A/N De-anon from the kink meme. Each of these stories has different pairings for sex stuff, but uses the same LW and should be consistent plotwise. The overarching pairing is M!LW/Butch. They skip around in time and should, theoretically, function as one-shots. See top of each chapter for notes about content. Some of these are very adult on a number of levels.

In this chapter: no explicit sex, implied M!LW/Butch, implied M!LW/Charon, some sort of slashy bits between M!LW/Harkness. Slavery, mild drug use, violence/physical abuse, really unlikable LW.

The three of them touched down Rivet City like damn tornadoes. Two vault kids and a giant ghoul. They had been through before, well, the blond vault kid in sunglasses and the ghoul. Asking around after the kid's dad and generally harassing Dr. Li and the other scientists. Didn't seem like such a problem then, more of an annoyance.

Then there were the rumors, later the confirmation, about what happened down the road at the Jefferson Memorial. Kid's dad died, scientists were evacuated. None of that particularly troubled Harkness. His ducks were in a row and Rivet City was safe, secure, peaceful. He remained vigilant, but he wasn't worried. Wasn't his job to waste time on other trifles. Was his job to keep the boat safe.

The second time they came through the boat, it was the three of them. Blond vault kid, brunet vault kid, scary ghoul. Harkness liked the ghoul best though. Ghoul spent his time on the upper deck smoking quietly and staying out of everyone's way. Maybe just a tip of the hat when Harkness was on his rounds. The ghoul gave him no problems.

The vault kids on the other hand.

They spent their days breaking into other people's rooms, harassing visitors and locals alike, and playing with explosives just on the other side of the bridge. Tossing grenades and smacking them into the distance with a baseball bat. At least it was on the other side of the bridge. But still, the bangs and pops were quite the disturbance. He should be so lucky that they blow themselves up.

One night Harkness was called down to the Muddy Rudder because the kids got into a bar fight. That wasn't his jurisdiction, but apparently it ended with the brunet pulling down his vault suit and the blond's face falling into his lap 'accidentally'. Brock said he wasn't handling that shit.

A week later the brunet vault kid got up in his face and it became apparent why the two of them had been sneaking around other people's rooms all the time. The blond smiled sheepishly as the brunet read out the recall code. As Harkness reset, the kids exchanged caps.

Turned out, they had 'him' backed-up on the blond's Pip-boy.

So now, there was no way to get these kids off the damn ship. Being a runaway android babysitting spoiled brats was exactly what Harkness planned on doing with the rest of his life. They apparently decided to take up permanent residence on the ship. Brunet cut people's hair and blond seemingly did nothing all day but buy junk from one vendor and manage to sell it to another at a higher price. Never took off his sunglasses either. Even inside the ship. Even at night. Even inside the ship at night.

The ghoul just bought packs of cigarettes. The ghoul was fine by Harkness's reckoning.

"Hey, Droid." It was the brunet vault kid, his leather jacket tied around his hips and the zipper of his suit halfway down. He had a pack of cigarettes in his hand, offering one to Harkness.

"I thought we agreed not to speak of this."

The kid shrugged and Harkness refused the offered cigarette.

"Shouldn't you be with your hooligan friend, anyway?"

"Nah man," the kid hung over the railing overlooking the marketplace. If he leaned over any more he might have an unfortunate accident. "Tate's busy; getting plowed by Charon."

Right, the three permanent visitors had names. Charon, Butch, Tate. Wait, what had Butch said? It was probably in Harkness's best interest to ignore that statement and just move on with his life.

With surprising agility, Butch raised his entire weight up and over the railing using the strength in his arms, flipping over the bar and landing on the marketplace floor below. "See ya, Droid."

Fucking vault kids.

Somehow the vault kids thought they could get away with testing their little explosives on the deck, rather than across the bridge like they used to. Harkness was on the receiving end of some very frantic messages that those boys were nearly blowing their hands off. Good. But he had to minimize damage to the boat, so he had to go break them up.

By the time he made it into the muggy D.C. air, the vault kids had abandoned their smoldering pile of crude explosives and were fighting each other. Not in a friendly way, far as Harkness could tell.

