A/N: Welcome back to another chapter, everyone! Things are getting interesting, and as you can see I also threw in a little wish fulfillment (sorry not sorry by the way)!
As I was editing this I realized that the next chapter also links up with this one since it's still all in the same scene/time frame, so poor planning on my part *shot* OTL. That being said, I'll be posting Chapter 22 this Tuesday (01/30) so it's not too long before we have to continue this scene. Or I might post it tomorrow due to the fact I'm impatient at times, so who knows! It's 1 AM because these are the choices I make as an adult.
Otherwise, enjoy the chapter! Be sure to drop a review if you've got anything interesting to say about Winona's story, and also-as another reminder-check out the dumb little ask tumblr set up for Winona and some various other OCs of mine! Can be found under "thecooldkidsbasement" if you search for it there; you'll know you're in the right place when you hear the 80-90's grunge music, haha.
Happy reading, happy writing!
~Konfessionist signing out
Amata sprinted through the hallways with her hair messily caught in her eyes, her panting breath a single exhale away from hyperventilation as tears streamed down her face. She hit the wall at the turn of hallway where it cornered to the barracks, and couldn't continue on. She collapsed into the wall as an orange light revolved above her head amidst the shadowed dark, following after a blaring siren. Incoherent wails of despair wrenched themselves from her mouth one after another in a tumble, her eyes clenching tightly shut and in the darkness of her mind she saw too much as her fists came to her eyes. She forced them open so she wouldn't have to see it anymore, forcing herself to keep from vomiting again but she kept her hands clamped over her mouth just in case, too scared to even breathe.
Oh, God—! There was so much blo- blood!... How can people have so much? How could people even look like that? How?
Amata was woken up by the sound of voices outside of the apartment she still shared with her father. He was up earlier than usual, and spoke in such an enraged voice it immediately snapped her out of her sleep. She sat up in bed, listening to him talk to a few other voices that had accompanied his own (Freddie's father, Paul's father, and one or two others that she couldn't immediately recognize). All the Overseer's daughter heard were the startling words of the vault door being opened, how another reactor was fried, the radroach infestation was suddenly booming and the alarm would have to be set. He went on to describe it all being Dr. Parker's fault, and that after the team took care of the necessary precautions for the safety of the vault residents, they would go after Jonas and Winona for questioning.
Soon enough she heard someone enter the conversation (it was Stevie, she recognized), accompanied with Jonas who was ushering calm and sleepy words of how he didn't know what was going on.
She thought she was in some horrible dream and that none of it was real. As a child she had grisly nightmares of the vault door being opened and the radiation coming in, and they were all slowly poisoned by the air they breathed and died one by one. She had to watch as her father and Winona and everyone else rotted away will she was completely unharmed.
But as Amata looked around her room, it made her feel cold and frightened because it was obvious she wasn't dreaming. The conversation outside was real, Dr. Parker had done something terrible, and she couldn't wake up from it.
She could hear the conversation beginning to escalate outside—Mr. Gomez was yelling things like 'what are you doing?!' and 'stop! This is wrong!' over the sound of assault and Jonas grunting and pleading through tears that he didn't know anything. When she opened the front door to see what was going on, she saw Officer Mack—Wally's big brother, Stevie—wielding his baton and standing over Jonas sprawled out on the metal floor with blood flooding from multiple wounds on his bloated face and head. Jonas had weakly reached for her, silently begging for help, but all she could do was scream and was then shoved back into the apartment by another Officer. Her father yelled afterward for her to stay inside!
Soon enough Mr. Gomez was harshly dismissed to go to the clinic, the other guards were told to resume patrol at main exits, and Stevie was allowed to continue his 'interrogation'. The last thing she clearly heard was the hissing insult of her father berating Jonas, hatefully saying; "your mother shouldn't have fornicated with a Wastelander... you were never really one of us."
Amata couldn't hear anymore weakened grunts and groans coming from Jonas as she sat on the living room floor by the door and sobbed, her hands clamped over her ears. She quickly had to recollect herself when she heard Stevie being given orders to patrol her bedroom, and Amata locked herself inside just as he entered the apartment.
At this point she knew she had to get to Winona before any of the other guards, or her father, could. The first step of her plan was to escape, and she did that by way of an air vent above her bed. It took her a minute to unscrew the screws holding the filter in place (she used a bobby pin), and then it took her another few minutes to climb up into the damn thing and replace the lid without alerting Stevie outside.
