Disclaimer: I in no way, shape or form own Fallout 3, nor do I make any profit off of it. This particular character, and his game and two add on packs worth of adventures, on the on the other hand, is mine.

Veyers, who was mentioned in the last chapter, belongs to his creator.

Warning: This one's got some mild malexmale intimacy, so tread carefully if that isn't your cup of tea.

Kiri loved his house. He really did.

True, it had never been as airy as the Tenpenny Tower suites or secure as the vault rooms, and he had never been able to completely do away with the iguana-oil-and-feet scent that had plagued the place since day one, but it was hard earned back when he was just a ragged, lonely vault escapee struggling to find a bed, and it was his.

And even though he was fondly satisfied with all of it, from the threadbare, pre-war rug to the bursting locker to the lawn gnomes standing guard alongside the door (not to be mistaken for the scorched one upstairs sitting alongside the checkerboard…that was Cubert Gnome, and Cubert was family), he had a special place in his heart for two things in particular.

The first was his collection of deathclaw hands. They dotted the left wall in places, but mostly occupied a sizeable space between couch and locker, all preserved with a potent little chemical concoction courtesy of the Rivet City History museum, piled up carefully like a grotesque answer to the autumn leaf heaps of old. They had a tendency to make visitors discard tact and visibly grimace (not that he had many visitors), but Kiri adored them. Each one was a silent testament to not just one victory, but his long road to assimilation into wasteland life. At last, he was strong enough not to be their prey.

The second was his books.

Whatever else he happened to be, Kiri was an avid reader. Back in Vault 101, he had devoured and re-devoured the woefully small stock of books available, everything from the western folk tales that would later motivate him to become a Regulator, to War and Peace, to the controversial Vault Boy Has A Secret. That had not changed on the outside.

That was why he was marching home with his shoulders hunched under the sizeable weight he carried, mostly made up of the usual armor and guns, but pushed to the near-breaking point by over a dozen pre-war books. Stacked underneath a bed in a bombed out house, Kiri had nearly missed them; if it hadn't been for Blood nosing at a skeletal arm which had also rolled under there at some point, he surely would have.

Trotting at his Master's heels at a parallel slow pace, the dog snorted.

"I do not have my priorities in the wrong order, Blood. If I didn't take them, the raiders would have just used them to start a fire. Besides, what if there's something we could learn in here…and it saves our lives someday?" Although he didn't look down out of fear of tripping, he felt the dog's gaze, mismatched and disapproving. "No, I don't think so. I don't think the mines I dumped out would have done any more for us; they were just frag mines after all. No, not the guns either. We've got plenty of them"

Any further "conversation" came to a halt as they reached the steep path that reached into the upper levels of Megaton. The house may have been the first one on the block (so to speak), but the short climb had his spine crying out in protest.

"Anyway," he said, fumbling with his keychain singlehandedly. "I think I saw a cookbook in there. I'll see if I can tweak one and make us some better Brahmin steak, alright?"

Blood's ears shot up. Even if he had never understood a single other word his owner had ever said to him during their time together, he was quite familiar with "steak." Kiri laughed as the door swung open, he stepped inside—

And very quickly stopped laughing.

"What the hell?!"

Nearly everything that had been standing upright when he went out scavenging had been transferred to the floor.

The sentry gnomes lay face down like tiny drunks. Canned and boxed food, while mercifully still packaged, was spread out at the base of the shelf; the coffee table lamp had rolled halfway across the floor, and his entire work bench had been swept clean (it was a miracle the bottlecap mine hadn't gone off). And not a single book had been spared.

The deathclaw collection, it was noted after a frantic check, somehow had been.

Setting his supply sack down and only dimly aware of the relief this brought, he weakly knelt to pick up a fallen, slightly charred thesaurus. Obviously the place hadn't been robbed—nothing was missing. And Blood would have smelled a stranger. As it was, he simply picked his way over the mess to his food bowl, where a few morsels of meat and bone had dried out.

Worse than the sight of it, even more grating than the prospect of cleaning it all, was the knowledge that this wasn't the first time this had happened.

"Wadsworth!" Kiri called. "Come here!"

The whir of mechanical parts and jet power that was always present in the house suddenly became even louder as the robot floated around the corner from the kitchen.

