A/N: Hey guys! Back again with chapter 6! Had a lot of fun writing this one - actually, I'm having a grand ole time writing this whole goddamned thing.

Anyways. MORE ACTION! MORE DEATH! MORE INJURIES TO POOR CAIT!

Enjoy! And leave a review! They give me ideas of what you guys like, and lets me know how well I'm doing. Also, they make me all warm and fuzzy inside.


Chapter 6: You're Daye-Um Straight They Are!

Part One: In Which Cait Is So Not Okay With That, And Meets Some More of Daye's... Friends? Well, Mostly People He Knows and Who Know Him But Sort of Hate Him Because He's a Dick

"I take it back! Take it all fuckin' back! I am so not okay with that!"

Cait cowered pathetically like a mangy beaten dog behind one of the yellow crates as the lasers and bullets spat and snapped into the wood just inches from her fucking face, showering her with chips of old paint and splinters of old wood and puffs of old dust and fucking gods almighty, this was getting so old.

"What the motherfuckin' fuck were ya thinkin' Daye?"

"What?" he howled over the thunderous din, crouched not four feet from her, clutching at his ugly modded shotgun.

"I said, 'what the fuck were ya thinkin'!?"

"I can't hear you!" he shrieked, not daring to peek above the crates just yet. "But if you're bitching at me then you're gonna have to shove it up your ass, Red! We got more important shit going on right now!"

Cait snarled at him wordlessly and reloaded her double-barrel.

About fourteen and a half seconds after Cait told Daye she'd be okay with him getting her killed – literally right after the last chapter ended – the fucking Commonwealth Asshole Militia marched in, guns and curses ablaze. Gunners – at least a good dozen of the fuckers – in their spiffy green combat armour and high-tech laser rifles, all with a douchebag pedigree and foul attitude just bent on doin' them a-murderin' this fine fucking Thursday. They must've been within earshot of the fishpacking plant and the motherfucking explosion to end all explosions, probably roughing up some poor settlers or something, and so trucked it across the plains or up from the waterfront, keen on finding out exactly what the fuck happened to the plant and why the fuck it wasn't there anymore.

Oh, yeah. The giant-ass pillars of smoke curling up from the crater might've got their attention, too. Not to mention the mass of obviously stolen crates and containers sitting pretty up on the hill like a fucking offering to the gods. All guarded by only two clearly-stoned idiots.

It was a recipe for utter disaster.

"Why in bloody Hell are we just sittin' on our asses out here like fuckin' retarded ducks without a goddamned ounce of decent cover?" Cait seethed, more to herself, really, considering Daye couldn't hear her and probably wouldn't care, anyways. "Never thinks things through, he does. Just fuckin' does shit. 'Oh, I wanna blow up a goddamned factory,' he says. Why? 'Just for shits and giggles'. For bloody shits and giggles. Must have a death wish or somethin'. You have a fuckin' death wish, dipshit?!"

"What?"

"That's what I fuckin' thought," she growled, putting a nice hole in the front of some Gunner prick who got way too close for comfort. Also, she might've blasted a corner off the crate she was hiding behind, launching shards of wood and buckshot into the Gunners' stomach. The guy keeled over in the grass, writhing and screaming in agony as he tried and failed spectacularly to keep his insides on the inside. Cait smirked.

"Hey! Be careful, Red! Don't fuck up the crates!"

It was Daye, being an asshole, and caring more about his motherfucking drugs than keeping Cait's head on her shoulders and her blood the exact same quantity as she had right now (inside her body, of course, not like Mr. Intestines there).

"Fuck off," she grumbled, reloading her double-barrel again.

If Daye ever asked about this later, Cait would say of fuckin' course I set up the crates like a goddamned fortified maze 'cause I knew you didn't think about the fuckin' attention you'd draw by exploding a fuckin' factory just outside the city. Dipshit. Or something like that. Because honestly, Cait didn't think about the attention, either, but hey, you gotta take it easy on her – she didn't have too much experience blowing shit up. Blame the ugly asshole with the shotgun for that.

Anyways, yeah, the crates were haphazardly thrown around in the grass because Cait hadn't given two shits about stacking them properly, and so they were laying about sort of maze-like, with little cracks and hidey-holes and corners perfect for cover and cowering, and some tall walls and window-like gaps . It sort of reminded her of something she'd seen in a history museum once, on a trip downtown before the raiders moved into the Combat Zone and didn't let her do thing like that. There had been an old painting on the wall, faded and torn, from a time long before even the bombs dropped. Blue soldiers up on a hill, hunkering down behind the wooden blockades of a fort, defending against the red guys down below. Except she didn't think they had laser rifles way back then. Or Jet. And she was pretty fucking sure there was more than just a couple of stupid Yanks on the hill.

She popped off another few Gunners, trying to keep her sweaty, grimy hands steady despite the penetrating heat from the baking sun above and the spitting roar of combat rifles and the tingly zapping of laser weapons and livid shouting and the overwhelming, nauseating stench of charred earth and melted metal and soot and rusty blood and she was tryin' to come down off her Jet high at the same fucking time and –

Thunk.

"Ow – what the bloody fuck?"

The sizeable goose egg on her forehead throbbed painfully and her eyes watered for a moment, and when they cleared, they managed to focus on the fucking live grenade at her feet.

"Oh, fuck me!"

Cait wasn't dumb – not like some of the raiders she knew – but yeah, she wasn't no honour student either. Any other person might've gotten right the fuck outta there and let the grenade send Daye's chems straight to the pearly gates of the great Holy Buffout in the sky. As it was, she picked up the grenade with her bare hands and tossed it back over the walls of Fort Day Tripper (as she decided right then to call their hidey-fort), in any direction that wasn't right fucking here.