He could also tell that the kids were shit with explosives, from the smell he could make out the chemical composition. They were better with their fists. They had no idea what they were doing, they were just being menaces.

Since harm to the ship would be minimal with a fist fight, and they would eventually tire themselves out, Harkness instead went to stand by Charon. The ghoul offered him a cigarette and he accepted, lighting it and then offering his own lighter in return. They stood against the railing watching the kids scratch and claw and scream.

"Aren't you supposed to be that one's bodyguard?" That one being the slightly-shorter blond.

"Aren't you supposed to be the chief of security?" No argument there.

When they had finished their cigarettes, Harkness took out his own pack and offered one to Charon.

"What is this even about?" Harkness didn't expect any sort of reasonable answer. These kids didn't seem to have any rhyme or reason to what they did. Stuff just happened for the sake of stuff happening. They were the worst type to have to contend with.

"Butch doesn't want Tate using me for intercourse anymore. Says I loosen him up too much," the ghoul would have been smirking, if he had lips.

Well, that's a way to get a guy to regret trying to make friends.

Harkness didn't know where the vault kids found so much spray paint. Just at some point they got tired of painting giant white penises and 'FUCK THE ENCLAVE' on the walls of storage rooms and then decided to huff the gas inside the cans instead. Vera found them twitching and wheezing on the floor when she went for a fresh box of detergent.

It was unclear how the penises were supposed to help in their vendetta against the Enclave, or what the storage rooms had particularly done to offend their sensibilities.

All the whiskey bottles in the Muddy Rudder had been filled with red wine. All the red wine bottles had been refilled with whiskey. Gin had been found taped to the ceiling. The beer had remained untouched.

Harkness knew the vault kids only drank beer. Or at least they only drank beer now, after Tate spent hours throwing up all over himself in the abandoned science lab, mumbling about what a disappointment he had been to his father and clutching a bottle of vodka like it was his best friend.

If he wasn't such a shithead, Harkness might have felt bad for the kid. But yeah, he was probably a disappointment.

When Mister Buckingham repeated nothing but "Seagrave sucks horse cock" over and over again, Harkness's hands were tied.

He may have ended up ratted out the the Commonwealth, he may have ended up reset, again, but he couldn't stay here as the head of security and do nothing about those fucking vault kids who had nothing better to do all day but cause trouble and cut hair and buy things only to sell them back.

"Hey, Droid, you wanted me?"

Harkness had decided on dealing with each boy individually. All the signs had pointed to these being joint operations. Neither were tall enough to reach the ceiling of the Rudder unassisted, they had been found together in the supply closet, and while Butch was apparently the one better with robots, well, it just had to be the both of them working together.

Tate was wearing his jumpsuit down, with the arms hanging loosely around his waist, exposing his undershirt. Ever present sunglasses shaded his eyes and the barest hint of black roots were apparent in his hair. He and Butch must have been fighting this week, normally his color was consistent, if obviously unnatural. He wouldn't be surprised if the kid just dipped his whole head in bleach to achieve the effect. Maybe he could just drown in it.

"Your behavior has been unacceptable." Harkness didn't really think that Tate could be reasoned with. Nothing about his behavior suggested that. Still he had to give it his best attempt, try and be civil.

"Dunno, being a runaway piece of expensive equipment is also pretty unacceptable." A direct threat and a smile on his lips the whole time.

Harkness's reaction times were rapid. Much more rapid than a human body could fathom. In one smooth motion he had Tate by the front of his dingy tee and his back pressed up against the wall of his office.

"Don't you dare tempt me, kid."

While initially the wind had been knocked out of him, as soon as he recovered his breath, Tate was running his mouth again. "You forget, I got a best friend with a violent streak and a giant comando slave that'll kick the shit out of you if anything happens. By the time they're done with you, the Commonwealth won't want your fancy robot ass back. There'll be nothing of value left."

Harkness tightened his grip on Tate's shirt, pulling him away from the wall before slamming him back against it. The fabric gave way and ripped as Harkness tried to keep the kid suspended in the air.

"Thought you were supposed to be fancy. Don't feel all that strong to me."

