It turned out that life with Nosebleed wasn't all that bad when he wasn't a dick to her. It had been a little off putting when she had taken him in so quickly, but after a few weeks in the wasteland, he understood why. Having someone you could depend on could mean the difference between life and death. The amount of times they'd both avoided danger just because there were two of them to spot it already proved that enough. He wasn't going to tell her so, but she'd been right about the ambushes.
There were some downsides, though. He got less privacy when… well he just got less privacy period. Not only had she almost caught him in some compromising situations, according to her he also talked in his sleep. That left him feeling a little more vulnerable than he liked. Their wasteland living situation left her with just as much privacy as well. Butch wasn't sure if that was a blessing or a curse.
She had gotten pretty, really pretty. Freckles looked a little too good on her face, and wandering the wastes had done wonders to her legs. The fact that her 'new' clothes fit her better than her vault suits ever had wasn't helping matters either. She also let her long, wavy, blonde hair out of the bun it had been pretty much permanently trapped in back in the Vault. He knew he shouldn't be surprised by how long her hair was since she refused to see him about her hair, but it was all the way down to her waist. It really needed a good chop, but even with all the split ends gone, it would still be to her waist.
What really got him, though, was how her personality had changed. She was more… easy going. At her core she was still a goody-two-shoes, but it was different. Instead of getting mad at him for breaking the rules, she kept him from getting himself and others hurt. He believed she was being a little strict at times, but she had saved his sorry ass from getting hurt more times than he would ever admit to. Part of him had expected her to keep up a strict bedtime when they were at Megaton, or for her to yell at him to keep his feet off the coffee table. Instead, she kept him from eating overly irradiated food and stepping on landmines.
Had someone asked Butch who he would have preferred to be living out in the wastes with she would have never had been his first choice before this. He would have chosen Wally or Paul back before… before Paul had died and Wally had become a bitch. But, even then he would have gone with Freddie rather than Nosebleed. Now that he was out of the Vault though, he couldn't imagine having anyone from that life by his side now, and that scared him enough that he tried not to think about it.
He got a good distraction when he spotted some figures in the distance. He squinted at them, trying to see them better in the bright sunlight. From what he could see, they looked like raiders. Damn raiders. They had no packs or luggage of any kind with them. There was no brahmin moseying alongside them. His stomach churned when he realized some of them had their arms bound in front of them. They weren't just raiders, they were slavers too. He hated running into slavers.
"Nosebleed, slavers," he said, nudging her with his elbow.
"Yeah," she sighed, "I figured they were."
"How're we going to do this? Guns blazing?"
"You know that never works. That's how I end up pulling bullets out of you. No, we'll hide behind that boulder right there. They'll think we're hallucinations at this distance, and we can get the jump on them."
He didn't argue with her as they hid behind the nearby boulder. He was slowly starting to learn that her ideas were usually the good ones. He held onto the idea that going in guns blazing would be the right move eventually, though. As they ducked behind the boulder, the sound of gunshots rang through the air. None of the bullets hit the ground or the rocks around them, though. Confused and harboring a morbid sense of curiosity, Butch peaked around the rock. He regretted doing so when he saw the slaves laying on the ground, still as the ground below them.
" Shit ," he cursed, and ducked back around the boulder.
"What happened?" Nosebleed whispered.
"They killed the slaves."
" Shit . Maybe we should have gone in guns blazing," she muttered. In any other situation he would have teased her to hell and back about admitting she was wrong for once, but moments like these made him feel more sick than anything.
"Too late now," was all he could convince himself to say.
Nosebleed didn't respond. She was too busy listening to the sound of approaching footsteps, so he didn't blame her. He glanced at her, and saw the concentration plain as day on her face. Her lips moved silently as she counted the footsteps. He was so focused on the way her lips moved, that he jumped in the wrong way when she bolted around the boulder. He let out a series of various and creative curse words as he scrambled to follow her.
He only got one shot off by the time all four of the raiders lay dead on the ground. Nosebleed's damn assault rifle always seemed to tear through whatever they fought. He wasn't focusing on that part, though. He was looking off towards where the dead slaves were. He couldn't wrap his head around why they just killed them like that. He just kept thinking about how he used to push people around in the Vault. He never cared about how they felt. All he had cared about was his own amusement, just like the raiders.
Ever since that first run in with them, he couldn't stop thinking about how horrifically close he had been to being that bad. The rational part of his brain tried to argue that he wasn't even remotely close. Cornering the other kids in the vault, and threatening them until they gave him whatever he wanted was a far cry from killing anything that looked at you wrong, and enslaving the rest. Still, the lack of regard for others was the same, and he couldn't stop thinking about it. It got to the point where Nosebleed was starting to notice, and it was getting harder and harder to deflect.
"Butch. Butch!" she said forcefully, making him snap out of his thoughts, "You good?"
