truth of it was that he'd been avoiding Butch. He'd let his hair get long, ignoring demands from his father and the overseer that he cut it. He decided he'd rather put up with their bullshit than face Butch.
"God, Tommy, you been rollin' in shit?" Butch gagged shoved him away.
"It's water," he said. "The sprinklers went off."
"Seriously?" Butch peered into the sodden clinic. "I been down here all day, didn't hear the fire alarm."
"It didn't go off," said Thomas. "It must have malfunctioned."
"Maybe you got a burst pipe. You should get maintenance down here. Look at that shit." He suddenly remembered he had a reason to be at the clinic. "Anyway. I gotta pick up my mom's prescription."
"I was getting it ready when the sprinklers went off."
"So it's not ready?"
Thomas gave him a look. "No Butch, not yet."
"Jeez, just asking." Butch glared at him, and Thomas' heart was suddenly pounding in his throat.
"I, uh," said Thomas before lapsing into silence.
They stared at one another for another long moment before Butch broke the silence.
"God, your hair's long. When are you gonna come get a haircut?"
Thomas' hand went to his hair, wet and stinking from his unexpected shower. "I've been busy."
"Well, it looks like shit."
It was Thomas' turn to glare. "Thanks," he said dryly, and Butch laughed.
"I mean, it's kind of cool. I'll bet it pisses the overseer off."
"It does. My dad, too."
Butch nodded in approval. "You should gel it or something if it's gonna be long."
Thomas didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. He ran his hand through it his hair again, resolved to cut it as soon as he could.
Butch cleared his throat. "I gotta go. Later, Tommy." He turned and left, his hands in his coat pockets, his polished boots clicking loudly against the poured concrete floor.
Thomas watched him go, wondering idly if he'd come by again to pick up his mother's medication, or if she'd come for it herself. He tried to push the question from his mind and went back into the clinic. He found a pad of mostly dry paper in a desk drawer, and wrote a note to his father, explaining what had happened, then set out for the showers.
Butch DeLoria ran his barber shop out of his mother's apartment. Ellen DeLoria was a permanent fixture there, her mousy hair coming out of its pin curls, her bony hand wrapped around a chipped "World's Best Mother" mug full of gin and fruit juice. She might have been a beauty at 17, but she had aged gracelessly. Her skin was sallow and hung loosely on her frame. Her voice grated, and her favored scent was strong and overly sweet.
Her perfume and her too-loud laughter filled the small apartment. Butch was clearly embarrassed to have her around, but there was nothing he could do. The overseer had rejected his application for a housing transfer ("he said, 'unmarried privately housed individuals contribute to the moral decline of the Vault society,' or some shit," Butch explained), so he was stuck living with his mother and cutting hair in their cramped living room.
Thomas was on edge throughout his appointment. Butch sat him down on a dining chair in the middle of his living room and draped a bedsheet around his shoulders. Ellen sat on the sofa, her knees inches from Thomas'. She offered some of her "special punch" and asked after his father, whether he was lonely.
Thomas was too polite to ignore her, so he answered her questions in stilted monosyllables while Butch cleared his throat and asked pointedly if she had any errands to run.
"Oh, no Butchie," she said, refilling her mug. "Nothing that needs doing today. Now what was your little friend's name again?"
It took Butch thirty minutes to finish cutting Thomas' hair. He was relieved beyond words when Butch whisked the sheet away and brushed the clippings off his shoulders.
He shuddered when Butch's hand brushed the back of his neck. His mind immediately filled with pink fog, and he realized he could smell Butch's pomade. He stood up so quickly that he nearly whacked his head on the low ceiling of Butch's apartment.
"I gotta go," he stammered. He rushed out of the room and into the hallway, the pneumatic door shutting off the sound of Ellen's voice, "Tell your father I said 'hello,' Timothy."
Thomas turned a corner into a dead-end hall, and took a moment to collect himself. He could still smell Butch's pomade, still feel the brush of his fingers on his neck. His heart was pounding in his chest and his entire body tingled. He ran his hands compulsively over the back of his neck, marveling at the sensation of touch, at the faint whiff of Butch's pomade.
The raw, unfamiliar sensation of the moment was undercut by the lead weight in his stomach. Giddiness and dread washed over him in alternating waves. He liked Butch, liked him in that way, but the reality of the situation was inescapable. Liking Butch put them both in danger.
And yet, Thomas couldn't stop himself from fixating on the memory of Butch's touch. It had been slight, accidental, but it had set electricity coursing through his veins. He tried to think rationally, to ground himself, but he couldn't stop coming back to the scent of pomade and the feel of Butch's hand on his neck.
