a/n: AH. Sorry guys. Here you go.
Though things may look very dark, your dream is not in vain.
Juliet reaches down to her wrist, twists the volume knob of her Pipboy. She's rather fond of the crackling old stereo-sound that accompanies the listless tune, something that adds to the calming melody. Something she isn't fond of, however, are the incessantly bright rays of sun that beat down on her dirt-streaked face.
She groans a little, stretches her arms above her head, yawning tightly with a little constriction in her chest. Her fingers reach up towards the swamp-water green sky.
The Lone Wanderer sits on the edge of one of the many Pre-War highway medians dotting the Wasteland's landscape, structures that once connected the outskirts of D.C. with the main city. The concrete pathway sways dizzily every few seconds and perched high in the air, and the teetering, reinforced pillars that have seen better days.
One of her legs is dangling off the edge, precariously swinging back and forth to the music that vibrates against her wrist. Her head is dipping forward, resting warily on the knee that she's pulled up to her chest.
Juliet wraps an arm tight around the grainy denim clothing her legs. It's going to be one of those days, she can tell. Despite her balancing tipping forward with every pendulum movement of her leg, she feels uncharacteristically at ease.
After a few moments of barely comforting mediation, listening to the silence the end of her song has brought about, she glances up. From her vantage point on the towering framework high in the radiated air, it's like she can see all of the Wasteland.
She scans the surrounding landscape, trying not to stare in the direction of Raven Rock for too long. It brings up nasty feelings of guilt - despite doing a favor by eradicating the group - and causes her stomach to churn with remorseful and pangs of sorrow she'd rather not deal with first thing in the morning. She wipes her forehead, sticky with sweat, on the back of her hand, hissing at the warm weather.
Even so early in the day, when the sun is just beginning to peek from behind the mass of green tinged clouds in the horizon, heat rises up in waves from the ground.
The flowing, visible lines cast wavering paths of humidity around Juliet, distorting her vision further as she tries to get a good look at the mural of destruction painted before her. As she brushes her palm across the destroyed highway, she revels in the memory of her first few visions of the Wasteland, the "outside" world the citizens had been taught to fear.
It seemed like ages since she ran frightened out of her wits and sobbing from the tunneled entrance to the Vault. She almost wants to go back to the time that she was just a no-one in the Wastes. The days of solitary travel appealed to her despite the loneliness that had seeped into her bones the last couple of days.
A familiar, boiling rage builds up, catches her off guard as she recalls sitting in the grocery store with Butch, listening to Three Dog's tirade on her morals. Her fingers catch on a chunk of rock as she scrapes her hand across the asphalt. She picks it up and stares.
Suddenly, disgust and a sickening, stomach-churning anger well up in her chest as she stares at the chuck of asphalt, and she lifts her grey eyes back towards at the scenery.
Feelings of self-hatred and resentment wash over her in powerful waves, leaving her psyche teetering. There's nothing she can do to stop the bitter tears that sting the corners of her eyes. She clenches her teeth and bites the insides of her cheeks – a quick sensation of pain like that usually closes off any unwanted emotional assault.
She wrenches back her arm, torn-up and furious with herself and life and being alone without being alone and the terrible food and Three Dog judging her despite her good deeds and her father being goddamn dead. The rock flies from her hand, seems to float air as it briskly cuts through the sky, finally splashing somewhere in the deep river below.
The previous night, heavy acidic rains shattered the drought the Wastes had been caught in. Juliet supposed it was a last-ditch effort of destruction from the two-hundred year old bombs that had exploded in the Earth's atmosphere all those years ago.
It was hard for her to imagine such a powerful weapon, one that could still have an effect on their world after two centuries. It had to have been something worse than a missile launcher – or even a Fat Man.
Now, thanks to the rains, a river, almost one hundred beneath her feet, flows through the arid landscape. The trembling waves churn at the dipped edges with a quiet strength, clearing out some loose debris and even a few Pre-War vehicles from the once-dry riverbed.
She watches the ripples from the lobbed stone until they disappear, merging peacefully with the rest of the small waves in the water.
A hand suddenly ghosts up her bare arm to her shoulder, joined seconds later by another. They abruptly ascend to her shoulders, fingers digging into her skin and shaking slightly. She freezes.