It exploded in much the same way live grenades do, and some people screamed in much the same way people do when a live grenade is exploded in their face.

Clods of dirt and stones sprinkled down on Cait and she rubbed at her swollen forehead angrily. "Remind me again why I signed up for this shit," she seethed, blinking back tears.

Oh, right. She didn't. Tommy made her go. If she ever saw the fat bastard again she was gonna rip his shrivelled ghoul dick off and shove it up his ass.

Cait glanced sideways, hoping to flying fuck Daye didn't see her get clobbered in the face with a grenade.

No such luck.

He was practically pissing his pants laughing, whether in sick joy from their dire predicament or still flying from his mystery high she didn't quite know, and it probably didn't matter. The asshat mimed with his hand the grenade falling and smacking her right in the face, and he laughed again, the sound almost drowned out by the fire barrage.

Cait growled and flipped him the middle finger. He just chuckled to himself as he sent a round of buckshot tearing open the face of another Gunner.

"Asshole. I just saved all yer fuckin' drugs. Yer welcome."

He shrugged because he couldn't hear her or he didn't care or he was agreeing with her for once. Whatever. Didn't matter.

The fucked-up pre-war fort re-enactment continued, with muskets exchanged for lasers and buckshot, and cries of patriotic victory bullshit exchanged for some rather colourful curse words (and ways the Gunners could go take themselves, and fuck themselves, with themselves).

In time, the crate Daye had been using as cover splintered and shattered under the intense laser fire barrage. Cursing not quite so under his breath, he scootched over a bit so he was right beside Cait.

"Hey, this is my hidey-spot, asshole."

"We can share."

"No we can't. Find somewhere else to do yer murderin'."

"Boy," Daye whistled, entirely ignoring Cait. "Mac is not going to be happy he missed this."

"Why's that?"

"Because," he said, just narrowly avoiding a sizzling beam of laser ammo shredding his ear off. "He always jumps at the chance to take these assholes out. Used to run with these guys."

"These guys?"

"Well, not these exact guys, but the Gunners, yeah."

"Well, can't ya talk 'em outta this? Maybe?"

"Talk? With the Gunners? You clearly haven't had many run-ins with the pricks. "

"That how you two met?"

Daye's jaw twiched the tiniest, smallest amount. Cait smirked. She knew he hated talking about himself. "Mac? No. He'd already left by the time I found him."

"How'd ya meet then?"

"Do you really care about all that? Or are you just talking for the sake of it?"

She shrugged. "The fuck else we gonna do?"

"Concentrate on shooting the bastards who are shooting at us? Maybe? I don't know, just a thought."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Don't really care, even."

She did care. A little bit. Daye was still a complete and total mystery to her. He knew she was a slave. Knew she was a pit fighter. Hell, the guy even knew what sort of foods she liked, the size of clothes she wore, the kind of dudes she liked to fuck (yeah so alright, maybe she sometimes did tend to talk just for the sake of it).

All she knew about him was that he had a Pip-Boy from god knows where and that he liked blowing things up. Oh, and he hated people calling him Nate.

Felt as if she knew this Mac guy better than her temporary employer or whatever, sometimes. Mac would love this, or Mac said this thing one time, or Mac took out a whole hive of super mutants with just his sniper rifle once. So badass. It was always Mac and me, me and Mac. Mac Mac Mac. Fuck. Chuckles and Trish joked about it, before they got their heads blown off, of course, but Cait was starting to wonder if this Mac guy really was sucking Daye's dick, and vice versa. Though she couldn't really see Daye sucking anything other than Mentats.

Cait swallowed, throat parched from the boiling heat and the lack of a good drink in god-fuckin-knows how long. She wiped the black soot from her face, the grime mixing like sludge with her sweat, and she blew the legs out from another Gunner, sending him reeling head over ass end back down the hill, and he took out a buddy of his, the both of them rolling around like a couple of horny teens might for fun. Except for the guns and blood and oh, yeah, the guy had mangled fleshy stumps where his kneecaps should've been. She wasn't gonna peek over the crate for nothing but she sure as fuck did to watch that spectacle.

Terrible fucking mistake.

"Ah! Blimey fuckin' fuck!" she screeched, reeling back hard on her own ass as a shot of red laser seared sharp across her cheekbone. Wide-eyed and breathless, she instinctively threw her hand up to her face and hissed and – her face was fucking melting!

The world slowed and sped up at once and her heart began to thrash in her chest and her mind seized up and oh fucking Christ above and all that was motherfucking holy, she was gonna be all melted and ugly and fucked-up like Daye now, and there was blood everywhere, all over her hands and shirt and mixing with the soot and sweat and clinging her clothes to her skin, and she could smell burning flesh and hair and fuck fuck fuck –

"Hey, Red, calm the fuck down," Daye hissed, and he grabbed her arm way too hard, dirty nails digging sharply into her flesh. He dragged her back from where she sat with not an ounce of care, skinning her knees and palms in the gravel, and he yanked her between a wedge in some crates. "Your face isn't melting, for fuck's sake," he said, pulling out an old rag or something from his stupid fucking jacket and pressing it tight against her cheek.

Cait sat there stupidly, eyes wide, mind utterly blank, unmoving, entirely oblivious to the sounds of bullets and lasers and assholes shouting asshole-like things, and she stared at Daye's face and focused on that – at him, and at his sweaty hair plastered to his head, his eyes more red than green now, his bent nose, his soot-smudged skin, his burn scar crawling across his flesh like some sort of disease.