Using her Pip-Boy map, Amata navigated herself to her father's office where she took a pistol and a handful of ammo. She didn't know where her father was, but she didn't rightly care as long as he was far away from her. A glance out the circular window showed a line of Security guards departing through different exits of the atrium. When she had everything she needed, she ran out of the office and was forced to skirt around Jonas' mangled corpse that was left on the ground, to where she vomited out in the hall the moment she left the room. By that time the lights were dimmed, the alarms were on, and her father's voice filtered through every hall—it came in a looped message of how nothing was wrong but the residents would have to remain in their rooms until further notice or face punishment.
Amata had been running ever since.
Jonas' blank and deadened expression hammered its way into her thoughts like a sudden sickening pulse that made her body heave. She had to vomit again, and she was struggling not to let her body release the bile flooding her throat and mouth. Amata had to force herself up to her feet to keep running; she was almost to Winona's apartment and she couldn't break down now, or else her best friend would be next.
"Winona…!...—up…! Wake—!... You— up!"
Somewhere in her half asleep state, amidst the darkness behind her eyelids, Winona heard the panicked drawl of Amata's voice beckoning to her. It wasn't enough to fully wake her up. It wasn't enough to register any panic.
"FUCKING WAKE UP!"
Until the scream came.
Amata's voice suddenly crashed down upon Winona so piercingly that she finally snapped her eyes open—just in time to see her best friend shove her mattress with a surprising heave of strength. It was pushed off the bed frame with Winona still on it, and her body was too tangled in her sheets to scramble away.
"What is wrong with you—?!" She yelled back, annoyed and disoriented, as she sat up and brushed her pillow-messed hair from her eyes. The inventor began to notice the sirens howling outside her apartment, sounding as if they were coming nearer with how they were getting louder and louder the more she came out of her sleepy haze. Winona looked to the window to see that the hall lights were dimmed down low and orange alarm lights revolved eerily, casting flares up the walls.
The last time she saw the vault like this was when the pipes burst and one of the reactors blew out, and that was only a couple of months ago.
"Amata?" Winona murmured, looking up to her friend who stood on the other side of her bed. "What happened, did another reactor blow—?"
"My father's g- gone insa- sane!" Amata looked like she was struggling not to scream. Her shoulders were trembling as tears rolled down her reddened cheeks towards her pursed lips.
"A- Amata—? Oh my God," She spoke worriedly as she got to her feet, tearing the blankets away so she could free her tangled legs. "Are you alright? What's your dad doi—"
"The do- door—! I don't kn- kn- know how—!" She shook her head as she walked around the bed to Winona's side, hugging herself tightly as her body continued to tremble.
"What do you mean your dad's gone crazy?" Winona asked sternly with her hand upon her friend's shoulders, trying to snap her out of her dazed and struggling state. "And what about the door?"
At that moment, the door of Winona's apartment opened and a tall figure entered, clad in Security combat gear and brandishing an extendable baton. Amata immediately shrieked in terror and her reaction caused Winona to hurriedly leap over the bed frame to run to the door. Slapping a hand to the door console to shut it, she turned over the lock mechanism from inside her room so he couldn't get in.
"What's happening?!" She yelled as Amata began to cry more, still holding herself as if it was the only thing she could do to keep herself together.
"My da- dad has the whole vault on lock d- do- down!" She screamed. "He's coming after you!"
"Wha- What? That doesn't make any—"
"Winona Parker!" A stern voice called on the other side of the closed door, followed by a loud series of violent knocks. It was Chief Hannon Sr., Paul's father. "By order of the Overseer, you are to come with me for questioning! Come along quietly or face an arrest!"
Winona's hand twitched against the door console, unsure of what to do. She was so confused and scared—the vault was on lock down, the Overseer's officers wanted to question her, but what for?What did she have anything to do with all of this? Did Wally accuse her of something again? Looking back at her best friend, her dark eyes wide and swollen and rimmed with tears that continued to come, Amata slowly shook her head in warning and with a quivering mouth, silently formed the words "please… no…"
"Winona Parker! Open up, now!" The officer yelled, banging on her bedroom door louder than before. "We don't have to resort to force, we can make this simple and easy!"
"Winona, please—" Amata begged, coming to her side to tightly grab Winona's arm with trembling hands. "Do not let him in!... Don't! You'll be making a big mistake, they're going to hurt you!"