The punk was testing him, trying to draw a reaction. Yeah, Harkness was a machine, so he should have been able to control himself, but he was also a man, so he would give into impulse. The crack that resonated when Tate was thrown against the opposite wall was satisfying. He wasn't small, a bit short, but not small. Harkness had seen the vault kids in action enough times to know they were both muscular, vainly so. Mostly they used it to beat on each other.

"Yeah, Droid," Tate was wobbly on his feet. "Do it again."

This wasn't going to work. Harkness sent the kid away.

The vault kids had been off the boat for six days now. It was maybe too much to ask that they never return. Six days of uninterrupted meals and quiet nights. Life almost seemed normal again. Harkness could focus on relevant issues, like defending against super mutants and secretly doting on C.J. and Bryan, slipping them sweets. Bryan said Tate had been the one to save him; Harkness didn't believe it for one second.

Instead of using the intercom, like normal fucking people, Tate and Butch announced their arrival by throwing a grenade against the side of the boat. That was good enough of a provocation that Harkness didn't have one qualm at all returning fire.

If he wanted it, Harkness had access to perfect accuracy. Rarely did he use it. He knew well enough it was suspicious. Instead of aiming for the head, he hit Butch in the shoulder, Tate in the upper thigh. The ghoul wasn't with them.

They yelled and cursed, but neither drew their guns. Less than five minutes later, they slinked off, Butch helping Tate stumble along by offering his good shoulder. Tate's late father was supposed to be a doctor. They would probably live to see another day.

Another six weeks and the Brotherhood of Steel had taken Jefferson Memorial. Didn't much matter to Harkness who controlled the building, as long as they didn't cause the boat any trouble. He did smile though, when purified water began lapping at the hull.

Butch came back, alone. Didn't talk to anyone, didn't cause any problems. Just sat and drank, slept on a cot in the common room and sometimes cut hair.

In a round about way, Harkness heard that Tate was laid up at the Citadel. Coma. For weeks now. Dumb kid had activated the purifier as some sort of heroic final act. Wanted to go out like his father did. In a second hand way, Harkness felt like he knew about daddy issues.

Then one day, eight weeks later, Butch up and left real fast, left most of his things behind. Either Tate had died or woken up. Harkness didn't care which it was, so long as the two of them didn't come back. Life had been good.

Harkness almost didn't register the shortish blond head of hair and sunglasses as the kid whipped past him in the corridor. No, fucking no. Not again. Where there was one, there was sure to be another, but he had to make a decision and a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, so he took off after Tate. It was hard to be quiet with doors so heavy and he easily trapped the vault kid in Paulie's 'secret' stash room.

"Get off my ship."

"Hell no." Tate was out of breath and panting, being out cold for months probably resulted in an endurance decrease.

"Get off my ship."

"I haven't done anything wrong."

"You tried to blow the city up, on multiple occasions. You've been a thorn in my side and a menace to the people of this city."

"No I didn't. I haven't been. We were just messing around. Aren't I supposed to be some kind of hero or something? That's what everyone tells me."

Harkness pushed Tate against the broken filing cabinets easily, causing the kid to stumble backwards and land on his ass. "I don't care who you are out there."

"Fuck this, Butch'll reset you again. I could use a new slave." Every word Tate spoke was venom. How could anyone mistake him for a good person? Did he have everyone fooled? Did having an exceptional father give the kid a free pass at life? To assume he was so fucking special?

Everything escalated quickly. Tate seemed to have that effect on people.

Harkness grabbed Tate by the front of his vault suit, yanking him up off the floor and easily pinning him to the wall with one hand. Predictably, Tate fought back, kicking and punching with enough grace and enough power that he would have won against a flesh and blood human. He had all his angles right, gaining as much leverage as he could, extending his limbs further than he should have been able to, demonstrating exceptional flexibility. He pulled his legs to his chest and pushed out and against Harkness with tremendous force. But it wouldn't work. Harkness could just absorb all of it without flinching. This was the monster that the vault kids had revealed. They were probably so fucking proud of themselves too.