There is a quick, breaching white-hot flash of fear that barricades any other notion of thought in her mind. She opens her mouth in a silently horrified scream, thinking that her assailant has gotten past Dogmeat's steady and loyal guard outside of the trio's makeshift camp atop the highway. Was the mutt dead? Had he failed to protect the camp – had he died whimpering?
Another flicker of stark, reason-shredding terror, and she flinches.
Was Butch dead, too?
Juliet's eyes go wide, instinct on full blast as she whirls around, ruthlessly clutching the forearm of her attacker. She squeezes as hard as she can, and manages to pull herself to unsteady feet. A series of moves drops the assailant, back thrown against the ground. Juliet sits on her attacker's midsection, fists wrenched back in anticipation of further violence. Her eyes focus slowly as the adrenaline subsides, and she blinks off the boiling red emotion with a series of short, breathy exhales.
"Owwwwwfuckwasthatforwoman?"
Her eyes flash, angry at him and slightly embarrassed for her reaction.
"Are you trying to scare the living shit out of me?" Juliet demands, landing a hard jab to Butch's collarbone. His head snaps back, but she knows he's making a show to get some sympathy. He slips one arm up, shoving his palm against her shoulder. She's hurtled backward, away from the edge of the median, and lands unceremoniously on the ground.
Butch raises his hands, palms towards her in a display of surrender, stumbling to his feet. He's got that light, mischievous grin plastered on his tan face, the one that makes her stomach flutter - no matter how pissed or tired or depressed she is.
When he shrugs amiably, sauntering towards her arms outstretched and chuckling, Juliet knows she's going to lose this game - again. His jaw is bruised and purple, and she wants to wipe the expressing on his face away, but…there's certainly something to be said for pure charisma in men.
"Aww, come on, Jules," he coos, laughing louder when she turns her back stubbornly. The pout written across her face is meant to prevent him from trying anything else, but instead it makes her seem immature. It reminds her of the time she shoved cake in his face during his tenth birthday party; she's acting just as childishly.
"No, really. Don't," she mutters half-heartedly, crossing her arms over her chest and rubbing the goose bumps from her forearms. If she made the rules – and if the Wasteland had any – that smooth baritone of his would be illegal.
"Mkay, whatever," he says after a slight pause, and she whirls around in shock.
"What?"
"I said 'okay, whatever'. Damn, we need to find you a pair a hearin' aids or somethin'?"
"No…you…what do you mean 'okay'?" she stammers, and he flippantly shrugs, unable to mask a tight, victorious smirk. He's bluffing, she realizes.
"You're not even going to apologize?"
"'Pologize for what?" Butch asks innocently, tilting his head. Dogmeat trots up behind him, annoyed at the argument that's building up. He's used to the pair's teasing banter, and the times that they've gotten violent the mutt has always managed to paw his way in, to pull them off each other.
He glances up at the Tunnel Snake with those wise gold eyes, and mimics the movement of Butch's head, leveling his silly questioning gaze at Juliet.
"Oh, fuck you," she finally sighs, unwilling to handle being ganged up on. She turns her back on her two travelling companions, effectively missing the successful fist-pump Butch throws into the air. Dogmeat yelps alongside him, barking and running circles around the man's legs.
Fifteen minutes later, when Juliet conducts her almost paranoid safety sweep of the camp for the second time, she finds them both dozing in the shade a pile of metal sheets has created. Butch's arms are flopped over Dogmeat's ribcage, and the dog looks both at ease and uncomfortable under the Tunnel Snake's weight.
She turns back to the sunrise after a moment, watches it part the post-rain clouds with a light smile on her face.
Butch meanders over late in the afternoon, and sits down next to the snoozing woman nonchalantly. "You fallin' asleep there, nosebleed?" he asks loudly, and although his tone is soothing and even, it edges her into the waking world somehow.
"No. No, Of course I'm not," she grumbles, jolting awake. Her legs still hang off the edge of the median, but she's lying back against the concrete, arms crossed over her chest. She rubs her cheek tiredly while he pulls out a pack of Fancy Lads.
A bead of sweat runs down the side of her face, trailing down towards her neck. She swipes at it impatiently. While the familiar, gusting wind at such a high altitude has returned, it's not a huge comfort when the blazing sun is directly above them. She hates noon.
Then, contradicting her denial, "How long was I out for?"
Butch's lips pull into a tight, no-teeth grin. "Dunno. Think I watch you sleep, or somethin'?"