He smiled at her, his trademark asshole smirk, but she was beginning to like it. Sort of. His hand was warm through the cloth, and despite it being hotter than Hell's kitchen in the sun, she placed her hand over it. Dirty and scarred and scratchy from the medical tape looped round it, but it was warm. A different sort of warm.

And… there was something else. There… the concern… the care there, in his eyes, hidden as it was by his layer of asshole and his high, and in the almost gentle way he held his hand to her… it was real, not fake, not a sham. Cait knew fake care and worry more than anyone, she supposed, but this… wasn't. Simple as that. It was so foreign and weird and she wasn't quite sure if she liked it or not.

It was like those goddamned cheesy romance novels Tommy kept in the back sometimes. Cait couldn't read to save her life but the ghoul used to tell her about them when she got really, really bored. About that moment when the girl realises she's in love with the guy and the world stops movin'. Except the world stopped two hundred years ago, and she hated Daye probably more than anyone she'd ever met, and Cait had never loved anyone in her whole entire life.

So, really, it wasn't like those romances at all.

But still. She felt she should say something, at least.

"Daye, I –"

"You'll be fine. Might bleed for a while, so keep the cloth on it. You'll probably have a badass scar on your cheek but you won't be all melted and ugly and fucked-up like me."

Her heart both dropped through the ground and hammered against her bruised ribs from the Jet fall at the same time – a weird sensation, to be sure, but not as gut wrenching as realising she'd said all that shit aloud.

"Oh, I – I didn't mean – I'm sorry," she murmured, almost sad and lonely when Daye let her go to peek out behind the crates, and then recoil as some Gunner asshole sent more red laser beams pinging off the metal and wood around them.

"Whatever. Just – let me focus."

For some stupid reason, it was so utterly important to Cait in that moment for Daye to understand she really didn't think he was ugly and fucked-up (alright, maybe a little fucked-up, but definitely not ugly). "No, Daye, really – I'm sorry."

"Yeah. I heard."

"No, listen: I'm sorry."

He did a weird thing then, sort of like a sigh and a growl at the same time, and cocked his shotgun. "Okay, fuck. I get it. You're sorry. But you already said I was sexy, so I'm just going to blame it on the adrenaline and shock." Then he grinned down at her, a lopsided sort of smirk, and yeah, okay, his face was all melted and ugly and fucked-up, but damn if that smile didn't make something inside her squirm. In a good way, she thought, although she was still kinda high on Jet and just about had her face blown up and then liquefied, so her brain probably didn't know what the fuck it was thinking anymore.

"How many left?" she asked, not yet daring to move the rag for fear her face might fall apart at the slightest rustle. "They all dead yet?"

"No," he said, pulling the pin from a grenade and lobbing it over the crates and down the hill. It exploded, sending more bits of dirt and wood down like a shitty fucked-up rain storm. "Still eight or nine left, I think. Can't be sure. Might be some hiding behind the hill down there."

He looked down at her again, a pathetic little ball of blood and quivering muscle, and frowned. "Think I might need your help here, yeah?"

Daye needed help killing things? Fuck, that wasn't good. "Yeah. Yeah, sure, fine," she mumbled, head absolutely throbbing from the grenade and the high, her body trembling uncontrollably from the Jet fall cooling everything down. She crawled toward her double-barrel with one hand (the other still holding her face together with the rag) and nabbed it, not quite sure how she was gonna shoot things with one hand like a gimp-ass retarded baby.

And that's when the party really started.

That's when the ghouls showed up.

A whole fuckin' pack of the feral zombies, emerging from god knows where, some sewer or hole in the ground, maybe. They tore across the dusty plains, headed for the other side of the hill, limbs flailing, rotted, pitted faces screeching out unrecognisable things, things that were drowned out by the zapping of the Gunner's laser rifles –

"Daye!" Cait screeched, doing a stupid thing and dropping her double-barrel to smack his back pathetically. "Daye! Fuckin' ferals! Behind!"

"What?" he hissed, probably pissed that Cait felt like using him as a punching bag rather than helping him defend Fort Day Tripper. He twisted round, ready to ream her the fuck out, then noticed the mob of undead assholes sprinting up the hill, still a ways away, yet way too close for anyone's comfort. He spat some curse words that even Cait hadn't heard of before (a fuckin' miracle in and of itself, she reckoned), then began rummaging around his ratty jacket pockets.

"Alright," he growled. "Time for plan B. The 'B' standing for Big-Ass Motherfucking Bonfire."

He lit the rag of a molotov cocktail with his little gold lighter and tossed it down at the foot of the hill right in the path of the sprinting ferals, who gave exactly zero fucks and tore right through the blaze and on up the hill.

"Hm," he pondered, giving the blazing ghouls a moment of his undivided time. "I really thought that would do more."

"Great job, ya fuckin' twat!" Cait screeched, eyes popping wide at the fantastical performance of Ferals on Fire. "Zombies! Flamin' zombies! Comin' right fuckin' at us!"

"Yeah, I see that," he spat, ducking from another few bursts of laser fire from the Gunners on the other side.

"Ya got a Plan C then?" she groaned, ducking down as well, and eyeballing up the charred, scorching ferals hotfooting it closer and closer to Fort Day Tripper.

"Um… yeah, uh…"

"Daye!"

"Hold on!" he snarled, rummaging around his pockets again. "Uh… let's see…"

The ferals were closing in on them from behind, and so were the Gunners in front, now that the defenders had been sideblinded, and Cait was really, really not in the mood to be eaten alive by a flaming corpse. Not today, anyway.

"Daye!"

"I know! Fuck. Is this a Thursday? You know, I could never quite get the hang of Thursdays."

"Daye!"

"It is a Thursday," he said, glancing up from his Pip-Boy screen. "Shit."

