CHAPTER 25
The Long Walk.
The Wasteland had weird weather patterns- there were occasional rainstorms with gray droplets instead of healthy clear ones, there were thunderstorms where really no rain developed at all, there were even on rare days cold passes- where the sky became monotone, and chilled breezes caressed the atmosphere in low howls. Note though, that it never snowed, there were never any seasons- it rarely rained, it never hailed, there was never any wind-based disturbances- nothing, it was bland.
Mankind had rotted mother-Earth from the inside out- there was nothing that was right, or worked the same way it used too.
The oceans were dead, and the only things that survived were carnivorous nightmares- the trees were all dead, and most people in the world didn't even know what a leaf looked like- all the natural fauna on land was either mutated and monstrous, or extinct, or too small to make a difference either way.
The world had been poisoned- and no matter how many times he had tried to look at it in one logical way or another, Sanford Tobs could never come to terms with and accept, that the future really was bleak and unpredictable.
Maybe the Earth one day would heal, or maybe it would never change without human intervention again- or maybe it would get worse and NOTHING would survive, and Earth would turn into a bigger dustball than it already was, and would be forgotten.
The human race had ruined itself- it had ruined its planet, its people, its countries and everything that the great minds and efforts of mankind as a whole throughout history had accomplished.
But through all that muck, somehow, humanity had survived- even if it was fleeting, and there were so few left in comparison to when people numbered in the billions- the point was that through thick and thin, somehow the human race had not been wiped out.
So here they were, two hundred years later- running around in little groups in a big world filled with big predators, big groups of evil beings, big monsters and big friggin' bugs- and that last part had been reaffirmed for Sanford greatly.
It had been awhile since the bits of roach meat had ceased their endless careen from above in a rainstorm of repugnant filth- and now that it finally gone calm again, Sanford was left with the nagging fact, that he was still matted in bug blood.
The whole front of his suit was tainted with a spattered hue, that, awfully- looked a lot like if someone set a marshmellow on fire and threw it up against a plate of steel.
Every time he moved, he could hear the drying guts crick and flake- he had a grimace the whole time he wandered around the streets with the Deathclaw and Fred- who, surprisingly, had been able to sober up just enough, to save the day.
They checked a bunch of the houses for any surviving roaches- and the longer and longer into the night they scoured the town, the more and more clear it became that the roaches had met their match.
There was not a single Radroach that they came across- and throughout most of the walk, Fred was quite adamant about giving Sanford compliments to his effectiveness of killing mutated insects.
"I'll tell ya' -man-"
"-Just Sanford, is fine."
"-Right, well, SANNY', you've got an eye for slappin' bugs! Wicked great!"
"...Thanks?"
"Hey-hey! What about THAT house?" The three of them had been down the center of one of the many roads crossing through the development- Fred pointed at the house- one of the two- that had been impacted by the roach ramming into their bases to get at Sanford and the Deathclaw.
Sanford recognized the house with a glance from under his helmet- and he felt his heart drop before hurrying over with a few hollow thuds of his suit's boots.
"What'd ya' see?!" Fred called after him- toting a submachine gun as he jogged to catch up.
"This is where we put Gerald!" Sanford said, running in-between the two smashed buffs the roach had made in the two homes. "We didn't check on him!"
"Well, what happened to 'im?!"
Sanford almost responded by just jabbing a finger at the Deathclaw- but, all he did was grumble, and answer falsely.
"Debris hit him."
"Is he alright?"
"It knocked him out cold."
"Aw-hell!"
Sanford jogged around the bend of the house- he stomped up the porch steps with heavy falls against wood planks- Fred was right behind him with this weird startled, partly-still-intoxicated mesh on his face- and the Deathclaw hadn't even caught up in her bored trot when Sanford tore the back door open.
The knob of the door looked comically small in the big gauntlet the suit sported- Sanford twisted it lightly, and let the entry squeak aside.
"Gerald?" He asked- he looked down on the wood floor, and saw the spot that they had lain the poor Ghoul on, was, as fate would have it- empty.
"GERALD! Holy mother-mcreery', Gerald! Where are ya'?!" Fred slithered in a quick squeeze underneath Sanford's arm and into the frame, he vanished around a corner in the house's interior, and Sanford heard his boots clotting around, before the Ghoul let out a gasp. "GERALD! There ya' are!"
"-Not so loud, Fred'! My head's killing me..."
"What happened, brother?"
"I don't know... Something hit me, went black... Lots of.. OW...Pain..."
"Alright, buddy', c'mon out, that Sanny-guy blew up the roach."
"Sanny-guy...?"