She huffs at him, still too sluggish to argue. Settling for a half-hearted smack to the back of his gelled-up 'do, she jumps from her seated position, and retreats into the shade.
Dogmeat is still dead to the world, curled up under her Tunnel Snakes jacket. The sight, especially the mutt in all his innocently tired glory, manages to put her mind at ease. She gives him a scratch behind the ear and watches him kick in his sleep.
Juliet returns to Butch's side after picking up a Nuka from her pack, and tips it up to her lips as she takes a seat. She relishes the cold fluid as it falls into her throat, and thanks whatever deities there are for the refreshing cola. It's one of the few things that's able to keep her sanity in check, especially so with the current heat wave.
"You're lucky we walk as much as we do, or you'd be a fucking fatass," she says offhandedly, watching him pick a few of the moist pink crumbs from his lap and shove them into his mouth.
"Bitch," he cuts back, cheeks stuffed with food. She's strangely tempted to swipe her thumb across his lips to clean them, but by some miracle of will power, keeps her knuckles coiled around the top of her Nuka bottle.
"What were you thinkin' about earlier?" he wonders aloud, turning to her and swallowing thickly around his mouthful of fattening, centuries old dessert. "You were just…starin'." Quietly now, he mutters, "I thought you were gonna jump, nosebleed."
Juliet looks up, at first with a glint of sharp, angry frustration… until she sees the genuinely curious and worried expression written across his features. They've known each other their entire lives, despite the chronologically short gap of separation, and Butch isn't as dumb as he looks – she guesses the situation could have been mistaken for a suicide attempt.
She's tempted to lie. In the Wasteland, it's too easy to string along a sweet little fib, and she doesn't doubt someone so blind to true human behavior would believe her. Butch has never been the most intelligent snake in the tunnel, God help her for making such a terrible pun.
Juliet didn't lie, though. "Shit, Butch. Lots of stuff…" she sighs, pushing back a few strands of hair, matted with sweat.
"Three Dog, you know? And…Project Purity. Have I ever told you about Pr-…" she stops, haltingly dropping her hand, the one she usually talks animatedly with. Revealing her father's life-long goal to Butch would require her telling him about…about everything. She's not ready to do that.
"Naw, Jules, you haven't."
She drops her head on her knees, tracing circles into the ground absent-mindedly. She's shut herself off, now, won't say anything, so Butch scowls impatiently. "Sure, fine. Whatever."
After a few moments of awkward, cold tension, Butch scoots closer and wraps an arm around her shoulders, toying with the scraggly ends of her hair. He gives her arm a little squeeze and attempts to pull her closer in his strangely comforting grip. She jumps, frankly startled with the gesture, and glares up at him, waiting for an explanation.
"Hair's getting' kinda long there, Jules…"
As soon as he trails off, she squirms to get away. "No. No fucking way, Butch. You are not touching my goddamn hair." He grins, but doesn't release her.
Instead, the Tunnel Snake twines his fingers into the sensitive hairs at the base of her neck, and pulls back just enough to keep her sitting still. Juliet is suddenly conflicted. She wants to groan at the positively addictive rush of endorphins his proximity and touch are giving her, but…she settles for jabbing him in the stomach.
"Ooof. Fuck, Juliet. Just once? Please? Come on, babe. Please?"
She freezes, and her fingers slowly uncoil from his wrists. She'd grabbed on in an effort to get him to let go, at the suddenly new, personal nickname, she can't help but comply.
There's a slight, flustered smile spreading across her lips. 'Nosebleed' has always been something ridiculous and immature between them, and this word is so much different – implies so much more and makes her giddy like a hyperactive teenage girl.
Something is wrong with me. Something is seriously fucked up, she thinks, and sits there with her hands in her lap until Butch returns with a pair of sharp, shining scissors in his fingers.
He twirls them around his thumb and pointer, and she watches the glint of silver with open fascination.
Later, as she toys with the new, short strands of the clean bobbed style Butch cut her hair into, Juliet will pretend that she didn't lean into his back as he worked, will pretend that she didn't like him combing his fingers through her hair.
She pretends a lot of things, recently. Things that she shouldn't be thinking out in the Wastes, where no one is allowed to be happy, everyone dies early, and nowhere is safe. But somehow, for some reason, she lets the memory sink into her conscious. Far enough to keep it safe from her self-destructive and bitter denials.
For when do you find the rainbow?
Only after rain.