Dustland Lullaby
Type: Collective ones-shots.
Rating: Mature.
Summary: Just because you're a woman doesn't make you any less of a warrior with a shotgun.
Genre: Romance. Adventure. Hurt/Comfort. Family.
-I-
"Shotgun Sinner. The Saint of the Waste."
Mable White was a fidgety girl with fidgety taste.
She's a strange girl. Polite in a sense. Quiet the next; the round rim of her glasses and the thickness of the lens made her an easy target to ridicule. But she did well enough for herself, tried her best to feel and act normal; always trying to brush back blond hair that tended to tangle easily, or always straightening out and pulling at the collar of her jumpsuit when she felt burdened with something; she would bite her bottom lip a lot, correcting herself before she looked too vulnerable in front of her fellow peers. She had funny quirks, but was likeable enough by some adults and a few kids her own age.
Most people knew she hated talking and explaining herself. It left a lot of the vault dwellers bewildered considering that they were social creatures of the earth and Vault. No secrets were safe within the halls; it was always haunted by some form of story that could either be true or not. Mable White, however, had plenty of secrets and stories, and she spun them like a professional. Her witty, mercurial personality could either be looked at as a boon or a curse. When asked by others, 'just how did you come up with these funny little tales?' She would reply, "I read it once in a book. You should try it sometime."
Mable spent her childhood under florescent lighting, listening to the white noise of her father's clinic: the hum of a heart monitor in the distance, or the buzzing of electricity from overhead; now that she wanders the Wastes, or occupies a sleepy hollow of her home in Megaton, she can't find the same comfort to sleep like she did under the vault; she's blinded by the moon, haunted by the sun, and is still weary of the consuming skies overhead. To anyone, being fearful of the outside seemed off, but coming from a girl that took comfort in the ground, underneath earth and metal and regulated air conditioning - the outside was daunting.
Breeching the surface was traumatic enough for her, having Hell nip at her heels. The air of the Wastes was so dry that she couldn't stop the random nose bleeds, nor the painful way it rattled her sinuses; her lungs constricted, and she felt early convulsions shake her to the core. She wasn't accustomed to the unhealthy conditions of the Wastes. She had no idea that even touching the waters of the earth would burn the tips of her fingers; well, she did; but she was so thirsty at the time, and barely had enough caps to purchase a bottle of fresh water. Even under the glare of the sun, she found no solace; her fair skin wasn't use to the overexposure to ultraviolet light, and given time, freckles dotted her face and nipped at her shoulders; she spent the first two days in some backwater hotel trying to recuperate from the trauma of the Wastes and its side effects. She spent another week curled up in a ball, trying to battle through a sickness that was a product of the food and water that she consumed topside.
Mable missed the depths of the earth, cold and quiet; the only sound present in the halls was the chattering of conversation, rhythmic stomping of guards, and air filtration circulating the systems. She missed her father's small smiles, and the way that his pen scratched over his clipboard. She missed normal food, and clean water, and freshly pressed jumpsuits.
To many across the Wastes, she's the infamous Shotgun Sinner, a peace keeper to plenty. Just a Vault kid that knew how to pull out her own brand of gun diplomacy. A desert saint. Where she lacked in social ethics, she made up for it in kindly times with her paragon ways. She knew the usage of no, knew not to turn her back on a stranger, and always had time to exchange a song and tale; she wasn't stonehearted, but understood the properties of 'please' and 'no' out in the Wastes did not apply to its vocabulary.
So she adapted.
-I-
"I've told you: this means nothin'. Just couldn't let my best gal to rummage alone on the Wastes," Butch is weary as he peers out heavenward, watching the churning of smog-smitten skies that hung heavy around decaying buildings, ominously tilting and eroding away with age; ever so often rubble would move, glass would crunch under heels, and it would spur him closer to match Mable's unbreakable stride over a concrete graveyard. He covered his discomfort with smug undertones, and crooked smirks he would send her way to prove his point, biting down on the edge of his lit cigarette to settle his nerves.
Mable had no problem. Her resolve always seemed intact even with her ever fleeting mind; she barely noticed Butch's wayward attitude. She was too busy pinning at the locations on her Pip-Boy, a faint light glaring off the pane of her glasses.
"I asked if you wanted to join, and you joined. I'm not overthinking this." Mable stares up from the interface of her Pip-Boy, taking in her surroundings for a moment before returning her focus on their trail. "Try as you might; I'll let you believe anything to justify how you see this. I'm just surprised you came out with a do-gooder." Mable pauses for a moment, before slowing nodding her head with a soft smile etched in.
"Thank you for coming out with me, anyways. It means a lot, really."
"Don't mention it, Nosebleed."