Cait's Jet-addled mind refused to see the logic in letting the rag go and using both hands to shoot their assaultants with her double-barrel. Instead, she pulled Tommy's little pistol from its makeshift holster on her belt and pinged off a few .44 calibres into the unfeeling torsos of the ferals, now barely a good stone's throw away from them. She could see their pitted skin melting in the flames, their stringy hair, their gaunt faces, their gnashing, rotted teeth that were about eleven fucking seconds from tearing her flesh off.

"Daye! Daye! We're gonna fuckin' die!"

"Cait, fuck, I know! Here!" he cried, pulling out another stick of dynamite like the ones he used to blow up the fishpacking plant. "Plan C! The 'C' standing for Cunts are Going to Get –"

"Stupid humans!" a voice roared out from Cait and Daye's left, and then in the span of maybe four and a quarter seconds a lot of things happened very quickly.

One: the soft whir turned to a savage roar as the minigun spun to life.

Two: the enormous super mutant behind the minigun laid his fat green finger on the trigger and sent a sensational shower of bullets spitting out into the heart of the pack of flaming ferals.

Three: the two other super mutants pulled out a super sledge and a flamer, and proceeded to use said weapons against the flaming ferals (why the fuck you would use a flamer against already flaming ghouls was anyone's guess but hey, no one said muties were smart).

Four: the Gunners took notice of their unexpected guests and promptly attempted to evict them from their dinner party.

Four and a Half: the majority of the flaming ferals proceeded to have their limbs ripped from their sockets, their torsos shredded down to the bloody, spongy innards, and their heads popped like watermelons. Gory, and really quite revolting, but it was like a train wreck and Cait could not look the fuck away.

Five: Cait looked the fuck away. Her and Daye squirmed even further into Fort Day Tripper, deep into the maze of crates and sacks, not very keen on getting involved in this shitty fucked-up family reunion of the Wasteland's dumbest and biggest pricks.

"This doesn't look too good, Red," Daye breathed hard, chest heaving, wedged between a yellow crate and a metal one, face not six inches from Cait's.

Cait could smell his breath – sour and sort of gritty, kind of like salt and asphalt. Daddy-O. Mystery High solved.

"No fuckin' shit," she panted, and okay, she'd left her double-barrel and .44 pistol out there but the rag was successfully stopping the bleeding. She might become ghoul food but at least she'd look pretty dying.

"I thought I had them with the dynamite. Where the fuck did the super mutants come from?"

"No clue. Who d'ya think'll win?"

He shifted a bit to make room for his ugly shotgun, resting it on his lap, the polished metal stock pressed up against Cait's thigh. "Jesus, I'm actually sort of rooting for the ferals. Right scary bastards but at least they don't have any weapons."

"But they'll eat yer flesh like it's fuckin' cotton candy."

"Hm. Yeah."

"Muties?"

He shook his head. "Even worse. They bring you back to their camps and cut little pieces off of you. Keep you fresh."

Cait squirmed. "Gunners, then."

"Fuck no. They'll probably spare us and make us work for them."

"So? Better'n dyin', ain't it?"

"I don't like taking orders."

Cait shook her head. "All we needs is some robots and a deathclaw and this'll be the fuckin' asshole orgy of the century."

Daye just stared at her, and then blinked. Blinked again. Cait thought he was either gonna puke on her or kiss her. Neither was preferable – at least, not right now.

She frowned. "Daye?"

"Robots," he murmured, and then a wide grin split his face like how the sun rises over the old harbour. "Robots!" he screeched louder, making Cait wince. "Red, you're a fucking genius!"

"Well, no shit," she smirked, watching him rummage through his pockets for one time too many that day. "What you got up yer sleeve this time, ace?"

"Plan D," he smiled, yanking out what looked to be a blue stick of dynamite, but a little smaller. "The 'D' standing for Danse Party."

And then he hurled the stick out far as he could, over the heads of the Gunners, out back towards the crater of the former fishpacking plant.

Blue smoke. A shit-ton of blue smoke. It rose, slowly at first, high into the air over the heads of the Gunners, the super mutants, the flaming ferals, who all ignored it in favour of pursuing their passion of murdering. Rose even higher than the freeway above, crumbling and old and situated in just the right spot so of course it failed to shade Fort Day Tripper. Rose so high into the sky Cait couldn't see the end of it anymore.

She frowned at Daye. "Danse Party?"

"Yeah, I know. Not my best work but, hey. Don't mention it to the guy, alright? He hates when I say shit like that."

"What guy?"

"Danse. You deaf? Ah. Here he comes now."

Cait had seen those giant flying metal bird-things before. Far away, out east, over by the big weird oval ship hovering above the old airport. Loud bastards, fast little things. The raiders thought she'd gone mental first time she'd told them about it. She'd set them straight with a fist to the face real quick. Then the bastards very well fucking believed her. Tommy had told her later that they were called vertibirds. Flying marvels, pre-war military remnants of an age when people fought each other over stupid shit that no one could remember or care about now. Said some secret organisation flew them around now, piloted by big metal human-like robots who talked of nothing but honour and valour and a bunch of other bullshit that didn't matter anymore.

In turn, Cait thought Tommy had gone mental.

The flying metal vertibird thing started off as a pinprick in the far distance to the north, a little insect in the blazing blue sky, and as it came closer the soft hum moulded into a roar and the turbulence from the spinning blades grew so earsplittingly loud it completely drowned out the laser rifles and the minigun and the screaming, flaming ghouls.

Now the fuckers were paying attention.

Daye reloaded his shotgun and took advantage of their guest's momentary shock, sending a wide spray of buckshot into the ugly face of the super mutant with the flamer, making the monster shriek in pain and fury and lob his weapon over at them, missing by a wide margin and exploding the gas tank into the dry grass over by the Gunners.

