Butch almost panicked when he woke up. In his sleep-addled state he had forgotten that he had actually left the vault. He remembered rather quickly thanks to the beams of sunlight coming through the roof and walls, as well as the hotter, dirtier air. It was so strange to wake up because of light and not because of noise. It was a welcome change, though. Somehow, it felt more natural.
He yawned, and pushed himself out of the rickety bed. That was one thing the Vault did better. Beds. It was a small price to pay for freedom in his mind. He continued to wonder about what other big differences he would learn about as he pulled his vault suit back on. He had slept in only his undershirt and boxers since he hadn't bothered to bring extra clothes with him. He didn't pull the arms on, though, opting to tie them around his waist instead as he remembered how hot it had been the day before. He couldn't wrap his head around how the hell Nosebleed went around wearing his jacket like it was nothing.
Crap, he thought as he remembered that he was sitting in that bedroom, because he had agreed to travel with Nosebleed. It had been a pain in the ass at first, because she of course had to be right about everything, but she had ended up shutting herself in her room after a bit. He was pretty sure she had been crying. It had made him unbelievably uncomfortable. He had been the source of her tears many times in the past, but that was different. Those were angry, frustrated tears. These ones… he could barely hear her sniffling through the walls, but he could tell that those were heartbroken ones, and even stranger, he hadn't been the reason she had started crying. He had felt so awkward as he sat listening to the radio for the first time as she cried on the floor above him.
He pushed the thought of Nosebleed crying out of his mind as he checked his hair in the compact mirror he had stolen. He hadn't consciously brought it with him when he had left. He had simply already had it in his pocket. He had stolen it from his mom just before the fighting had gotten really bad, because he had a feeling it would be a lot harder to get to the bathrooms or to another mirror to touch up his hair. It wasn't like she'd notice it missing anyway, given how damn drunk she was.
Once he was satisfied with his hair, he pulled on his boots and headed outside of his room. He heard a gentle clinking sound alongside the sound of Wadsworth's thruster, and he looked over the railing of the landing. Nosebleed was sitting at the table on the first floor eating breakfast. She looked tired, but better than when she had slammed her bedroom door closed. Hell, she even looked cleaner. He was still bothered by the sight of his jacket on her shoulders, but at least she wasn't crying anymore.
"Hey," was all she said as he came down the stairs. She looked up from her bowl of whatever, and he swore that her eyes lingered on his chest and bare arms. He was pretty sure she had just checked him out, and naturally he grinned at the idea of a pretty girl thinking he was good looking, even if that girl was Nosebleed.
"You see something you like?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows at her for added effect, because he had to tease her about it.
"What?"
"Your eyes were lingering, No- Patrick."
She rolled her eyes, but her expression was otherwise flat, "I was just confused why you aren't wearing your suit like normal."
That deflated his ego more than he liked, but kept his grin on, "Aw, it's alright, girl. You don't have to pretend that you don't think I'm smokin'. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I know I'm irresistible."
"Whatever," she sighed in a way that was far too convincing. She shoved a bowl she hadn't been eating out of to the other side of the table, and gestured to it, "Breakfast, and before you ask, yes, it's edible. I have a food sanitizer, and Wadsworth cooked it."
"What is it?" he asked as he sat on the bench opposite of her.
"Porridge and some kind of fruit. The porridge is made of something called razorgrain, which is imported from somewhere north."
He made a disgusted face as he raised a spoonful to taste, and took a bite. He was completely prepared to be disgusted, but it was a lot better than he was expecting. It wasn't quite like anything he had before. Maybe because it was more natural, or as natural as something could be in a radioactive wasteland.
He gave her a confused look as she stood up, but she ignored him. She picked up her bowl, and brought it to the back room. When she returned empty handed he realized that she had just finished eating. Much to his surprise she sat back down, and started fiddling with her pip-boy. Even before she had gone upstairs, she had given him a wide berth.
"Where we going today?" he asked between mouthfuls of food.
"We're heading north. "
"Anywhere in particular?"
"Not really."
"And here I thought you were busy saving the world or something. Didn't you say you had shit to do?"
"I was busy, but I took care of all that, and I changed my mind. Sometimes… sometimes things need to wait a bit."
"You haven't been asked to save someone's kitten?"
"Not yet."
"So, we're just goin' to what? Wander around? You're kidding, right?"
"That's how you find the interesting stuff. I found a bunch of giant, fire-breathing ants that way."
She was fucking with him. She was definitely fucking with him. He narrowed his eyes at her, "You really expect me to believe that?"