He had inherited a few holotapes from his father, sentimental love songs from before the war. Thomas listened to them that night, and for the first time, he understood what the singer meant when she sang about easy living.
The next several weeks passed restlessly. Thomas didn't know whether to hide from Butch or seek him out, whether he should be ashamed or exhilarated. He thought about Butch often; the shape of his mouth, the smell of his pomade. The sound of his voice, mellow and cocksure.
He dreamed about Butch and about sex, but he wasn't sure how two male bodies would fit together. He had a real clear picture of what boys and girls did, but same-sex couples were a complete unknown. He only knew that he wanted to touch and be touched, to relieve the pressure building in his gut. He wanted, in a way he never had before. This was lust, and it was as unfamiliar to him as love.
He worked in the clinic and kept to himself. When he was alone, he fantasized about skin-on-skin, teeth and tongues and probing fingers, insistence and dominance. He lay in bed, full of want, and let his mind wander.
When his daydreams weren't explicit, they where childish in their idealism. Thomas was a Vaultie, born and raised. He had imprinted on 101, accepted its ways as his own. Even though it was unattainable, he thought about married life: sharing a bed and an apartment and a life, raising children, coming home from work and talking about the day.
He went back for a second hair cut six weeks after he had gotten the first. He had seen Butch only twice in the interim, once in the clinic, picking up a prescription for his mother, and once in the hall on the way to the shower. They hadn't really spoken either time, just nodded and exchanged pleasantries. It was what was expected of them as former classmates and onetime enemies.
The DeLoria's apartment was empty when Thomas arrived for his 4 o'clock appointment. He waited in the hall, nerves jangling, stomach churning.
Butch showed up at 4:30. He didn't apologize for his lateness, just hustled Thomas into the apartment and sat him down on the dining chair in the living room. He turned on his Pipboy radio and rolled his sleeves up, taking a moment to admire himself in the mirror before he got out the clippers and went to work.
They didn't talk. Thomas suppressed a weird shiver of delight at Butch's touch. His heart was pounding and he was drunk off His proximity to Butch and the smell of pomade, but the familiar nausea had settled in his gut, stronger than 18 (almost 19) years of pent-up want.
He wanted Butch. Wanted him in every way he should have wanted Amata, his best friend of 17 years. He wanted to hold Butch's hand and to fuck him senseless, wanted to make a life with him and to kiss every inch of his body.
But he also wanted to live peaceably, unbothered by rumors of strange predilections and perverted fantasies. He didn't want to be found out and dragged before the overseer, prescribed tranquilizers and sleep aids and a wife.
And as potent as his lust was, his shame was stronger. He wanted Butch, maybe even loved him, but he wasn't worth the risk. No one was.
"So my mom had a doctor appointment," Butch said, conversationally.
Thomas wasn't really interested in small talk. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. We got lunch in the diner and went to the commissary before her appointment."
"Oh," said Thomas. "That why you were late?"
"Yeah."
Thomas waited for Butch to continue, but he didn't. The anecdote hung awkwardly in the air between them. Thomas listening to the buzzing of the clippers, the tinny sound of a brass band over the speaker on Butch's pipboy. The room smelled like cigarette smoke, Ellen DeLoria's perfume, and Butch's pomade.
"So you're a doctor now," Butch said, evidently determined to make conversation.
"No."
"I thought-"
"I have another year of on-the-job training before I can take the test. Until then, I'm just aiding my dad."
"Oh."
They lapsed into silence. Butch held out for another thirty seconds before he spoke again.
"My mom really likes your dad."
Thomas shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Ellen DeLoria's crush on his father was a favored subject of the local rumor mill. There was nothing Butch could say that Amata hadn't already told him (after overhearing her father discuss the matter with Stanley, who heard it from his daughter, Beatrice, who'd seen Ellen hanging around the clinic after hours), and it was not a topic he was eager to discuss, least of all with Butch.
"Yeah?" Thomas said, finally.
"Yeah," Butch said, lamely. "Sorry she hangs around all the time."
"I don't mind," said Thomas. It was a lie. Thomas minded, very much. Ellen used to schedule play dates between Butch and Thomas. When she came over to drop Butch off or pick him up, she'd invite herself into their apartment for coffee and fuss over the dirty dishes in the sink and the state of the knees on Thomas' jumpsuits. She'd put her hands on her hips and say that the place needed 'a woman's touch.'