"Shit," Daye growled, ducking back down. Cait could barely hear him now over the earth-shattering roar of the vertibird, thumping madly in her chest. "I'm having awfully shit luck with fire today."

"Well, it is a Thursday, you said."

"It is."

"But I don't know about that. Yer explosion was pretty fuckin' spectacular."

He smiled.

The vertibird thingy was so close now Cait could see it properly – a bulbous metal machine with two sets of rotors and six blades, hovering like those fucking creepy bloodbugs down by the reed-choked waterfront. Its blades blasted the air around, skittering the blue smoke and the black smoke and the fire from the ghouls and the fire in the grass, and it smelled like shit here now – like blue smoke and black smoke and burning ghoul flesh and burning grass.

The Gunners and the mutants were screaming things Cait couldn't quite hear, and they started shooting at the vertibird thing. Red lasers pinged off the rusted hull, and 5mm minigun rounds ricocheted off it and out into the baking air. A Gunner lost his footing from the intense winds and even the mutants had to shield their eyes from all the smoke and gravel being flung through the air. Cait coughed, dust and smoke burning her lungs and throat, and Daye's baseball cap flew off his head and over the walls of Fort Day Tripper.

"Shit," he hissed again, running a hand through his hatless, vertibird-whipped hair. "That was the only goddamned Red Sox hat I ever found out here."

Cait had no idea why the fuck his stupid ugly hat had anything to do with socks but she didn't really care. She hated that thing more than his crusty gas mask but not quite as much as his ratty old infinity-jacket.

Anyway.

The side door of the vertibird screeched opened. A fucking robot like the ones Tommy said appeared. It grabbed hold of a mounted minigun at the side and –

"Red, get down!"

And all fucking hell broke loose.

Cait didn't really watch what happened. She's not afraid to admit that she cowered like a little fucking schoolgirl again and huddled real close to Daye, the pair of them like a couple of siblings who'd stolen their dad's smokes and were hidin' out back 'cause they knew the bastard was looking for 'em and would tear them three new assholes once he found the little buggers.

The vertibird-thing and the robot and the minigun tore savagely into the Gunners and mutants and ghouls. She could hear absolutely nothing but the keening drone of the wind and the vicious roar of weaponry as it shredded through the armour of the Gunners and the thick skin of the mutants, popping and cracking grossly. Cait didn't have a weak stomach but just the fucking sound of flesh being sliced to ribbons and bones being snapped almost made her fucking hurl right in Daye's fucking fucked-up face.

Fuck.

And then, as swift and violently as it began, it was all over. Just like that.

Cait opened her eyes to Daye's bloodshot green ones, and then they both peeked out over the crate.

A bloody massacre for the history books, ladies and gents. Burnt grass and flaming ghoul limbs and shredded Gunner armour and chunky blood and lumps of skull with some hair attached and a threadbare green thing that sort of looked like the fucked-up remains of a super mutant's arm or something.

Cait shielded her eyes from the blasting wind as the vertibird came in even closer. It hung in the sky in much the same way bricks don't, and then it landed gently despite its bulk. Its blades died down slowly with a low chopping thud-thud-thud. Daye smiled beside her, easily hopping over the crate like the last three minutes never even happened.

Cait was still trying to figure out what the fuck actually happened in the last three minutes and why the fuck a robot in a strange flying machine had saved them from an inevitable gruesome cannibalistic death by flaming zombies.

"Danse!" he called out, arms open and inviting as he paced toward the massive robot. Daye was a pretty tall dude but the metal machine guy was a good three or four feet taller than him. It stepped away from the minigun and thunked off the flying vertibird machine-thingy, hydraulics in the legs hissing gently. "Paladin Danse! You saw my signal, eh? I wasn't sure you'd get here in time! Thanks for saving our asses, man!"

The robot took a few heavy steps forward, metal feet crunching over charred wood and singed grass and then lifted its arms to its head and pulled it off and –

Oh, fuck. It wasn't a robot. It was the most handsomest motherfucker Cait ever had the pleasure of laying eyes upon.

The man held the helmet under his arms, and the severe frown on his face didn't make Cait want to ravage him right here and now any less than it probably ever would. The guy looked goddamned heroic, like the soldiers in those old pre-war posters, standing in the snow with the Old World flag behind them. His short hair was jet black and soft-looking and it ruffled easily in the dying wind, and his scruff was a bit shorter than Daye's and darker, and trimmed neat at the sides, not left wild, and his eyes were brown and his jaw was strong and he was probably pretty-well built under all that armour and holy fuck did Cait ever want his dick.

"Daye," Mr. Fuck-Me-Please nodded tersely.

Mm. Even his voice was deep and smooth as a baby's asscheeks.

"Danse, man," Daye went on, clearly ass-kissing at least a little bit. "You really got us out of a tight fucking jam there. Seriously. Did you see all those Gunners? And the fucking flaming ferals? Honestly, I couldn't have done that if I tried."

Danse's stern frown only increased in severity and hotness. "Well, civilian, I'm glad you're safe now, but I –"

"Danse. Come on, it's Daye. I think we're past all the 'civilian' bullshit."

Hot Guy's eyes narrowed. " – but I can't say I'm glad at the circumstances."

"What do you mean?"

Danse Party in my Pants Party surveyed the vicinity with more than a little distaste, prompting Daye to do the same. All the corpses, all the blood and guts and ammo shells, all the crates and sacks, and all the hissing blue and black smoke wafting about them all like a creepy bruised mist.

"Ah. I see. Too short of notice?"