"Good evening, sir," he greeted, bright and cheerful. "What can I do for you?"

Forcibly reminding himself that yelling at his servant would serve little purpose, Kiri held out the book and spoke through gritted teeth. "How many stampedes did it take to do all this?"

"Exactly none, sir. That's the way with these messes, they start out as just a bit of clutter, and then the next thing you know—you can't take a step in your own house!"

Kiri felt his eye twitch. "No, Wadsworth. Your propulsion system knocks things around whenever you move."

"Me?" Somewhere in between the lines of the crisp British accent and affected innocence, Kiri was sure he heard the Mr. Handy unit's unseen smile and felt himself inching closer to death by stroke. "What makes you say that?"

"Because…it's happened three times already this month."

"Oh, nonsense, sir. I'm sure you're exaggerating."

"…You're going to FLOAT there and tell me that you DIDN'T knock my things around?"

"That's what I'm telling you. You'll find, sir, that my programming inhabits my ability to lie. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have my own work to do."

Before Kiri could ask or even begin to contemplate what that work was, Wadsworth had turned on his proverbial heel and floated away with much enthusiasm. So much, in fact, that one of his arms caught the bulging supply sack propped up against the wall. Kiri scrambled at it with an undignified yelp and caught it inches away from the ground, but he could do little more than horrified disbelief as the flap flew open, nearly a quarter of the spoils of his scavenging and bounty hunting toppling out onto the ground. As he glared at Wadsworth's retreating back, he could have sworn he heard him chuckle.

Then, muttering a few choice words hitherto heard only from raiders, he hung up his coat and began the laborious process of setting his home to rights once more.

Damn it all to pieces…how did his body manage to stand up to being shot at, tossed, pummeled, punctured, irradiated, nearly drowned, and forced across miles and miles of rolling terrain carrying heavy weights day in and day out, sometimes with little to no food to fuel it, only liquor and a rough jacket to warm it, and a hard ground for it to rest on, and somehow manage to shrug off the pain?

How did it do all this, only to cry out in protest when a little menial housework was added to the roster?

The last of the daylight was fading as Kiri finished cleaning, and the house was beginning to darken. At last he stood up and straightened his back, wincing at the very audible 'pop', before switching on the lights.

"Hey, Blood? Do you ever wonder where the town gets its power from?" The dog, chewing on a piece of roast squirrel, tilted his head. "I mean, really. Think about it. Fuel? There are the Power Stations, but God knows why they're still standing, let alone producing energy after 200 years left alone. Is it nuclear? Wind? Solar? And where the hell did that come from? "

He pointed accusingly at the squirrel meat between Blood's paws. The dog, after favoring him with another second or two of staring, went back to eating it.

"Hmph…"

He was just weighing his options of either getting to work on the new railway rifle schematics he'd found or the happy trinity of food, shower, and sleep, when a heavy knock rapped on the door, cutting through the ever present sounds of Blood's panting and Wadsworth's jets. Although not in the greatest mood for visitors, he went and looked out the small window, and what he saw was enough to make him lunge for the doorknob--

Remember it was locked, fumble with said lock, and open the door more calmly.

"Veyers?"

"Hey, kid," replied the deep, raspy voice characteristic of a ghouls, lifelong smokers, and people with severe throat illnesses.

Standing in the doorway was a man. He was clearly a wasteland rover; from the heavy, dusty armor he wore, with the great spiked shoulder pads, to the deathclaw gauntlet on his right hand, he managed to be intimidating in all the ways that Kiri was not. What stood out most was the fact that his face was completely obscured by a welder's mask.

The Lone Wanderer was torn, as he always was, between taking a step towards him and instinctively keeping a hand on his gun. In the end, he settled the argument as he usually did, by throwing his arms around the neck of the man, who reluctantly reached up one arm and gave him a loose embrace.

"It's been so long," Kiri half laughed into his shoulder. Veyers always smelled distinctly of hot sun, Nuka cola, and faintly rotting flesh, and for some reason this made Kiri happy. "I wasn't sure if…I mean…"

"I know what you mean," the ghoul cut him off. "Don't worry. I can handle myself just fine." His gloved hand finally settled on the back of the wanderer's neck, where it squeezed just faintly. "Looks like you can too."