With his free hand, Harkness pulled the sunglasses right off the kid's face and smashed them under his boot. Tate's fighting stopped and instead he used his hands to shield his face. Behind his palms his voice roared.

"You fucking piece of shit robot motherfucker I'll have Butch take you apart piece by piece and I will piss on your insides you metal piece of crap I hope you short circuit and die."

Harkness punched him, augmented strength and all, full on the side of his face. There was a crack and Tate whimpered pathetically. At least that shut him up. Instinctively, his hands moved from his eyes and instead tried to protect his injured jaw. A swift boot to Tate's stomach and the kid coughed, hard and red and all over the front of his jumpsuit and the floor as he slid down the wall. The tremor that accompanied the cough clearly caused more pain in his jaw and he shuddered.

Clever boy, looking so completely broken and then sweeping Harkness's feet out from under him. The back of his head hit the floor, metal on metal with just a thin veneer of artificial flesh and hair. It was like Tate didn't know what he was up against, or didn't care.

When Tate spat again, it was in Harkness's face, full of blood and phlegm. The disgusting little shit.

The kid had climbed on top of Harkness and was hitting him in the face. Synthetic blood welled up from Harkness's nose, his split lip too. Tate had gotten him good. He was strong, a good fighter, but still a fragile, living thing. All bones and tendons and flesh, breakable things. Fury and desperation were apparent in Tate's dark-brown eyes. Kid wasn't an idiot, he couldn't beat an android to death and he knew it. Didn't know anything about robots, but he knew about fighting and he knew he was in trouble.

That Pip-boy on Tate's wrist was the greatest indignity of it all. The idea that Harkness was nothing but a collection of 1s and 0s that could be just as easily stored on this punk's wrist as in his sophisticated body. That he was merely a program written by a curious scientist in a very expensive casing.

Harkness grabbed hold of the Pip-boy and started twisting, yanking the thing off of the kid's wrist, but it wouldn't come. Instead of the mechanism coming away from Tate's skin, it twisted and pulled with his flesh. Tate's skin remained firmly attached to the Pip-boy and instead began ripping away from his muscle. Blood, warm and red, seeped out from under the casing and ran down Tate's hand and onto Harkness. He was skinning the kid. Fuck.

Harkness tossed the boy back across the room like he weighed nothing. Another shout from Tate filled the small room as his leg collapsed under his off-kilter weight. Broken. He would have to drag himself off the ship now. Maybe on his hands and knees. But his left arm hung largely useless as well.

"Shit, shit." Tate didn't speak again after that. His jaw probably hurt too much.

Always with the vault kids. Butch stalked his way across the marketplace, jumping up and grabbing hold of the platform so he could pull himself up and over the railing. Did these kids not believe in stairs? Also, they had clearly come from some vault that was making monkey hybrids, with the way they could move and twist and bend.

"You know why I'm here, Droid." Butch offered him a cigarette; Harkness refused.

"Suppose so." Harkness lit a smoke from his own pack instead.

"Tate wants to keep you."

"And you don't?"

There was another option. There was always running. Kill Tate, kill Butch, and run. But that would be letting go of the last piece of the man he thought he had been able to become. He'd have to remember this time. Remember that he beat the messed up boy who provided seemingly infinite clean water to the Wasteland until he couldn't walk, until he sobbed like the child he still clearly was. This was better, he wouldn't remember this way. Though he had a feeling that Tate and Butch would remind him. At least, this way, he wouldn't have to pretend to be a kind man, a good man, pretend to be a man at all.

Butch stood beside him, leaning over the railing and smoking his cigarette like they were having a casual conversation. Like they were talking about the damn weather.

"No, I don't." Butch inclined his head away from Harkness, obscuring his face as he spoke. "I'd rather watch you sink, while mirelurks chewed on your circuits." He stared out across the marketplace.

"Jealous?" Neither one of the vault kids seemed very good at keeping secrets. They were so obvious.

Tate was there, at the opposite end of the marketplace. The Pip-boy had switched from his bandaged left arm onto his right wrist. Sunglasses on, his face was impassive.

The brunet vault kid put out his cigarette butt on the railing.

"Activate A3-21 recall code viol..."