"Daye," Danse sighed, all his stern demeanour practically melting away as the irritation rolled off the dude in waves. If anything, he looked even more fuckable now. He rubbed at his eyes with his fingers, like a tired parent might at their misbehaving bastard of a son. "Daye. You can't keep doing this. You can't expect me to just rally my squad whenever the fancy strikes you and pull you out of all the tight corners you somehow manage to wedge yourself into."

"Why not?"

"Because we're not your personal on-call army, asshole," the pilot of the vertibird called out from the side window – a woman, sort of butch, with a real pissed-off look on her face.

"Fuck off, Hoss," Daye hissed at the pilot. "No one's asking you."

"Hey, watch your mouth, burnout," snapped another man in armour, previously seated up front but moving around the fuselage now, fiddling with the red-hot minigun. "Or I'll smack it off your ugly face."

"And shove it up my ass?"

"Sure. Sounds good to me."

"I think you're a little confused, Rhys. Aren't you the one who likes taking mouths to his ass?"

Rhys ripped off his helmet and jumped down from the vertibird in the span of an impressive one-fourteenth of a second. "For the last goddamned time," he growled, face a livid twist of disturbing detestation as he stalked toward Daye, "I am not gay, you deadbeat bastard–"

"Lancer Hoss, Knight Rhys, stand down," Danse ordered in a voice that demanded respect, stopping this Rhys guy dead in his tracks not three feet from Daye and his smug-ass smirk. Rhys's leg hydraulics hissed in protest then settled softly.

"Well. Isn't this just the sweetest family reunion. Reese Cups, how are you, brother?" Daye smiled sweetly – a little too sweet. Rhys almost fucking growled. "Look at us. All the Gladius boys back together again. And yes, I do mean boys. Hoss probably has a bigger dick than you do, Peanut Butter."

"You fucking – "

"Knight Rhys!" Danse hissed. "Control yourself, soldier. Remember your place. And Daye –"

"Technically it's Knight Daye, Danse. Or did your little girl scout club finally vote me off the island?"

"If only it worked that way, junkie."

"Knight Rhys!" Danse spat, the stern exterior slowly chipping away. Then he frowned down at Daye, a disappointed sort of look etched into the lines of his fine-ass face. Rhys continued to stare down Daye like he was a piece of shit stuck to his boot, and Cait could tell it took everything the guy had not to actually rip Daye's mouth off and shove it up his ass.

"No. My offer still stands, Daye," Danse said. "You're welcome back to Recon Squad Gladius whenever you decide that –"

"Yeah, yeah, I need to get my shit together, hang out with the good kids, eat my fucking vegetables," Daye waved off, leaning against one of the crates casually, entirely at odds with the men in the giant suits of armour and the fucking minigun still steaming and the massive bulk of the flying war-machine not six feet from the flaming, bloody massacre around them. He pulled out a Lucky Strike and lit it, blowing the smoke almost but not quite in Hottie's face. Hottie noticed.

"Rhys, back to the 'bird. Make sure the minigun's cooled down."

Rhys glared poison daggers at Daye a second longer, then turned and picked up his helmet from the burned grass before hauling himself back up into the vertibird.

Danse took half a step closer, the hydraulics in his armour whirring softly. "Are you high right now, Daye?"

Daye sucked in. Held it for a moment. Blew it out. "No."

"This is what I'm talking about," he said, voice lowered so that Hoss and Rhys couldn't hear him. "Brotherhood protocol clearly states the embargo on narcotics and stimulants. Decorum aside, you know my thoughts on your habit."

Daye flicked his dart without care, the embers falling softly to the ground. "Well, holy shit. Is this concern I hear coming from you? Haven't seen you this troubled in a long time. You on your period?"

"Daye, please. I'm being serious."

"So am I. I've got it all covered, big guy."

Danse frowned deeper. "I don't think you do."

"Well. That's your problem then, isn't it?"

"No, Daye, it's not. It's yours."

Daye shrugged him off carelessly. "Really Danse, I'm flattered, but I'm a big kid now. I can take care of myself."

Danse's eyes narrowed, clearly not done with the conversation quite yet. "May I remind you –"

"May I remind you that the only reason your mockery of a military is in the goddamned Commonwealth right now – actually, the only reason you're standing here and not rotting in some fucking ditch – is because of me."

Danse visibly stiffened, and his frown grew so intense Cait thought for sure the wind would change and his face was going to be stuck that way forever. Not that she minded. Intense Danse was superbly fuckable.

"You're going to go there?" Danse almost whispered, voice a mix of dangerous warning and careful apprehension.

"Hey. You went there first."

"I haven't forgotten all your help at Cambridge, Daye, I'm only saying –"

"What, Danse? That you wish you were out rotting in some ditch? So you wouldn't have to look at my fucked-up face with all that 'disappointment' and 'lost potential' you're so fond of flinging at me?" Daye abandoned his cigarette, flicking it into the grass. "Or is it because you're too fucking embarrassed to bring me back to Maxson? Show him the broken relic, the useless piece of shit you picked up as a charity case?"

Danse's face burned red and Cait was just waiting for him to catch fire and melt. "Daye, please –"

"Let's just cut all the merry-go-round bullshit and get to the gist," he spat, standing up straight again. Despite being a good three feet shorter than the massive metal soldier, Daye put on an air that demanded his attention. Danse gave it, though Cait got the feeling it wasn't without more than a little grit.

"I needed my ass saved from that tea party back there and you delivered. These crates need moving to a safe place far away, and I see a perfectly good vertibird sitting in front of me with a lot of excess cargo space." Daye shrugged, running a hand through his greasy hair. "Think you can help me out?"