"Yeah, 'cause it's true," she said, and she was completely serious. There wasn't a single hint of mischief in her eyes, and given that she was a horrible liar and always had been, he had to believe her. He still didn't want to admit it, though.
"You think we'll run into any, 'cause that's the only way I'm believing you."
She looked up from her pip-boy, "You asked me if I'd seen any dragons last night."
"Yeah, and?"
"Dragons don't exist."
"But fire breathing ants do?"
"Yeah, cause some asshole meddled with their DNA, and caused another mutation. The hell is a dragon supposed to mutate from?"
"A lizard, duh."
"So, a lizard is supposed to become giant, not just big, but giant, grow wings, and develop the ability to breathe fire, and you'd believe that."
"Yeah, 'cause dragons are cool," he said like it made all the sense in the world.
She narrowed her eyes at him, "I think your fear of bugs is speaking."
"I ain't afraid of bugs!" he yelled, though the crack in his voice gave him away.
"Uh-huh."
"What?" he demanded trying to sound as tough as he could manage.
"DeLoria, I'm the one who had to save your mom, because you were too scared of the damn radroaches. How the hell am I supposed to believe that you're not scared of bugs?"
As usual, she was right. She was really the last person he should try arguing that point with. Still, He wouldn't give her that satisfaction of admitting. Instead, he bit his tongue and rolled his eyes, "Whatever. When are we leaving?"
"Soon as you're done eating, and you have your stuff packed."
"Fair," he said, and finished eating. He grabbed his bowl and spoon, and brought it to where Nosebleed had dumped hers. He headed back upstairs to grab his pack. Having nothing else to do, and still getting used to the outside air, he had packed everything but his gun and knife the night before. With a groan he realized that he was going to have to wear his vault suit as it was intended to be worn to put on his new belt. He hoped that he would get new clothes soon, as he pulled on the sleeves. Once he was all situated, he went back downstairs, and found Nosebleed ready to go right next to the door.
"You fill up your canteen?" she asked.
"'Course I did. Like you said, I'm smart."
"That's not…" she sighed, "Whatever. Did you fill it with water, and not liquor?"
He stopped walking down the stairs, dumbfounded that she had known, "How…?"
"I know you Butch, and I noticed one of my bottles was more empty than it should have been. Go pour it back into the bottle, and fill it with water. I'm ditching your ass if you wind up dehydrated because you decided to fill it with whiskey instead of water. Besides, that flask I got you is for your liquor, not the damn canteen."
Knowing that she was stubborn enough to block the door until he did as he was told, he went and found the whiskey bottle he had stolen from. He chastised himself as he did so. He could easily move her out of the way, and he doubted she'd open fire in her own house over something like that. Still, he didn't like the idea of being left out in the middle of the wastes with no idea where he was. He did his best to act like it was some sort of prank to save face.
"Are you finally ready?" she asked when he returned.
Despite the exasperation in her voice, he responded with pure enthusiasm, "Hell yeah, I am!"
With that, they left. The sun was completely risen by that point, but was still to the far eastern part of the sky. Thankfully, there was a breeze to help compensate the heat. He hoped it would last.
He wore a near permanent frown as they made their way to the main gate. Everyone greeted Nosebleed with the same happiness that they had the day before. He started to have the feeling that she had done a lot more than just disarm the bomb.
He almost tripped over his own feet when he was what he was pretty sure was a two headed, hairless, cow. Meanwhile, Nosebleed just kept on walking like there was nothing out of the ordinary. He couldn't even ask about it, as he had to jog to catch up to her at the gate of the town.
The first few hours of travel were boring, and more laborious than anything. Nosebleed had turned her radio on, which helped, but it still felt like a special kind of hell to Butch. He was just glad that he decided to do this, and wasn't forced to. Things got a little exciting when he ran into his first mole rat. It had to have been the ugliest thing he had ever seen, but it had also been one of the most pathetic things he'd ever seen. It tried biting him, and Nosebleed just rammed the butt of her rifle into it. It keeled over, and that was that.
He was about to start complaining about being bored again when she flicked her radio off, and smacked him in the stomach. It took him to realize that she had actually stuck her hand out to keep him from walking on. She turned her head around wildly as he gave her a confused look.
"What ar-" he started.
"Raiders," she whispered, and grabbed his arm. Before he could fight back she had dragged him over to hide behind a nearby boulder. She moved so that her back was to the boulder, and held her rifle like she was about to start shooting.
He opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but he then heard the loud jeering voices. He heard the sounds of bottles breaking, and tin cans hitting the ground. As the voices drew closer, he could start to make out what they were saying.
"Come on, bitch, put your back into it."
"Is that the best you can do? COME ON!"
Butch poked his head around the edge of the boulder just enough to see what was going on. He saw a group of about six people dressed similarly to the ones who had attacked him when he had first left the vault. They were surrounding a group of four dressed in rags. The ones in rags had chains on their arms and legs. They had something bulky around their necks. The ones he was pretty sure were raiders were shoving and hitting the others. They didn't bother fighting back, and just accepted the blows.
"Wha," he started, and realized that he should be whispering instead, "What are you doing?"
"Gonna kill the raiders, free the slaves. Hopefully."
"Hopefully?"
"For the second part. You saw the things on their necks? Bomb collars."
His eyebrows flew up into his hairline, "B-bomb collars."
"Yeah."
"Holy shit."
"Yeah. Now, I think we can do this if we poke around the boulder at the same time. I'll count down from three, and when I say go, move and fire."
"Uh, yeah, sure," he said. She said it so calmly that it was a little scary. He got into position without any further comments. The raiders would pass and see them eventually, and he wasn't dumb enough to think that they'd get out without a fight considering they put bomb collars on people.
Nosebleed started her countdown, "Three. Two. One. Go!"
He hopped over the boulder, and took aim at one of the raiders. They took out four of the raiders before any of them realized what was happening. He did his best to pretend that he didn't notice that Nosebleed had gotten three when he only got one. The other two, the bastards, decided to use the slaves as human shields. Butch cursed up a storm as he tried to avoid their bullets while he got to better spot to shoot at them from. To his right, and to his horror, Nosebleed hit the ground. He almost ran back over to her before she started army crawling away. She used her new position to shoot at the raiders' legs without worrying about the slaves. The raiders screamed in pain, and went flying backwards. Butch raised his pistol, and shot them both in the chest, ensuring they were dead.
Butch's hand shook like an earthquake as it fell back to his side. He was no stranger to fights by any means, but killing was still new. He had a distinct feeling that it wasn't going to stay that way. While he calmed down, he watched as Nosebleed ran over to the slaves, who cowered away from her.
"Hey, hey, it's all right. I'm not going to hurt you. We're not raiders. Just wanderers. Let me help," she said in the gentlest tone he had ever heard. She knelt in front of one of the ones that had been used as a shield. He had fallen over when the raider had hit the ground.
"We're- we're wearing bomb collars," he wimpered. Butch's first reaction was to think that the man sounded like a wimp. He was then horrified at the thought. The guy had a bomb collar around his throat, and hadn't passed out from fear. If Butch was honest with himself, it was a lot braver than he would've been in that situation.
"I know. I've gotten them off before without getting anyone hurt. Hell, every time I've attempted to get them off, or at least disarm them has been successful," Nosebleed said.
He continued to lean away, clearly not convinced.
Nosebleed's voice somehow managed to come out even softer, "If you don't let me help now, it will go off later. Please, let me help. I'm willing to risk myself if that's what you're worried about."
That seemed to convince the man, as he leaned forward towards her. He tilted his head back to give her better access to his neck. Her fingers were a skilled blur as she first disarmed the bomb, then as she got the collar off. She held the collar in front of his face before throwing it as far away as she could. It hit the ground with an underwhelming clunk with no following explosion.
The man immediately started sobbing and repeating, "Thank you. Thank you."
"You're welcome. Now, let me get to the others and we can worry about those chains…" she said, and Butch could practically see the lightbulb above her head as she whipped around to look at him, "Unless you can pick the locks?"
"Won't I be bothering you?"
"You're worried about bothering me?"
"You're disarming bombs, smartass."
"You won't be bothering me. I got lockpicks in the front left pocket of my pack," she said as she turned to the next slave.
He grumbled to himself as he fetched the lockpicks. How he hadn't noticed she had dumped her pack behind the boulder, he didn't know. By the time he stood back up she already had one collar done. It felt odd to be helping people like this, but leaving them all out was just cruel. More cruel than he was comfortable being. By the time he had the man's wrists free, the other two were bombless. Nosebleed grabbed the pack of lockpicks from where it sat in the dirt near his thigh, making him jump slightly. Either she didn't notice, or she didn't care as she started working on the other shackles in silence. Once they were free they were crying, and rubbing their wrists.
"Thank you so much," the man said, "I don't know how any of us could make it up to you."
"There's no need. We lost nothing but time setting you free, and those raiders would've opened fire on us," she said while Butch just scowled at the horizon.