"Open up!"
"They—! My father's making them do ba- bad things!"
"Open. Up!"
"He let Stevie Mack murder Jonas!"
Amata's words made Winona's stomach heave up against the base of her tightening throat, wanting escape as her hands began to shake at her sides. Chief Hannon Sr. continued to bang on her bedroom door heatedly in a far corner of her mind, and at the front of her skull—in the space between her left and right temple—a weight began to slowly place pressure there, like a solid brick, until the stunned tears came. Everything ached, her skin crawled over her flesh and bones like her body wasn't hers and she was some intruder inhabiting it, and the tears completely swarmed her vision as she dropped to the floor. She couldn't tell if it was her head that was spinning or if it was the room around her as she clutched her aching chest, a tight pressure burdening her lungs so she could scarce breathe without feeling like she was suffocating, and her mind was unwilling to accept that Jonas was gone.
It was too surreal, it couldn't have been true!
Amata came down to her knees at her side and hugged her tightly around her neck, rocking them together as Winona loudly began to sob, gasping weakly for air between the weeping in her bereavement. It was only a few moments of respite before Amata was pulling at her—knowing that they had to escape from the apartment and they couldn't spend another minute sitting on the floor and grieving.
"W- We have to get you ou- out of he- here." She murmured brokenly as she sat back on her haunches and wiped her reddened nose with the back of her sleeve, sniffling hard and breathing heavily. "I ha- have a plan to keep you s- safe, bu- but you have to listen t- to me—okay?"
Winona nodded, lifting her head to look to her best friend, and wiping her eyes dry as best as she could. Chief Hannon Sr. wasn't banging on the door any longer, so it could be guessed that he left to find assistance to get it open.
"My da- dad, he—… he was saying cra- crazy things!... That the vault door was o- opened, an- and there's radroaches everywhere, and the reactors exploded or so- something!..."
"How? How was the door opened?" She asked fervently. "And by who?"
"I—…" She shook her head, getting up from her knees on the floor shakily before helping Winona up. "I thou- thought you would kno- know—…"
"How could I know anything?" Winona cried in a strained tone.
"My dad sa- said yours was the one who opened it!" Amata exclaimed, her voice cracking as she hiccuped from how hard she was crying. "I fi- figured he ma- maybe told you he was leaving!"
"I—…" She gawked at her friend with wide, teary eyes in awe. The door was open, and her dad was the one who opened it? Why? Was it because of that project he was once apart of? Was it for those people, his team, that she saw in his old photos? Was it because of her mother?
"Things like I'm not going to be around forever, Nona."
"…You re- really had no idea… did you, Winnie?..."
"...Of course. I'm not going anywhere, my little love."
"...No." She shook her head, her gaze staring off blankly and she was feeling sick again. "I—… he never said a thing…"
"I'm so sorry it had to be like this… with my dad, and Jonas and you having to find out everything this way." Amata murmured solemnly. "But I—… when I woke up, I heard my father talking about your dad having left the vault, and said something about a town out there that's up the road. I think he called it Megaton."
"Megaton—?" Winona replied with wide eyes. "Like a town before the war?"
"I don't know." She replied truthfully. "My dad said something like 'he's probably at Megaton by now', so I assumed it was a town or a city or a place or something, I don't know."
Winona swallowed thickly and looked to the radio on her dresser knowingly. It was the one Freddie had gifted her a long time ago, when she first moved into her independent apartment and still loved him.
"So what do we do?" The inventor asked.
"My original plan was to get you somewhere safe to hide until I could talk some sense into father," Amata replied with her teeth sunk into her bottom lip in thought. "But now I have no doubt in my mind that he'll stop at nothing to find you."
"Well my two options can't be hiding or turning myself in!"
"They're not." She replied firmly as she went to Winona's dresser and started pulling out some of her jumpsuits. "The new plan is to open the vault door, and from there you're going to find your dad."
"What?" Winona cried out fretfully, following Amata. "Are you insane? We don't know what it's like out there!"
"I know but like you said your choices are either hiding or turning yourself in! As it stands with Jonas being murdered, turning yourself in isn't really that much of an option, so I'm giving you another choice!" Her friend snapped back loudly as she thrust the clean clothes into Winona's arms. "Now start packing! Your only chance is getting the door open! After that—!… After that, I don't know... I don't know what you're supposed to expect out there."
"You're saying that either way I'm going to die!"