Kiri's heart jumped about a mile in the air, not so much from the rare gesture of affection which when it came to Veyers was like trying to extract tiny bits of straw from solid rock, but from the compliment. Ever since the two had met some seven months ago in the trenches of the mall, only three things had become clear about the masked man.

Number one, he was a ghoul. Number two, he liked Nuka Cola. Number three, he held no high expectations of Kiri, believing that it was only pure dumb luck to thank for his having survived so long. For this last point of view to be rescinded even the slightest was like watching a patch of flowers bursting up through the wasteland dust. Flowers with radiation burns and clawed…leaves…but the sentiment was still there.

Beyond that, Veyers kept his secrets under lock and key. Their relationship had been a patchwork one at best, the two meeting up usually by chance in their travels, sometimes aided by the odd tip in regards to one another's whereabouts. When they did finally end up meeting, whether it was to combine forces for a raider hunt or merely a shared bowl of noodles, any conversation that occurred would linger on the subject of the present only.

Sometimes they would barely talk at all.

Kiri finally pulled away, face coloring as he wondered whether or not the neighbors were watching. He doubted they were; Megaton citizens weren't as prone to gossiping as some of the people in other settlements. Still he didn't really want to chance it; for better or worse, his name was well known, and he didn't care to have news of his personal life leaking into the shops, then to the caravan merchants, until one day he turned on the radio and heard Three Dog announcing it.

He could hear it now.

"That kid from Vault 101 must be getting pretty lonely, 'cause the word is he's been spotted bringing masked guys into his house late at night. So much for our old pal James getting any grandchildren. Ah, but you can't blame him. Everyone needs a dive in the dark now and then, am I right? You go, Vault 101. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

The fact that Three Dog (usually) had more important news and (probably) wouldn't report something like that didn't really matter. It was enough to make him pull Veyers into the house in record time, double-locking the door behind them. The other man seemed to take it in stride, setting his supply sack down beside the work bench and rolling his own weary shoulders.

"Your dog around?" A seemingly casual question, but Kiri knew better. Veyers and Blood had no great love for each other; Blood thought the man was getting too close to his master for his liking. Veyers thought Blood smelled.

"He's probably sleeping somewhere in the house. He knows I let you in, so I don't think he'll come out." A pause. "He really is getting to like you, y'know."

Veyers snorted as he took off his mask. "Damn dog keeps mistaking me for meat. The last time I saw him, he tried to eat my foot."

"He does that to everyone!" Kiri lied.

The older man scoffed. He set the large mask down on the back of a chair before turning to face the wanderer, showing him his face for only the second time ever. Even after suffering the devastating effects of whatever accident had irradiated him, there was still a light in his eyes, strength in his jaw indicating he had once been very handsome. To Kiri it was a bit like the aged and war torn monuments peppering the capital...there was a grace in spite of the destruction, a shadow of past glory.

"You're staring again, Kiri."

The younger man snapped out of his reverie.

"Sorry," Kiri chuckled, scratching the back of his head even as he was mentally kicking himself in it. "My mind wanders."

"Ah."

They stood in silence, and Kiri noted for the first time in a while that he couldn't hear Wadsworth's jets. Call it good luck. Tossing out an awkward smile, he raised his shoulders in a half shrug.

"Er…you want something to eat?"

"Oh God, yes!"

The two came crashing through the bedroom doorway, tangled up in one another like a mass of fishing line. There was a yelp of pain as the back of Kiri's leg slammed into the desk, followed by a hiss, followed by a mumbled apology, and then they were back to viciously painting the room with articles of cast asunder clothing.

"Goddamnit," Veyers groaned as his pants were undone with enough force to send the buttons flying, his hips gripped and pressed up close to Kiri's once, twice, three times, with precise, friction-filled accuracy. "I don't remember you being…this…how long has it been?"

"Weeeks…" His voice sounded too high pitched in his ears, too wanton. It was as though all of those weeks that had lain relatively dormant in the face of the daily struggle for survival were surging awake, turning his blood hot and heady, winding him up so tight it was a sweet pain. Clearly the feeling was mutual, because the next thing he knew he was lying flat on his back while his orphan-grade mattress squealed in protest, and Veyers was holding his wrists up near the headboard with one hand and ohgodohgod stroking him with the other, and that wasn't the mattress squealing and—

Thud.