"I'm fine. Sheesh."
"You sure? Don't think I've ever seen you thinking that hard."
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just don't understand why they killed them like that. It was like they didn't think they'd win the fight, but didn't even bother using them as shields," he said, and hoped the half truth was enough to sate her.
Thankfully, it was enough to at least get her to drop it as she hummed, "Yeah. Fuckin' raiders. How the hell do humans fall this far?"
He had to give it to her, that was a good question. One that he wanted an answer to himself.
Butch frowned as he patched up his 'new' jeans. He kept thinking about those damn raiders, and Nosebleed had left to do some errands, so now he was stuck in the Megaton house alone with his thoughts. He tried to focus on the needle and thread, but he had so much practice from sewing on the patches, that it was like trying to focus on his breathing. Annoying and pointless, and distracted him from what he should have been paying attention to. He was distracted enough that he nearly jumped off the couch he was sitting on as Nosebleed practically kicked the door down.
"Man, what the fuck," he swore as he sucked on his thumb.
"Hey," Nosebleed said as she walked inside, arms full of junk she'd bought. She made to kick the door closed again once she was inside. She walked right past him, and dumped her new belongings onto the dining table. One of the things Butch had learned about her since they'd teamed up, was that she was a little bit of a hoarder. It was a little helpful. They almost always had what they needed to repair their weapons and everything, but when she did shit like this it was beyond annoying.
"What happened to knocking?" he asked.
"It's my house, and you're not in your room."
"You still didn't need to kick the damn door down," he muttered.
"Why? Did Butchie get a boo boo?" she teased when she saw the needle in his hands. Despite everything, he made himself shrug it off. He kind of deserved it, and she wasn't trying to be mean. It definitely was not the worst exchange they'd ever had by a long shot.
It was immediately made up for by her saying, "I got you something you might like."
"A razor that's not rusty?" he asked. He could shave pretty easily with his toothpick, but it wasn't ideal. He'd been looking for a razor for a long time at this point.
"No. A nuka-cola."
"Soda, Nosebleed? How old do ya think I am?" he said, and looked up at her. Then, he saw the strange looking label, "Aw, hell no. You are not tricking me into drinking something gross again."
She'd tricked him into eating some pretty gross stuff before, and he had fallen for it one too many times. She may keep him from poisoning himself, but things that were nasty were still fair game. It made him question if she was as much of a goody-goody as he had thought.
"It's not gross. It's cherry flavored. It's really good," she said.
"Uh-huh."
"I get that I've scarred you, but will you try it if I drink it first?"
"I'm not drinking something you did."
She rolled her eyes, "Twelve."
"What?"
"You asked how old I think you are. Twelve, if you're worried about cooties."
"I know cooties aren't a thing. Whaddya take me for? Don't you know I'm a ladies' man?"
" Ladies' man ?" she laughed, "What ladies are you going after? You're forgetting that I'm around you almost all day everyday."
He pursed his lips, not sure what to do. On the one hand, she was laughing. Really laughing. Laughter like that was rare when it came to her these days, and it had really grown on him over the last few weeks. On the other hand, she had just wounded his pride, and the sad thing was, she wasn't wrong.
"Give me the bottle."
"What?" she asked, almost choking on her laughter.
"Give me the bottle," he repeated. He decided he wasn't going to let her laugh at him like this. If he was going to make her laugh, it would be with a joke, not with his… misfortune.
She continued to giggle, which made him second guess his choice, and handed him the bottle. She tried to stop laughing as she said, "Here you go, tough guy."
He grabbed the bottle, and set down the patchwork he had been working on. He pulled his switchblade out from his pocket. Flicking it open, he used the end to pop off the cap of the bottle. It fizzed just like a normal cola, but it had the distinct scent of artificial cherry flavoring. With a grimace, he raised the bottle to his lips. At first he winced from the sensation of the carbonation on his tongue, but then the taste hit him. It was sweet, but also had a slight tang to it. Unlike a lot of the junk she had made him eat, it tasted good . It was probably expired, but it still tasted awesome.
"I told you it was good," she teased with a smirk as she watched him drink it.
"Yeah, yeah. I'd better not die from food poisoning because of this," he said, trying to hide how much he actually liked it.
"It won't kill you anymore than other things you very willingly eat."
He grimaced, "Yeah, that molerat was pretty rough."
That made her grimace in return, "Don't remind me."
They had made the mistake of eating a molerat. They had accidentally run out of rations, but there had been plenty of the ugly little things. So, they hunted one down, and cooked it up. It was one of the grossest things he had ever tasted, but he had swallowed it despite his body fighting against it. It turned out that starving for the night would have been better.