"No you're not!" Amata yelled back, coming to her. "It's risky, I know, but for now this is all we got. So I meant it when I said start packing!"
The girls made short work of packing a bag for Winona. They used the old duffle bag that once carried her baseball equipment and filled it with all her clothes (three jumpsuits, some underwear, undershirts, and socks), sanitary things like a toothbrush and paste, deodorant, tampons, and then dumped in some medical supplies from a first aid kit in the living room. From her work table, Winona gathered up her tool satchel, the few pieces she had of Gizmo's body, and some other little trinkets and gadgets she had made over the years; a handful of smoke bombs of her own design, a high-precision pen laser that she was still trying to perfect (created in lieu of the incident of Wally forcing his way into her apartment), and a small device that acted as radroach repellent (it would admit a frequency that would keep them from acting hostile, but instead it seemed to paralyze them which worked just as well). Widget went straight into a pocket in her jumpsuit for closer keeping. They agreed that she'd need to get food, water, and possibly more medical supplies on her way out, so she would need to make stops if it was safe enough before getting to the door.
"Has your dad locked up anywhere I'd have to get into?" Winona asked as she zipped up her bag and slung it onto her back, each arm in a handle so it rested like a backpack. Gizmo's muzzle dug into her lower back uncomfortably. "Would he lock up the clinic? He'd definitely lock up the main door to the entryway room if he thought for even a second I'd go after my dad."
"I- I—… do- don't know…" She answered with a shake of her head, her arms folded tightly over her chest to hold herself. "I think he'd expect you to turn yourself in quietly, but—… he's different, now. I don't know what he'll do." She shook her head. "Anyways, it doesn't matter if he locked the main door—I know how to get around it! In the Overseer's office is a tunnel. He told me about it in case I'd need a quick escape for one reason or another… it's activated by his terminal."
"We can leave, you know—go out together." She looked back at Amata hopefully, but from the expression on her friend's face, it didn't look like an option for her. "C'mon, Amata! You and me—!"
"Winnie," Amata sighed, as if frustrated. Or maybe she just couldn't find the proper words. But when she finally spoke, her eyes wouldn't meet Winona's. "With my father acting this way, he thinks that what he's doing is in everyone's best interests when it's not. He's dangerous and unstable… he watched as Stevie murdered Jonas, and he said awful things! The only one who can talk some sense into him is me. So no, I—… as much as I want to, I can't go with you… besides, you have to go out and find your dad and I'm sure I'll only slow you down."
Winona's lips pursed in disagreement but she couldn't bring herself to speak those thoughts out loud. Wordlessly, the girls instead went in for another long and breathless hug. When they broke apart and finally collected themselves enough to continue on, Winona picked up her old baseball bat and went to the window. Her hands gripped the neck of it tightly, remembering the familiarity of practice with Coach Gomez what felt like decades ago, and muttered over her shoulder for Amata to stand back. With several hard swings, each cracking the glass more and more, it finally shattered and showered the hallway with shards of glass. The sirens blew into the bedroom like a hurricane and struck them both.
"After you get everything you need, we'll meet at my father's office!" Amata called over the deafening alarm as she collected the sheets up from the floor and handed them to Winona, who cleared away the remaining jagged pieces still in the windowsill with them. The sheets were then laid over the sill so they could climb out without cutting themselves on stray glass shards.
"Won't your dad be there?" Winona replied, giving an uncertain frown as she swung a leg out before pulling her heavy bag through with her.
"He wasn't when I was there last—but I'll make a distraction, just in case!" She smiled, but it seemed hollow upon her lips. "I'll find a good way to get him to leave! Bu- But before I forget—"
Amata's hands dove into her jumpsuit pockets as she spoke, each bringing out something that called for Winona's attention; in one hand resided a pistol, while in the other was a handful of bullets. Her body went rigid upon seeing the firearm as the only people who had them were certified members of Security.
"A- Amata! Where did you—?"
"I stole it from my dad's office! I thought that maybe—" She gave a short sigh and a meager shake of her head. "I- I don't know what I was thinking when I grabbed this!… I was just scared! I thought that, maybe, I'd need some protection, but right now you need it more than me so I want you to take it!"
Winona stared at her friend, eyes slowly dropping back down upon the gun. Just looking at it made her feel uneasy because so much could go so wrong with just an unintentional twitch of the finger. Someone could be seriously hurt—or worse, killed—and it was a responsibility she didn't want to have. She didn't want anyone to be under the impression that she was looking for a fight or willing to kill people to get away.
