A/N Well I meant to write more, but I've been getting a lot of writers block recently so its been a challenge to write down this chapter. I'll be working on the next chapter and I should hopefully have it out by next week. A/N End

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

They stood there, waiting, they could hear the radroaches coming from within the house, the fluttering of their wings and the clicking of their pincers as they prepared to attack the survivors.

"What the hell do we do!" Arthur said in a near panic "I've never had to fight anything before!"
"Don't worry" Marcus said "I've fought radroaches before, if there's only a few then we shouldn't have an issue, but..."
"But what!" Arthur repeated to Marcus.
"If there's a large group of them" Marcus said "then we might have some trouble"
"Well" Arthur said "we should get out o-" "No!" Marcus interrupted "This is the best spot for us to hold them off at. Don't worry, we'll make it through this, just hold tight" he give Arthur a reassuring smile even though he was feeling a little anxious from the sound of the radroaches.

The first radroach walked out of the door, Marcus went over to it and kicked the radroach, it didn't hurt the damned thing much so Marcus slammed his baton down onto the radroaches head, sending a crushing blow straight through its exoskeleton, killing it instantly. Another radroach came out through the doorway, it jumped at Arthur right when he was going in to stab it, the radroach only succeeded in jumping straight into Arthur's spear, skewering itself, dying soon after.
The rest of the radroaches, who were hidden within the house, scurried off after seeing how easily killed their fellows were, Marcus and Arthur stood back, waiting for something worse to show up. It took until after the noise of the radroaches disappeared into the home and the eerie silence of the wastes came back, before Marcus and Arthur let their guard down.

"See?" Marcus said, relief clearly flowing over his body "I told you we'd be ok."
"Bullshit" Arthur replied, also relaxing "You were just as fucking scared as me."
Marcus smirked and his stomach growled "Either which way." He said, changing the topic "I'm hungry, you want to go eat in the kitchen?"
"You mean" Arthur said, with a perplexed face "Go back into that fucking house?"
"Well" Marcus said, looking around "Either we eat out here where someone can easily snipe us, or we can go in and eat where we know the worst thing that will attack us are some radroaches."
"...Fine" Arthur said in a grumble.

They walked back into the house slowly, looking around they couldn't spot any radroaches so they continued on over to the kitchen, taking care not to step on the bad floorboard.
Inside of the kitchen was a table straight across the wall from the door that goes to the living room and another door going out to what was the back yard the rest of that side of the room was bare, there were shelves going along the opposite wall, with a fridge at the end of it.
The two vault dwellers sat at the table and each pulled out their supplies. Arthur had two water bottles and a can of beans, Marcus pulled out his two cans of beans.

"Is this all we've got?" Marcus said looking over everything, with a disappointing glare.
"Yeah" Arthur said and he looked outside "Maybe we should try cooking up those radroaches for some extra meat?"
"How are we going to get a fire?" Marcus said eyeing Arthur "Besides those things are loaded with radiation, why do you think we never ate them in the vault."
"Oh, right" Arthur said looking back to their food "Well let's...split a can of beans and wash it down with a drink of water?"
"Sounds good" Marcus replied. They began eating "So" Arthur said while looking down at his simple meal "Why'd you leave the vault?"
"I've been in the vault too long." Marcus replied "Not to mention, I can pretty much fix any pre-war junk I've come across. People out here need my help a lot more than the people in the vault and everyone in the vault believed that world is lost...I just can't accept that train of thought. You?"
"Well actually me and a friend were going to try to leave together," Arthur said "I actually thought you were him when we met up"
"Do you know what happened to him?" Marcus asked, with a worried look on his face. He glanced over at the baton, remembering the guard he'd beaten to near death, Jackson was the guard's name. "I really don't know," Arthur said watching Marcus "But he wasn't a guard so you're good"
Marcus sighed and looked back at Arthur "I hope Jackson is okay," Marcus said, looking back down "I didn't want to use that much force on him, I was almost out until he got in my way."
"I hope so too" Arthur said looking at the baton "he's a good guy too, I really liked his son Peter, he was a good pitcher on the softball team."
"Yeah" Marcus said "So, who was your friend back in the vault?"
"Max" Arthur replied.
"Maximilian!" Marcus said with a look of confusion "But he seemed so...happy in the vault."
"Yeah," Arthur said "I thought he was too."

They continued their meal in silence wondering what could drive a seemingly content, happy person to want to leave his home...