She hadn't had a real excuse to visit since Butch and Thomas stopped getting along when they were seven and started school, but she still dropped in a few times a month. James was a gracious host, but Thomas didn't have the patience to entertain her.
Butch snapped the clippers off. "Really," he said. "You mean it?"
"Of course," said Thomas, not meaning it at all. "It's fine."
Butch whisked the cap away, folded it into a neat triangle. Thomas watched his small, dextrous hands, and bit his tongue.
"You and your dad are too good to me and mom," Butch said.
"Really, it's fine." Thomas was growing uncomfortable again. The room was too small, the radio too loud, the smell of Butch's pomade too strong. He wasn't thinking clearly.
He stood, suddenly, and found himself face to face with Butch, their chests practically touching. They stated at one another for a moment, neither moving.
That was when Butch kissed him.
It was unextraordinary, as far as second kisses go.. There were no fireworks, and the earth didn't move beneath his feet, but Thomas enjoyed it. They didn't knock teeth or foreheads or noses. It was pleasant and unforced, and it inflamed the want in Thomas' breastbone.
"Holy shit, Tommy" said Butch, when they broke apart.
Thomas didn't say anything. His heart was thudding in his chest, and a familiar weight settled in his stomach. The kiss had short circuited the rational, nervous part of his brain, but with the absence of Butch's lips on his, all his earlier worries came rushing back in to fill the void. His hands shook, his gorge threatened to rise, and some small piece of his carefully arrayed world caved in on itself.
"You suck at kissing."
Thomas looked so stricken that Butch immediately backtracked.
"I mean, you haven't had much practice. It's okay." He reached out to put a hand on Thomas' shoulder.
Thomas panicked and slapped Butch's hand away. "Don't touch me," he snarled, and before he could stop himself, "faggot."
He regretted it as soon as he said it. He opened his mouth to apologize, but it was too late. Butch's expression soured. His hands formed fists at his sides, and Thomas instinctually took a step back.
"The fuck did you call me, freak."
It wasn't a question. They both knew exactly what Thomas had said, the only question remaining was whether Butch would kick his ass or let him run away.
Thomas opened his mouth, closed it again. Tried to think of how to explain himself, how to calm the raw, unconstrained fury in Butch's grey eyes.
Even as he struggled to find words, he knew there was nothing he could say. He didn't have an excuse ("I'm afraid" and "I hate myself" seemed inadequate), for what he'd said. And even if he did, he doubted Butch would accept his apology. Thomas wouldn't, in his shoes.
"Get the fuck out of here, freak."
Thomas didn't need to be told twice.
Thomas didn't sleep that night. He lay awake, consumed by self-loathing, watching the glow-in-the-dark hands of his Vault Boy clock count travel in an even circle around the clock's face. He remained in bed for a full 14 hours before James roused him and made breakfast.
Thomas spent his work day moping in the clinic storeroom, his hands in his pockets. His mood oscillated between self-pity and anger (at himself, at Butch for forcing himself to confront his homosexuality, at the overseer and Vault-Tec, at everything).
When Butch kissed him, he had (briefly) had everything he wanted in the world: a job in the clinic, a steady future, and someone to share it with. It was his own damn fault Butch hated him, his own fault for lying to himself about what he was.
He was homosexual, gay, a fairy, a faggot. And despite the fatalistic words written down in a pamphlet by a Pre-War governing board, he was no longer sure that was a bad thing.
Butch had kissed him first. He hadn't coerced him or gotten him drunk. Butch had done it freely, carelessly. As if it weren't illegal. As if it weren't the biggest and most dramatic moment of Thomas' entire life.
Butch had kissed him first, and Thomas had hurled the ugliest word in his vocabulary at him.
And he hated himself for it, more than he had ever hated himself for being gay.
The next three months passed slowly. Butch got written up for cussing out Susie Mack when she came in for a haircut. James spent all his time shut up in the clinic. Amata was busy with Paulie, Jonas with work. Thomas felt neglected and claustrophobic. The Vault was suddenly cramped and stifling, and he could feel it closing in around him while he slept. He was worried that he was losing his mind, but when he told his father about it, James admitted to feeling the exact same way.
And then, one morning, he was gone.
Thomas woke to claxons and the sound of distant gunfire. His head was pounding, and Amata pressed a 10mm into his hand and told him to run.
The gun terrified him. Nevertheless, he strapped the holster to his thigh, armed himself with a baseball bat, and set out for the secret tunnel in the Overseer's office. He found Jonas' body and a recorded message from his father. He listened to it as he sprinted through identical steel halls, dodging bullets from men he'd known all his life.
He was nearly to the Overseer's office when the sound of his own name stopped him.