"Yeah- used the Nukalizer to blow that bitch sky-high!"
"Sanny-guy... Oh, OH-! H-He did?! He got it to work?!"
"Yep!"
"How?"
"Ask him yourself, c'mon."
Sanford turned to back out of the frame when he saw the Deathclaw trudging up from the side of the house.
She sighed tiredly and leaned her scaly arms over the wooden guard rail on the side of the porch raise- she laid her chin on her wrists, and looked at him in a bored narrow of her eyes. It was so... Weird, yet, funny at the same time to see the fearsome creature with that expression.
Sanford smiled at her in a tiny chuckle.
"Lucky for us, he apparently doesn't remember you smacking him."
"He doesn't need to know that, monsieur'."
"Mmhm."
The two Ghouls clambered out of the doorframe, and Sanford saw that Gerald had taken off his welding mask, and had a hand on the top of his head as he stood beside his best friend, and they both gazed to the Power Armored savior of theirs.
Gerald was smiling faintly- trying his best to ignore the splitting headache- Sanford was just relieved she hadn't injured him.
...Though as revealed over the last few days, she didn't really seem... CAPABLE, of hurting an innocents. Maybe he was just over thinking it, maybe he was being too assumptive- but, he liked the idea of it.
"Are you alright, Gerald?"
"Alright?" The Ghoul smiled with his yellow teeth. "I'm great! I mean- minus the headache... Y-You saved our buns, Sanford."
"Nah, I couldn't have done it without my friend here." He nodded his helm to the Deathclaw, whom, did her best not to focus any response to it.
"Well, whatever the case... You found the Nukalizer?"
"That I did."
"Can we see it?"
"Yeah, of course."
Sanford reached over his back, the suit creaking as he did so- he uncoupled the bulky weapon from where he had magnetized it to his back plating of the armor's cuirass.
Brandishing the weapon, he held it for them sideways, and nodded at the six-barreled wonder, balancing the makeshift doomsday device in his fingers.
Gerald and Fred leaned forwards with their mouths partially agape- it was creepy, but, he supposed it was warranted, seeing as this was a beloved invention of theirs that had been taken from them.
"Covered in roach goop or not... It survived! Amazing!" Gerald coughed with laughter. "You believe that, Fred?"
"Ugh! It stinks like tuna-casserole!"
"...Damn it, Fred, really?"
"But hey! A faint hint of tuna is acceptable for a bad-ass gun like this!"
"I'll never know how the both of you made a super flamethrower that uses Soda," Sanford shook his head. "But this weapon saved all of us."
"That's why you're keeping it." Gerald smiled, looking up, breaking his vision from the gun. "I did say all our weapons that you wanted, are yours, man."
"...You sure?" Sanford grinned.
"Positive."
"You want some Jet for the road, buddeh'?!" Fred interjected with an excited bounce in his stance.
"No thanks...?" Sanford angled his head back.
"HMMPH! More for me!" Fred scrambled back inside the house, past Gerald's arm- he was tugging something from his back pants pocket when he vanished around a corner of a doorframe inside.
Gerald turned and gazed sadly at where his friend had gone- he faced Sanford again, frowned, and shrugged.
"He wasn't always like that, you gotta' understand."
"It's completely fine, Gerald." Sanford craned the gun over the back of his suit, and there was a metallic CLUNG -as it magnetically stuck for later usage. "I'll take the SMG, this baby, and I'll be off."
"B-But what about the other Tommy's? O-Or your payment? I have a sack of caps in the-"
"Gerald," Sanford held a hand up. "I'm a scavenger at heart, I don't need those as much as you do. What do you have? Like, three guns left?"
"...I mean... Well, YEAH, but you-"
"You're only two, you guys need them, not me. Me and my friend have what we needed, and now we have to find someone- that's the goal overall."
"...You're noble, Sanford," Gerald shook his head. "People will take advantage of that."
"I won't let them."
"I pray you won't."
"It was good to meet you, Gerald, best of luck."
"S-Same to you too, Sanford. A-And find some more Quantum- that gun will come in handy, I bet."
The Ghoul extended an open palm- and Sanford lightly reached up with his gauntlet, intertwined fingers, and gave it a single shake.
Gerald noted the strength of the grip with a chuckling nod- and the two people that had been born anew from the same age and time that was long dead- found a reserve of clarity and great friendship in that one moment, out of the whole day.
Sanford Tobs left his mark on yet another group of human beings- and as he stalked down the dark streets of the town now cleared of mutated horrors- the Deathclaw trailing behind him, he could feel Gerald's eyes on the back of his suit as he cleared out for the road.