So she left Amata with a goodbye she couldn't bring herself to say, and the gun that she refused to take.
"Someone—!"
"C'mon, Butchie!"
"—help me—!"
"We can make a run for it! We could go outside!"
"—please! Anyone!"
"Nobody's gunna be by the vault door, we could do it!"
"That's my 'ma in there, Dolly!" Butch barked at her, but she continued to paw at his jacket, trying to coax his attention away from the screams of his mother just in the next room. The familiar chittering sent rattling chills down his spine and his feet were planted in place—he couldn't go in there. He just—… couldn't. He was too terrified to even think about taking a single step!
"You think I can't hear that?" She snapped back at him, finally dropping her hands away from his jacket so they curled tightly at her sides. Her face twisted up in anger with her lips pulling taut, pursing under flaring nostrils.
"You're a moron if 'ya think for a second I'm just gunna leave her and let her die!" He exclaimed, looking back to the closed door of his apartment where his mother's screams could be heard on the other side. He called himself a Tunnel Snake when he couldn't even fight off a roach?!
"Why not? You were always shit-talkin' 'bout her, I thought you hated her!" Dolly seethed through clenched teeth, throwing an accusing hand out towards the apartment door. "I thought you would want somethin' like this t'happen to the drunk bitch!"
The final word she spat out caused Butch to turn sharply on his heel with his eyes fixated upon her in a white-hot glare. There were a lot of bad things his mom was and still is, but no matter what Butch DeLoria knew that his mother loved him more than anything else—and just because he talked shit about her didn't mean anyone else could. No one was permitted to speak that way about his mother—not Wally, not Paul and especially not Dolly.
"You fucking take that back." The Serpent King spat in a hiss.
"It's the truth, ain't it? All she's ever done is held you back!" Dolly grimaced back at him, unwilling to apologize. "I love you, Butchie, but God, sometimes you're so damn thick!"
"Can't say the feelin's mutual!" Butch snarled, and something broke apart in Dolly's eyes, which were bulging in shock. "That's right, 'ya heard me! I don't love you! Jesus Christ, finally! Get it through that thick fuckin' skull of yours!" He roared, two fingers coming up to tap his temple to accentuate his point. "I don't fucking love you! Why do 'ya think I took that stupid F.A.M.I.L.Y. test? 'Cause I'd rather take a chance at another broad then be stuck with you! 'Cause you're too fuckin' stupid to know when to leave me alone!"
"I can't—! I can't even believe you!" She screeched in response as her tears began to surge on her eyelids, polluted by her caking of mascara. "After everythin' we've been through together! Since we were kids! How could 'ya say that t'me?! How couldja say 'ya don't love me?"
"I just wanted someone t'suck my dick s'what!" He bellowed back at her angrily with an accentuated thrust of his hips in a suggestively brutish fashion.
"You're such a bastard! You're an absolute bastard, Butch DeLoria!" She screamed with a finger suddenly jabbing irately into his face—but before she could scream on, his eyes caught sight of someone running down the hall in their direction. When he looked over Dolly's head, he saw Winona stopping to catch her breath with her body hunched over, her hands settled on her knees to keep her upright. She looked on ahead in the direction she had been running, her silvery-white hair sticking to her forehead and cheeks with her sweat.
Parker—? Butch's eyes widened in horrified realization that his mother was still trapped in their apartment by the radroaches. He quickly shoved Dolly out of the way and went sprinting toward Winona.
"Hey—!" Dolly screamed. "Butch, get back here! I ain't done with you, fucker!"
"Parker! Shit, thank God!" He cried in relief, barely taking notice of the way her face twisted into complete panic. Her eyes were rounded and on the verge of tears, though her puffy eyelids suggested she'd been crying for some time already.
"'Ya gotta help 'ma!" He exclaimed upon realizing that she was stepping backward with a look in her eyes suggested that she was thinking about booking it; but when he mentioned his mom, the look immediately disappeared and she drew closer to him in alarm.
"Is she okay?" She yelled over the sirens. "Where is she?"
"Back in the apartment, she's gunna get eaten by the roaches! I dunno where they fuckin' came from!" Butch went running back toward the apartment with Winona quick at his side, matching his speed to where they barreled past a shocked Dolly for a second time. "Woke up with all these alarms and shit an' when I got up t'go look around, they charged me and ran for 'ma! The hell's goin' on?"