Danse stayed silent a moment. A long moment. An almost awkwardly long moment. Cait just about slunk away and hightailed it outta there. Sure, flying robots were pretty cool and all, but she was not dealing with her Jet fall well and shit was just too intense right now. She needed a matress and some Psycho. And maybe the dick attached to this Danse guy. Mm.

He eyed Daye up and down, and then Cait (which, honestly, she was a-o-fucking-kay with), and his gaze skimmed over the crates and sacks and then slithered down to the hissing crater and rubble where the fishpacking plant stood not ten minutes ago.

He nodded down to the ruins. "You pull that off?"

Daye crossed his arms and let out a huff of air. "What do you think?"

"I think you're mad."

"Well, you're not wrong."

"I think this is a grand misuse of Brotherhood resources and time."

"Probably."

"And I think you're the best goddamned EOD tech I've ever had."

Daye smirked. "Yeah. Your loss."

Part Two: In Which Cait Slowly Begins to Realise Daye is an Even Bigger Asshole Than She Thought

"What's EOD?" Cait asked, though in all honesty, she didn't really care. She was just trying to distract herself from vomiting all over everyone and everything within a twelve-foot vicinity of her face-hole.

The vertibird ride from Marowski's (former) chem lab was turning out to be a real fucking shitshow. Not the exciting kind of shitshow either, like one where Daye and Rhys get into a fist-fight and throw each other out of the flying machine and tumble a thousand feet to their very splattery deaths. No, it was the boring, long-ass kind of shitshow, the kind where nobody talked and suspicious glares were constantly thrown and Cait was in an almost-constant state of nearly spewing chunks from the wobbly, erratic aircraft. Her stomach churned and her eyes hurt from how fast they were going and how far everything was, and how dizzyingly high up they were, zipping through the air in a boiling little metal tube above the skeletons of buildings baking in the dust.

"It means I like blowing shit up."

"It means he's qualified to arm and disarm explosives," Danse said, hands glued to the minigun at the wide open side door like he was prepared for some fucking flying deathclaw about to attack them or something. Which wouldn't really surprise Cait but fuck, the guy needed to relax a bit. Dude probably couldn't take a shit with how tight he was. "An explosive munitions expert, in the general sense."

Explosives? No shit. Cait could believe it.

"But what's it stand for?" she asked, hands curled round her woozy stomach. "Must stand fer somethin'. Right?"

"EOD. Explosive Ordnance Disposal."

"Hm. Explodin' Ornate Diuretic."

Daye smirked, and he leaned back lazily in the wide civilian seat they shared midway in the cabin. "Yes. That's exactly it."

"So, yer whole radio bomb thing at the fishpacking plant," she said. "That was yer EOD thing?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"Where'd ya learn ta do shit like that?"

Daye didn't answer her. Neither did Danse. But where Daye's face was a stupid mask of indifference, Cait saw Danse's eyes flicker over to the man briefly, then flicker back out to the dusty horizon before him.

Cait crossed her arms, ignoring a sharp churn of the gut as the vertibird veered sharply. "Alright, fuck, if ya don't wanna answer me then don't. I really don't give a shit about you or all your shitty secrets, Daye."

He just smirked.

"A real charmer you got there, son," Danse said in his sexified voice. "Where'd you pick her up?"

"Combat Zone. 'Bout five or six days ago now."

"The Combat Zone? I've heard of that place. A pit-fighting club, am I right?"

"Mhm."

"Pit-fighting is a hell of a sport, kid," Danse said to Cait, even though the guy was probably younger than her. "You've got to be a real tough player to win at that game."

"Yeah," she huffed. "I guess."

"Came across a few of those pits when I was younger. Horrible places. Full of… miscreants. It's illegal back in D.C."

"A lot of shit is illegal, Danse," Daye said. "Doesn't mean people won't do it."

"Doesn't mean they should do it, either," Rhys chimed in, up in the passenger seat beside the pilot. It was the first thing he'd said since he threatened to fuck Daye's face up even more than it already was. Well, apart from the constant grumbling when Danse made him load up all the crates into the back cargo hold. In which Daye did not lift a goddamned finger to help.

"Right, Peanut Butter. I forgot how fucking golden your sense of morality is. Warms the cockles of my heart."

Cait couldn't see his face but she sure as fuck could feel the dude's hatred for Daye even from back here.

"You're an asshole, you know that?"

"Bet you'd just love to stick your dick in me, then."

"Daye, please," Danse almost begged, cutting off Rhys before he could crawl in the back and throttle him. Cait saw the tiniest of smiles from Hoss, underneath all her weird helmet wires and shit.

She was pretty sure she saw steam come from Rhys's ears. After that he shut the fuck up and didn't say a goddamned thing.

"While I'm overall unimpressed with Knight Rhys's behaviour lately," Danse began gratingly, "and notwithstanding the fact he's forced me to write him up when we get back to the Prydwen, I'm inclined to agree with him, Daye." At this, he glanced behind them all, at the stacks of yellow crates jamming up the entire cargo hold. "Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should."

"Another piece of infinite wisdom from the Book of Danse, Volume Two: What the Hell, I've Heard This All Before. I'll have to write that one down."

Danse gave a little sigh. "Just… consider all I've said. Please."

"Sure thing, Paladin," he mock-saluted, and even Cait almost slapped him for his goddamned insolence.

She dared a peek out the door past Danse's hulking frame and out at the unending world around them. The earth whizzed by, the vertibird a tiny insignificant speck in the colossal infinity before her. Towering skyscrapers and stretching shorelines and endless empty, bone-dry plains sprawled out beneath and outward like a gigantic too-realistic playing board. Here and there some movement down below – a gang of vicious raiders or a pack of feral dogs, maybe, a shaky blob moving as one in the labyrinth of broken streets and commons, creeping through the buildings like spindly fingers. The sweltering sun sparkled brilliantly off the water in the harbour, and Cait could not even see the end of it. The earth curved slightly and the ocean swelled on out forever, fading far from view on the hazy, watery horizon.