His eyes flew open. He hadn't even realized he had closed them…his first thought was that the bed had broken, but Veyers wasn't stopping, although he had slowed down…

Thud! Thud! Thud!

It was coming from downstairs. Very distinct, flesh and bone on floor. Kiri only had a split second to cringe and wonder what he'd done wrong in life that—

ThudthudthudthudthudthudTHUD! THUD! THUD! Thudthudthudthudthudthudthud…

Somewhere between the sound of the thirtieth deathclaw hand and the fiftieth, Veyers sat up and took his hand, and together they listened to the sound of one-hundred-and-eighteen stacked hands falling to the ground. Somewhere in between lay the smaller bumps and crashes of other things comng down as they were knocked about by rolling limbs. Only after what seemed an obscene amount of time did the din slow, then stop. In spite of it all, Kiri might have been able to handle it with decorum, if it hadn't been for the familiar voice that came drifting up the stairs in the aftermath.

"It appears your…collection of deathclaw trophies has fallen, sir. Might I suggest you take more care lashing them next time?"

Something cracked behind the Lone Wanderer's eyes, calm as a stagnant pond but every bit as festering. Sitting up, he reached underneath the bed and from the darkness produced a combat shotgun. Veyers flinched behind him, clearly thinking he was about to be the victim of a murder-suicide, but this was not the case. Kiri left the room without a single word, firearm cradled in his right arm, holding a pillow over his lap with the left. The last thing Veyers heard was the sound of his footsteps retreating into the lower levels of the house, then quiet.

Then yet more quiet.

And then at last he heard the shots, three in succession that shook the house like a barfight sucker punch. Shotgun blasts might have amounted to the sound of a pin dropping when they occurred out in the wastes—not so much that tiny house in that cramped settlement.

When Kiri came back upstairs, his expression wasn't as tight and dangerous as it had been, but quite a few stands of his generally blasted back hair had fallen into his eyes, and he was still very naked. For once in his life, Veyers hesitated to clear this throat and speak up.

"Er…did you really shoot him?"

"…"

"…Kiri?"

"…No." Kiri shoved the gun back under the bed. Veyers visibly relaxed. "No, I didn't."

Whatever else had occurred down there, the ghoul would have to wait until the following morning to find out. Kiri kicked the door shut behind him, tossed the pillow back onto the mattress, and without ever looking back, returned them to where they'd left off.

Veyers left the next morning, just before the sun started to rise.

Kiri dug the shot out of the wall and fixed the holes. Eventually he started to feel bad and apologized to Wadsworth for shooting at him, even if he hadn't really meant to hit him. Even so, it was three weeks before the robot would dispense water, citing a newly discovered bit of programming that shut down his serving circuits whenever he'd been threatened, and it was a solid six months before he would speak without being spoken to.

But things in the house stopped mysteriously being knocked down after that.

If that could be called peace, peace prevailed.

And the neighbors did talk.

Wadsworth's behavior is only slightly exaggerated here. This wasn't inspired by some deep-seated venom I've got for the guy; he seems to love trashing my house, knocking everything over as he floats around. Especially the pre-books which take forever to position on the shelf.

This little phenomenon only happens on my first game, my main one, the one with Kiri. The Wadsworths and Godfreys of my other characters and people I know who also play Fallout 3 never do this. I feel bad shooting him, so I've just accepted that he really, really hates Kiri.

Finally, a small note on Dogmeat's name change. Contrary to belief, I actually don't hate the name "Dogmeat", and I do realize that it's a homage to the dog who starred in the first Fallout, and that the capital version is his direct descendant. If you received him in-game from an NPC, someone who actually handed him over and said "His name is Dogmeat," I wouldn't have messed with it.

But he's not. He's a junkyard stray who you hook up with, which to me feels like you should have the option to name him yourself. At the very least, you should be able to do so with his puppies.

Right from the start I knew that he was going to be my character's sole companion, partner, and probably one of the only people (?) that he can really rely on. Eventually his personality began to take on a shape of its own. He became much more than just the Lone Wanderer's dog, and he seemed to deserve a name all his own.

So I replaced one homage with another. Blood is named after the character in the 1975 post-apocalyptic film A Boy And His Dog. I've never regretted it.

You're free to pretend he's still Dogmeat if you like, though. He really doesn't give a flying hell what you call him.