"I'll explain everything in a minute!" Winona answered quickly, obviously distracted by her task at hand. She ducked into the apartment, dropping her duffle bag to the floor unceremoniously and pulled from it her old baseball bat, where the neck was sticking out of the bag. She then ran into his bedroom with a brave-hearted look on her face, disappearing from his and Dolly's sight.
Butch ran to the outside window that looked into his bedroom and saw his mother on his bed, huddled up against the wall and screaming as three roaches lunged and chittered at her hungrily. The bed was too tall for them to climb up onto but she still had no way around them to the door with how they cornered her, occasionally kicking one away when it jumped high enough to get to her. Winona was beating on them pretty savagely with her bat in downward swings, breaking from the motions to smack away mid-air a roach that tried to jump at her. It went sailing to hit the window with a loud thunk and Butch immediately recoiled in repulsion as it slowly slid down the glass, leaving a trail of mucousy entrails.
"We gotta call Security!" Dolly cried besides him. "They're lookin' for her!"
"What?" He snapped toward her. "What for? Parker didn't do shit!"
"Her dad's the one that opened the door! You don't think she helped him somehow—? She was in maintenance, she'd know more about the door than anyone!" She reasoned, scowling. A look of fiery hatred had encompassed her eyes as she watched Winona—Butch knew the animosity was motivated by the inventor being paired with him for marriage—and it looked like Dolly just found the perfect opportunity to get her payback.
"I'm gettin' Security!" She hotly announced before bolting down the hall before Butch could stop her.
"Wait—! You fuckin' idiot, get back here!" He yelled angrily after her, but she ignored him and kept running. "Dolly!"
God dammit, the Tunnel Snake seethed to himself before turning back toward the window, watching Winona finish off the last roach; stomping down on it's head with a war cry, crushing it under her boot heel where it popped messily like cherry bomb, leaving a shower of guts on his floor.
When he was sure they were all dead, he rushed into the apartment to come to his bedroom. Winona was beside his mattress, panting from the exertion in mass murdering the giant bugs, as she offered a hand to his mom to help her off the bed without stepping on any of the corpses. The whole room smelled musty like old socks.
He hated that smell.
"Shi- Shit—" He stammered before laughing in relief, now that the terror was over. He then threw his hands up triumphantly into the air, balled into pumping fists. "We did it! We saved my 'ma!"
"...Yeah, we did it." She commented bitingly as she shook off the roach guts that strung off her bat goopily. When his mother suddenly flung herself at Winona in a grateful hug, the little inventor was staggered by the drunken force behind it and would have fallen backwards if it wasn't for Butch taking her by the arm to lead her away.
"Check her for bites," Winona instructed after following them into the next room. "Make sure she doesn't have a single one."
Butch knew that those skittering little shits had more bacteria in their mouths than a toilet, and he witnessed it from personal experience when Wally fucked around with one when they were kids and got bit. He tried to hide it from his parents but it resulted in a bad infection that needed pretty strong antibiotics.
Wally still had the scar on the back of his hand, on the fleshiest part of the base of his thumb.
"You're okay—right, 'ma? C'mon, move it, lady—sit your ass down." Butch made her plop down onto the couch. "You ain't hurt?"
"M'fine—fine." She nodded, obviously still a little drunk from her bender the night before.
He forced her to lay back and rest so he could check her properly without her squirming about or trying to stand back up; he meticulously scanned her bare feet and up her legs as Winona came to help, using her free hand with her bat still in the other, to check his mom's hands, neck, and face for bites. They shook their heads at each other to confirm that she was completely unharmed, and she was back to sleeping again with sloppy snores. Butch got up to his feet from his knees, facing Winona.
"Thank God 'ya came when you did, Parker," He let out a mirthless little chuckle. "...Dunno what woulda happened to her if you didn't."
"What would you do without me, huh, King Snake?" She responded in kind with a small, fake smile before looking around his apartment for her bag. Going toward it and kneeling down, she unzipped it to pull out a bulky device that was about the shape and size of a dictionary, with one long, extendable antennae jutting out of one end of it. The top was a mess of tape holding down what looked like a big battery into the device by color coded wires, and there was a single toggle switch beside it.
Winona offered it to him.