It was all too fucking terrifying and yet so goddamned mesmerizingly beautiful all at once.

She leaned back in her seat. Daye's eyes were closed now, slanted back in the seat like he was napping right in the middle of the insanely loud and vibrating flying machine. Typical. Danse's iron grip on the minigun had not let up even a little. Rhys was stewing in his own shit, and Hoss was mostly silent, except for the occasional numerical gibberish she chatted into her headset, and the flicking of switches and dials.

Cait knew a little bit about the Brotherhood. From what little Daye had told her, watching Rhys and Hoss jam the crates and sacks into the ass end of the vertibird earlier, she knew they were sort of army-like. Like a wannabe pre-war military, obsessed with ethics and morals and old tech. Came from way out west years ago, in those weird giant hover-ships, intent on spreadin' their integrity to the poor sods of the wasteland like those missionary bastards before the war. Creeping through the world like some sort of cancer, she rather thought. Knew they had beef with the Railroad – those underground pricks bent on saving the synths from the Institute. Cait knew very little about all that and she cared even less.

"Sooo," she began, if only to fill the gigantic awkward silence the vertibird was now stagnating in. "Daye."

"Hm."

"Yer friends here."

"Hm."

"Friends is a very loose term. Unwilling comrades is probably closer to the truth."

"Thanks Hoss," Daye bit. "You always know how to make me smile."

"How d'ya know 'em?"

He frowned. Sighed. Rubbed at his face tiredly, and then opened his eyes. They were green again, not a bloodshot, puffy red. Must've come down from his high. About fucking time.

"Did some work for them for a while."

"Sounds like yer more'n just workmates."

He frowned. "Uh. Yeah. Used to be part of this clusterfuck of a squad. Had a… sort of a falling out, I guess."

"Daye." Danse shifted at the minigun. Locked it into place, then turned around to face them, armour hissing again. The frown on his beautiful face was deep. "That's not true."

Daye didn't say anything. He clenched his jaw, staring at Danse. Danse stared back. Cait was almost convinced they were gonna hate-fuck each other on the floor of the vertibird cabin right then and there.

"He set up explosives for the Railroad and disarmed them for the Brotherhood. And vice versa," Hoss said from up front. "The guy double-crossed both sides of the table."

For a long moment the cabin was entirely silent, except for the constant buzzing drone of the vertibird engine, of course. Nobody moved. Danse and Daye still stared, straight-faced and serious as ever.

Then Cait let out a fucking roaring laugh.

"No way! No fuckin' way! You were playin' both teams at the same fuckin' time?!" she howled, making Danse lose his concentration and blink with mild surprise. "Daye! You fuckin' asshole, Daye! You blew shit up for the Railroad? And these knobs? At the same motherfucking time?! How in Jesus Fuck did ya ever pull that off?"

"I didn't," he said, losing his seriousness ever so slowly. "I got kicked out of both."

"No fuckin' shit they kicked ya out, ya swindlin' con-artist! Ya sleazy motherfucker! So let me get this straight," she wheezed, eyes tearing up with insane enjoyment. "Ya planted bombs for these robo-knobs –"

"The Brotherhood," Danse bit.

"Whatever. For this Brotherhood, meant ta blast the Railroad pricks outta their fuckin' hidey-holes – and then ya turn around and let them know about it?"

"…yeah. I guess."

"And these guys! You plant a stick o' dynamite underneath their asses for the Railroad, do ya? And then ya dismantle the thing? For these pricks?"

Danse sighed. "The Brotherhood."

"Whatever, bub. What fuckin' for, Daye?"

He shrugged, settling back down in his seat again. "Money, I guess."

"Money, eh. The shit you do for a few caps, you mad bastard!"

Cait could not fucking stop laughing. Her ribs ached, her throat was raw, her head was aflutter with glee.

It seemed there was no end to the list of asshole-like things this asshole was ticking off. What a greasy son of a whore.

"You like burnin' all yer goddamned bridges, don't ya?"

He shrugged again, a small smile worming its way up his marred face. "What can I say? I like to widen my sphere of influence and contacts."

"And enemies, it seems like."

Danse frowned even deeper, Hoss pointedly ignored them, and it seemed like Rhys had offed himself, he was so fucking quiet for once. Daye himself was smirking, now, and had closed his eyes again, head lolling back and forth softly with the motion of the vertibird.

"Yeah. Those too."

Cait chuckled lowly, wiping away her tears.

Wow. What a fucking day.

"So," she said, clearing her hoarse throat softly. "Where we goin' next?"

"Don't know. Try and get a lead on Marowski, I guess. The asshole's still out there, somewhere. No doubt he knows about the fishpacking plant already. It'll be a bitch, trying to weedle him out of his burrow, wherever the fuck that is. But we have to drop these crates off at a safehouse of mine first."

"Fuck, not Home Plate again?"

"No. Well, not really a safehouse. More of a safe-settlement. Get to meet some more of my 'friends'. Hopefully they're not around, but luck hasn't really been on my side lately. And hope is a stupid thing."

"Where, then?"

Daye cracked his eyelids a tiny little bit, the dazzling sunlight slanting through the door of the vertibird and falling across his warped smile.

"Place I like to call The Castle."


A/N: Rhys is pronounced 'Reese'. Like Reese Cups, those fucking delicious chocolate and peanut butter things in the orange package. Captain Obvious out.