"Well thank you, both of you. Come on, folks, we should get out of here," the man said, and the newly freed slaves fled to the south.
Nosebleed stood and watched them until she couldn't see them anymore. She raised an eyebrow when she turned around, and spotted his scowl, "What crawled up your ass?"
Before he could stop himself, he said, "The raiders."
"What about 'em? Are you bothered by killing them? You did the right thing," she sounded genuinely concerned, and for whatever reason it got under his skin.
"I know killing them wasn't wrong. Why do you care so much?"
"Look, I might give you shit about things like thinking dragons are real, but I have to be concerned about shit like this. If I'm not, one or both of us could end up dead. That's how having a traveling partner works. So, what's wrong?"
He sighed, not sure how to start. You take away the bomb collars and shackles, and the way the raiders were treating the slaves reminded him of how he used to treat the others back in the Vault. The jeering. The hitting. The insults. It was too much like him, and he wondered if that kind of cruelty was really all that far away from how he acted.
"It's nothing. Just not used to death," he said. It wasn't the truth, but it also wasn't exactly a lie. He already gave in on too many things. He wouldn't give in on this. He wasn't about to go crying to Nosebleed about anything other than a bullet wound.
"Yeah. I know what you mean," she said, swallowing up his lie hook, line, and sinker. Her concerned look then melted into a smile, and it was a little too pretty for his liking,
"I'm surprised you were so okay with helping them."
"They would've just ended up with bombs on again, and that could back to bite us in the ass," he shrugged.
"Fair," she shrugged back, and grabbed her pack. She gave him a nod, and they continued on their way.
The next few hours consisted of fighting more mole rats, and a few emaciated dogs. Butch felt the worst about killing the dogs. He guessed that 'man's best friend' thing was built into humans. He just told himself that he was putting them out of their misery.
When they weren't being attacked by wildlife, Butch tried poking at Nosebleed to see if he could still piss her off. She threatened to ditch him in the middle of the night as he slept if he didn't knock it off, so he did as he was told. He couldn't keep his mouth shut the entire time, though. He found that she was surprisingly easy to talk to when he wasn't trying to piss her off. She called him on his bullshit of course, but damn, if she wasn't engaging. He had always known that she was smart, but the way she spoke about everything made her seem like she was some wise, old woman. It was strange to get along with her like that.
They eventually found an abandoned gas station to stop at for the night. After a brief argument about sleeping in shifts, they cased the place, checking for critters, traps, and people. When they found nothing else there they started getting set up. Nosebleed had found a way up unto the cement roof. They set up a fire to heat up their rations, and to keep the person on watch warm.
Butch now sat back on his arms, belly full of food, and watching the sunset for the first time in his life. He had been too busy poking through Nosebleed's stuff the night before. He marveled at the way it made everything look golden. He looked over at her with the intention to say some smartass remark, but it died on his lips. She was downright glowing in the sunset, and more than that, she looked at peace. She looked so different from the dirty, frazzled woman who had stormed through the Vault to save all their sorry asses from themselves. Her messy, blonde hair had been swept up into a long ponytail. She had scrubbed the dirt from her face, revealing all of her new freckles. Her eyes seemed softer somehow even though she was looking at the sun. His old jacket was hanging from her elbows, and he still didn't know how to feel about the fact that she was actually wearing it.
His luck ran out as she caught him staring, and raised an eyebrow at him, "What?"
He did his best to pretend he had been looking at the wasteland behind her, "I thought I saw something."
"Uh-huh, what was it?"
"Sun playing tricks on my eyes."
"It can take some getting used to."
He grunted in response. He glanced at her again, and asked, "I don't know how you're walking around in that jacket like it was nothing. I just had my Vault suit on, and I was burning up."
"I didn't feel hot."
"Did ya get used to the heat or something?"
"I guess," she said, and pulled the jacket up so it was on her shoulders.
He tilted his head back, and smirked at her, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say it's cause you like me."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"Oh, I'm sure you sleep plenty comfortable wrapped up in my jacket."
"It's not your jacket anymore, it's mine, and I don't sleep in it."
"Sure, Sunshine," he said without thinking.
"Sunshine?"
"What, would you rather me call you Nosebleed?" was all he could come up with.
"I'd rather you call me by my name."
"Nah, I'm good with Sunshine, and don't threaten me with ditching me. You won't have anyone to keep an eye out while you sleep. You need me."
She just sighed, and shook her head. She turned her attention back to the sunset. He wondered how he had never seen something so pretty before.