"This is a roach repellent I was working on. You turn it on and it sends out a frequency only they can hear that'll paralyze them if they come within range. That's about 10-12 feet, which isn't much, but if you keep this on it'll keep the little buggers out of your apartment at least. Just make sure you have some batteries on hand because it drains through them pretty quickly when you leave it on for a while."
Butch nodded as he turned the device over in his hands to observe it, then set it on the couch arm besides his mother for later. When he turned back to Winona, she was picking through the littering of vodka bottles that were on his dining room table. She moved to the side a few empty ones she was examining before finding two that were unopened and turned back to him.
"Mind if I take a few?" He shook his head in the negative to say she could, and she knelt down beside her open duffle bag to stuff them inside. "Where'd Dorothy go?"
"She, uh—she went t'get Security." Winona's rounded eyes snapped back over her shoulder at him.
"What—?! Why didn't you tell me? I have to go! I have to go right now!" The inventor cried, working quicker to try and zip up her overstuffed duffle before hastily grabbing her bat, launching herself up to her feet. "If they corner me here—!"
"Wait, wait—!" Butch scrambled to block the door to keep her from leaving. "Dolly said your old man opened the door! That true?"
"No! Yes—!" She groaned in frustration. "Argh! I don't know! Amata thinks he got out, I don't know why he left or how he pulled it off, either! All I know is that if I stick around here, and Security finds me—! You have to let me go!"
"Wadda they even want with you?" He demanded to know, frowning. "I ain't lettin' you out until 'ya tell me what the hell's going on! Besides, Dolly probably can't find anyone if the roaches are still around out there."
"The Overseer thinks I helped dad escape, or that I know something about it or where he went! Butch, I'd rather not take the chance of Dorothy not finding an officer, so please—if you don't let me go and they find me, they might kill me like they killed Jonas!"
"What—!"
"Amata heard it all. She said Stevie Mack beat him to death!" Winona explained as she moved to the window to look outside for incoming Security. "The Overseer ordered him to in an 'interrogation', and Amata thinks that he'll order the same thing to happen to me if I'm caught!"
"Christ, you're serious, aren't'cha? He'd actually do it? Then where the hell are 'ya gunna go? The vault ain't big enough—" Butch's mouth clamped shut through his dubious response. Realization blanked the thoughts that were meant to follow, which was caused by Winona giving him a dreadful look back over her shoulder. He frowned, shaking his head as he came towards her.
"You're not goin' outside! Nuh-uh, no way!"
"I don't have a choice," She barked back, turning to face him. "If I stay, he'll find me!"
"And what if he follows 'ya out there, huh? What're you gunna do then, Professor?"
"It'll be damn easier to hide up there than down here, won't it?" Winona barked before glancing out the window again to ensure Security wasn't coming, then checked her Pip-Boy entities radar; the only blinkers on it were of Butch and his mom, named as such on the screen, along with some other residents who were farther away, hiding in their own homes.
Butch knew by the look on her face that she wasn't going to change her mind.
She was actually leaving.
"...You still owe me a whisky night, Parker." He responded in a murmur and she actually smiled a little despite the frustration in her face, her eyes flickering up toward his.
"...I know. Sorry. Rain check—? If I'm ever back in the neighborhood."
"There's a time limit on those things, 'ya know."
"And here I thought you'd be glad to be rid of me." She chuckled blandly, unable to produce a genuine sound. Her eyes rounded out when Butch began tearing off his jacket, shucking his arms out of it. "What're you—?"
"Makin' sure you keep your promise 'bout the whisky! So I'm givin' you my jacket," He explained dishonestly as he shoved the garment into her possession. He then tucked his hands away into his jumpsuit pockets so she couldn't give it back. Truthfully, he just really wanted her to have it. "Consider yourself an honorary member of the Tunnel Snakes, Smartmouth."
Winona gazed down at the leather jacket in surprise with her hand running over the patched Tunnel Snakes embroidered emblem on the back. Her fingertip traced the fangs, the contours of the open snake mouth, trailing over a yellowed eye and down it's lithe neck with an intricately observing finger and she began to smile—a smile that, in a way, looked like he had just handed her some kind of amazing award and she couldn't believe it was hers.
"You sure about this? It's your jacket—too late, you can't stop me I'm already putting it on!" She questioned before just as quickly dismissing it, tying the arms of it around her waist for safekeeping.
Butch could've given her her own jacket since he had a handful of others, but those didn't have the emblem sewn on yet, and to give her his jacket had a desired allure to it. Knowing that she'd be out there with some piece of him was an exhilarating thought.