He set the bottle down on the coffee table, and returned to his patch work as she sorted through the junk she had bought. He kept glancing at her as she organized the ammo, gun parts, and bottles of glue. He didn't understand how she didn't draw the same connections as him. Hell, he didn't understand why she wasn't more uppity. Instead, she just looked at the raiders with a mix of hate, pity, and disgust before moving on. Morality had never been his strong suit, but it was hers. How the things she had seen hadn't made her more paranoid about people falling from grace, he didn't know.
"You need something?" Nosebleed asked, bringing him back to the here and now, "You're staring, and not in the normal way."
"What do you mean in the normal way?" he demanded.
"You stare a lot," she said simply.
"No I don't!"
"Uh-huh."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he lied, feeling the tips of his ears and his cheeks heat up. He thought he had been discreet. Then again, he had no real practice sneaking glances like that. He didn't see the point in trying until now.
"Right, anyway, what were you thinking about?"
"What?"
"What were you thinking about?" she repeated.
"Why do you care?"
"Because you've had a storm cloud above your head ever since we got back. I know that getting yourself stuck in your head can get you killed, even with a second pair of eyes and hands."
"It's nothing," he argued.
"You tell me that now, but you'll be begging for my help when I have to fish a bullet out of you, because you were distracted."
"It's nothing," he snapped.
She stared him down, and didn't even flinch when he raised his voice. It didn't intimidate him into telling her what was going on, but it did make him feel guilty as hell. Here she was, continuing to do her best to make sure he was still kicking after he had given her hell for their entire lives, and he was doing… what? She had better aim and a better gun. She was the people person doing the bartering. He may do the cooking, but she knew what was edible in the first place. He did the sewing, but she found the things they needed in the first place. She gave him a roof to sleep under, and he just took up space. These realizations hit him like a sucker punch to the gut, making him break eye contact first.
"Nothing my ass," Nosebleed muttered, but didn't push the matter further. He guessed that she knew better than to push it. They'd had more than enough arguments for her to know he'd just dig his heels in the dirt.
They continued on with their work in silence. A very awkward silence that she eventually got fed up with enough to turn on the radio. That said something as while she loved the music, she hated Three Dog heralding her as some savior. She finished her organizing and sorting long before he was even close to finishing sewing on the patches. She flopped onto the other side of the couch with her own nuka-cola and a Grognak comic in hand.
About ten minutes filled with strained silence passed as he continued to work. When he finished he folded them up and set them on the coffee table. He wanted to get up, and put the jeans in his room where they belonged, but it felt forced. Instead, he picked up his drink, and relaxed back on the couch. He tried to zone out, but his mind kept drifting back to their conversation. He felt so out of place sitting on the couch next to her.
Before he really knew what was saying, the words came tumbling out of his mouth, "I'm sorry."
She blinked at her comic book a few times, before looking at him, "What?"
"I'm sorry," he repeated with more confidence this time.
"For…?" she asked, looking genuinely confused.
He took a deep breath, "For how I was in the Vault. You didn't deserve that. There's a hundred excuses I could make. My mom. The other adults. But, that doesn't excuse the hell I caused."
"I appreciate that, I really do, but what brought on the sudden remorse?"
He didn't want to talk about the raiders, but he knew she was never going to drop it, so he decided to bite the bullet and get it over with. He cleared his throat to make sure it didn't crack, and looked straight ahead, "Raiders. The slavers, specifically. The way they don't give a fuck about anyone but themselves. Sound familiar?"
"Butch, you were pushing people around for food and comic books, not strapping bombs to children's necks."
"Yeah, but the attitude is the same. How long would it take for me to turn into them?"
She shook her head, and set her things on the coffee table. She leaned back, throwing one arm over the back of the couch. She brought one leg up on the couch, so she could face him more comfortably, and leaned forward. The look on her face was intense, but it wasn't angry or upset. It took him a moment to recognize it as compassion. It made him uncomfortable with it's foreignness.
Her voice was low when she spoke, "Butch, there is a very big difference between trying to play the bad boy, and being down right evil. The fact that you are this worried about it means you are already leagues above them, because they. Don't. Care. You aren't in any danger of ending up like them. You'd wind up dead before you got to that point."
He looked away from her, eyes stinging with tears that threatened to fall. It was the first time someone had bothered to really try to comfort him since he was a toddler, back before he was the 'problem' child. He hadn't realized how much he had needed something more than the bare minimum to keep him alive.
His voice was tight as he spoke, "Yeah, well, I still needed to say sorry for how I acted."
She hesitantly placed her hand on his shoulder, and squeezed gently. He ignored how good it felt.
"And I appreciate that," she said before standing, "and Butch? The fact that you apologized is a sign that you're on the right path."
Butch nodded, and Liz grabbed her empty bottle to put it away. He wished that he had opened up a little sooner, even though he still felt like he was about to cry. He could practically feel that storm cloud she had mentioned dispersing as he continued to sit there. He felt more normal than he had in a while.