"Tommy!" He turned to see Butch DeLoria, grimy and bleeding from a massive cut on his face. "Tommy, you gotta help me!"
With half the Vault in flames and the other half on the lookout for him, Thomas didn't have the time to stop. He did anyway, compelled by an old crush and new desperation.
Thomas had never seen Butch lose his cool. He had seen him angry plenty of times, seen him drunk and puking, but he'd never seen him panic. He'd never seen him bloodied and frantic, his hair mussed and his world in disarray
"It's my mom, man," he yelled over gunfire and muffled shouts, "you gotta help my mom."
Ellen DeLoria had been cornered by a swarm of radroaches. She was crouching in a corner of her cramped living room, one hand over her face, the other swinging wildly at the roaches with a bottle of gin. She didn't hear his approach, didn't even notice him until he'd killed the bugs and hauled her to her feet. Even then, she seemed to look through him, rather than at him.
She patted him on the cheek. "Timothy," she said, vacantly, "Where is he? Where's my Butchie?"
Thomas delivered her into her son's arms. She fell on him, and they embraced fiercely. She sobbed, Butch scowled, as if daring the world to do anything to part him from his mother. Thomas made brief eye contact with Butch over his mother's shoulder, then made his exit.
Thomas didn't take the direct route to the Overseer's office. He cut through apartments and seldom-used hallways, bypassing most of the men looking for him.
He was completely numb. Nothing he had seen that morning had made an impression on him. It had been barely half an hour since Amata shook him awake, but he felt as though eternities had passed since then. His father was gone, Jonas was dead, the Overseer had issued orders to shoot him on sight. He had a stolen gun in his waistband, a baseball bat in his clenched fists. He went out of his way to avoid security personnel, but if he had encountered anyone, he would have shot them.
And that didn't frighten him as much as it should have.
Butch was waiting for him in the Overseer's office, a switchblade clenched in his right hand. Some of the tension left his wiry frame when he looked up to see Thomas framed in the door.
"I thought they got you," he said.
Thomas shrugged. "I took the long way. They were all searching on the main level."
"Smart," Butch tapped his temple. "I woulda run straight here. That's why you're Valedictorian and I'm a barber."
Thomas was surprised by the bitterness in Butch's voice. He didn't know how to respond, so he changed the subject. "How'd you know I was headed here?"
"The tunnel to the entrance. Easiest way out from this level."
"How did you even know about the tunnel?"
"The blueprints are all saved on the computer mainframe. Pretty easy to access on your Pip Boy, if you know how."
"Really?" Thomas didn't know if he was more surprised that the Vault blueprints were saved on the mainframe, or that Butch had been able to access them. "That's impressive."
"I like computers," said Butch, self-consciously.
"No," said Thomas. "I think it's cool."
Butch snorted. "You would."
They stared at one another for a moment. The silence was punctuated by the muffled gunfire and distant screams.
"I came to say good-bye," Butch said, softly.
"Yeah?"
"I'll miss you, Tommy." Butch reached out for him, and they embraced. Thomas kissed him, leaving them both breathless. It was extraordinary, as far as third kisses go.
Butch was smiling when they broke apart. "Not bad, Tommy."
"I'm a quick learner."
"You got a good teacher."
They reached an impasse, staring at one another uncertainly.
Thomas broke the silence. "So that's good-bye, then?"
"Yeah," said Butch. "I guess."
"I guess so."
Thomas turned his back on Butch. He logged onto the Overseer's terminal and found the option to open the tunnel. He watched apprehensively as the desk slid back, revealing a set of stairs descending down into darkness.
"Wait."
He turned to look at Butch, who shrugged off his leather jacket.
"Here. Take this." He held the coat out to Thomas, who accepted it.
He slipped it on over his Vault Suit. "Thanks, Butch," he said, softly.
Butch waved his gratitude away. "Don't worry about it," he said, all machismo and false bravado. "I've got an extra."
Thomas smiled. "Thanks anyway. For everything." He kissed Butch on the cheek and started down the tunnel, conscious of the sound of gunshots and shouts, growing louder.
"Hey Tommy," Butch called as Thomas was halfway down the tunnel.
"Yeah?"
"I hope you find your dad."
Thomas turned back and looked at Butch for the last time. He was small and distant, Thomas was in love with him, and he doubted that he would ever see him again. And he couldn't say any of that, so what he said was, "Goodbye," and then he left.
He realized, after the Vault door closed behind him, that the scent of Butch's pomade clung to the worn leather jacket, its presence faint but definite.
THE END