"Get on outta here, Parker." The smile disappeared from her face the moment he spoke. "Send a postcard my way or somethin', got it? Lemme know if people out there don't look all mutated and shit, or if there's anythin' cool to do. And don't wreck my damn jacket, 'ya hear me!"
Winona watched him with a saddened look, her eyes ducking away from his face as they shared the silence, and she looked out the window again for Security just so he wouldn't see the look in her eyes. When they met with his face again, her expression twisted into fearless fire as if she had resolved a matter in her thoughts, and she came towards him in a hurried stride with her hands latching onto the unzipped collar of his jumpsuit. In a fluid motion, she pulled him down to her height while also coming up to her toes to meet the distance quicker, and pressed a peck of a kiss to his mouth.
Her hands released his collar before he even had chance to respond in kind, as he was too busy with being shocked to properly reciprocate or even understand what the hell just happened.
"...Why?" He asked dumbly as they awkwardly stared at each other.
"...I- I—... to satisfy curiosity... say it was good while it lasted, us being friends. Because—... Because Butch, we both know I'm not coming ba—"
Butch didn't want to hear the end of that. He cut Winona off with the cupping of his hand under her chin and his lips went colliding into her own in the returning of her kiss—leaving the remainder of her admission to be swallowed back down her throat in a sharp inhale of surprise. While his other hand greedily felt for the subtle curve of her waist and the edge of her sharp hip, he gripped for the leather arm of his jacket as leverage to pull her closer. The gang leader's pulse was racing at a pace that was too fast to be rhythmic or even normal, only feeling the softness of her mouth and of her hands trying to anchor themselves to his shoulders just to steady herself on something, then pulling him in closer as well by pure instinct. He wasn't able to oblige her as she suddenly parted from the breath-taking kiss that sent a coil of passion to his stomach, her cheeks flushed and her lips parted as she looked up into his eyes, trying to catch her breath.
...Damn. Parker's got some kinda mouth on her, was the only thing his mind could eloquently piece together and he was so fucking relieved that his dumbass couldn't manage to say it out loud during that moment.
"I—... Butch, I need you to listen to me and listen to me closely. Do not trust a damn thing that comes out of the Overseer's lying fucking mouth. He can't be trusted. He'll do whatever it takes to keep us trapped down here, he'll go through whoever he has to to get it done. Don't get too close and don't do anything stupid. Got it? Because if I die out there, I'm coming back as a malevolent spirit and your scaly serpent ass is going to be the first one I haunt. " Winona spoke with a protective firmness as her hands dropped from his shoulders to lay against his chest, and both of his hands made full contact around her waist just to hold her for a second longer.
"Don't even joke like that! 'Ya ain't gonna die!" He grimaced in warning. Great, that was exactly the goodbye he wanted from her—one attached with a mental image of her mangled carcass lying face down in a ditch somewhere with flies buzzing about it.
"...Stay safe Snake King." Winona replied quietly in a sorrowful voice before kissing him on the cheek—not close enough for him to sneak in another kiss like he wanted to, if this was their last time seeing each other—before she pried herself away from him and darted towards the door.
She was out in the hall, running away before he could think to stop her or pull her back into his arms. Was this really happening? Did she kiss him and then take off in the night to leave the vault, to leave his life, forever?
Inside of him a lot of things were shifting and grinding uncomfortably; like all his pieces that had once worked together in harmony were just thrown into complete chaos. He wanted to supply filler into the goodbye they exchanged, maybe actually give her a proper thank you for all the things she did for him, or a real apology for all the shitty things he did to her while they were growing up... but he was still too damn proud to say those things and he was too damn proud to admit that he was going to miss her.
Butch silently hoped that this wasn't the last time he would see her, because all too late he realized that if it was—he was going to live with these regrets, unspoken and alone, for the rest of his life, because he was too scared. He liked to think that giving her his jacket explained some fraction of all the things he wouldn't let himself say, and if he had apologized, that Winona would have forgiven him.
Winona was cool like that and didn't let petty bullshit get in her way. She wouldn't have agreed to just go through with the marriage if she hadn't forgiven him somehow, right?
So Butch DeLoria stood in his apartment, alone, and confused, and admittedly scared, with the lingering memory of Winona's lips on his.
Because it was undeniable that he knew she was right; she was never coming back.