The rucksack on her back jingled with her hurried walk; for a moment, watching her pace ahead of him, Butch casually wondered how such a skinny twig like Mable could survive in the vast unknown of the Wastes; she dodged hell and bullet showers, and still held her wit like a cross to her chest; it was a fragile existence, but it was still intact and held together with dignity and grace. She conned her way to the top with feminine charm. Butch didn't know if he should be afraid, or attracted to such a power. For a safe bet, Butch placed all his faith in being deathly afraid and stayed attracted from afar.
Hell, Butch watched Mable talk some square into running headlong through enemy gunfire for a Nuka-Cola once; just because she promised the man an opportunity in the indulgence of a threesome with her and some random broad with a Nuka-Cola addiction. Of course he died the moment he stepped out of the settlement, packing whatever pistol to this thigh, leaving Butch and Mable to watch his untimely demise - with no loss of sleep on their end. That man hauled ass like any man who's ever been offered a threesome with two pretty women out in the middle of the god-damned Wastes.
Butch knew if the man was successful in obtaining his end of the bargain Mable would have placed her own brand of bullet into the man's skull for being a creep and not laying off the girl Mable was helping. And if she didn't – Butch would've been more than obliged to his own score of vigilantly justice for once outside the Vault, because fuck any man or woman who decides to talk Mable up when she is obviously uncomfortable with the unwanted attention.
Butch knew he wouldn't have to resort in killing the man. Mable would have done it regardless. He remembered once, right before the G.O.A.T., that she frogged him good for teasing Amata – right in the face, too. Butch likes to pinpoint that's when he fell in love with her; he loved a girl that could kick his ass. He stared up at Mable with her fist clenched, and returned her glare with a goofy grin on his own - even while blood dripped from his nose and down his lips with her blow.
They made it to the edges of irradiated, lapping waters. A cross stood alone, chipped away and nailed together with care. Mable tried her best to push away the rubble and trash that would clutter over time, hands digging into charred earth and broken fragments of concrete. Butch simply snubbed the remains of his cigarette out of respect under his Vault issued boots, idly waiting for Mable to take her place on the ground first before he followed her movement; he knelt down in front of the cross, examined the makeshift grave, and merely nodded in acknowledgement.
"So this is where the ol' doc is restin' now," Butch hummed, not really sure what to make out of this situation. He felt as nervous as if he were standing in front of live Doctor James. He could just picture the distain on the doctor's face; he knew the doctor disliked him. The doctor, of course, had a damn good reason to hate him for the way he treated his daughter.
"No. Not really sure where the Enclave disposed of his remains after the project siege. They didn't really give me the chance to gather my father – nor, did my father for that matter," Mable looked over the empty grave with a feeble glance. She looked like a child scolded. "This is the best I could do. I guess it's my own form of closure."
"Sure. I get it. Always respected your old man. He never had anything really mean to say to anyone. Fixed my Ma up on more than one occasion. But hell, did he jab me hard in the arm with those needles during my physicals." Butch reached out, fingers skimming over the makeshift cross to test its stability, tracing over a painted name that's faded over a short amount of time. "I mean he dug into the muscle. Like it was his own form of a damn switchblade."
"I wonder why," Mable's hollow-point grin pressed thin on her lips, "I away did come back to our living quarters with some new story about that one kid down the hall who wouldn't leave me alone."
"Ah. Well, ya know. Maybe he just knew I couldn't keep my hands off his daughter." There's a brief chuckle, and it leaves Butch to finally sit back on the ground with Mable while she rolled her eyes over the stupidity of his childlike flirting; it left Butch to silently reminisce about Vault life and childhood with that certain look on her face. "I'm makin' my amends now, girl. Might as well come visit the ol' man considering our circumstance." Butch waited for Mable to scavenge through the lining of her bag, hoisting two bottles of purified water out and a flask of scotch: the doctor's favorite.
"Gotta ask for a blessing," Butch added.
"Even though we've already married. Never took you for a man to ask for a father's blessing. It's uncharacteristic if you'd ask me." Mable deadpanned, shoving the bottle water into Butch's grasp; he stopped her shy, grasping the wrist that held his bottle. Mable studied their position and his expression, and she could only shake her head in exasperation, but amusement soon prickled at the sides of her mouth. She's been too tired to sleep as of lately, and it was starting to drag her down. Butch kept his even smile, pulled her forward, and gave her a playful kiss in all the deliria.
He accepted the water with his other hand, hesitantly letting her wrist slip from his grasp with the other. "Well, good thing I'm not askin' you, right? Gotta get in good with pops, babe. God knows he wanted to poison me with whatever you two holed away in the clinic."
"He wouldn't dare. Though, I wouldn't put it pass him if he found the opportunity – desirable. He certainly had a means and a way," Mable uncapped her bottle, took her first sip, and then downed the remainder over her father's empty grave.
"Thanks babe, you always know how to make a man feel secure underneath all this weather." He tipped his bottle in her direction, took his own sip, and then followed Mable's example of dumping the water over the rubble. "Here's to you, doc."
They left the flask untouched and nestled under the cross.