The steeple was passing by on their left- behind just a few houses- as now, Sanford planned on heading out for his own fortified home- as, he believed that was where Hancock would undoubtedly head for himself in such a crisis.
Deep down, through the relief of succeeding against the odds again- he hoped his robot, his friend- was okay.
The Deathclaw was quite silent as she trotted behind him towards his flank- she had her gaze locked on his shoulder pauldron, because she couldn't see his helm from the angle she was in.
"...I'm glad you're unharmed, monsieur'." She put out into the night softly.
"I'm okay, I'm glad you're okay too- we live another day." Sanford said. "Haven't had these kind of fights in months."
"Months only, hmm?"
"Me and Hancock are always getting shot at- it's old news."
"Has there ever been a day where there isn't a fight, for you?"
"Uhmm... I mean, yeah... Yeah, yeah there has."
"How often?"
"Sometimes me and Han' were able to lay low for awhile... A few weeks at a time, kept me sane."
"...Can I ask something heavy, Sanford?"
"Anything."
"...How do you kill so many things and cope with it the way you do?"
"...Um... Wow, I... I dunno'... I never think about it. W-Why? I act weird? Sound weird? Have a twitch?"
"No, nothing of that sort, monsieur'. I was just curious."
"...Okay." Sanford glanced to their left, staring through the night-filter vision of the helm lenses to the shadow of the steeple in the backdrop. "Hey, hold up,"
"What is it, monsieur'?"
"You want to check out that steeple? We never really got to look inside."
"...Sure."
"Yeah?"
"Yes."
"Alright- maybe we'll find some SPOOKY things, hmm?"
"Stop that, monsieur'." She snickered. "I've seen enough... 'Spoo-ky' -things today."
-0-0-0-0-0-
With the overhead aura of consistent knowledge- that something big and mean was inside the steeple, now gone- the building amazingly did not come off as evil-ish', in the nighttime atmosphere.
As Sanford trotted across the street that lead to the smashed wooden doorframe and stone stoop, his boots crunched through piles of wood and corpses of roaches- he angled his helm up to view the belfry above, and he decided that the steeple gave off this Transylvanian/stereotypical vampire vibe for him.
If there was a full moon just behind the belfry, with some bats orbiting around it- the scene would've been perfect for one of those old horror movies he'd watched when he had been a child.
It was crazy to imagine, that years and years ago, all those monsters and mutants and undead that he saw in the movies weren't real, and he could tell himself that at night with factual evidence- and the child that would become him as a man would sleep soundly.
But today, a lot of those monsters were real. There was no comfort to be taken in that such things only existed in nightmares- for now, mutated after two-hundred years of Earth's environment being eaten away, beasties prowled the landscape and hid in dark places.
This was but one place that had become infested with evils that they had wiped out- Sanford knew, there would be ten to replace it.
He stepped over the sidewalk just before the dead grass of the steeple's property- he bent down with a boot in the plant matter, and peered inside the ragged gash he had made when the roach threw him through the wall up here.
Inside, all those broken computers, all those failed weapons projects and pre-War machinery would rot- and whatever other inventions the Ghouls had made, had obviously not survived the roach's habitation of their lab.
He honestly hoped Gerald and Fred could fix at least some of the things in there and get started again.
"All that tech'," He shook his head as the Deathclaw formed up behind him, watching him. "Ruined. Ruined by a bug, I can't believe it."
"I believe the saying is... 'Shit, happens'-?"
"Ha! Yeah, yeah that's it."
"Mm."
"It sure is an old building, right?"
"Mm."
"Let's try to go inside."
"...Is that wise?"
"It's old, but the floor held me. It did until I smashed through it with a body-slam."
"I don't think I can fit, monsieur'."
"Nah, you can fit." Sanford stepped around and up the stoop- thoughtfully eyeing the big red door that had been nearly torn off its hinges, the piles of dead roaches, the planks lying around- with every footfall he crushed another bug, or part of one. "Ew. Just, um... Mind your step."
"What did Gerald say this place was, monsieur'?" She asked, cautiously worming her heels in tip-toe steps to avoid crushing the dead roaches and getting more guts on her than there already was.
"He said it was something for the Civil War, like, a museum or a memorial."
"It's an odd building for that."
"It is, I mean," He pointed up at the higher levels with a glance. "You couldn't outwardly tell I bet before the war... Now, you can't tell at all, right?"
"Mmhm." She mused.
Sanford ducked through the frame, and she followed when the bulky suit dematerialized into the shadowy interior of the steeple's main building block.
Her vision adjusted to the darkness, and Sanford blink-activated his nighttime vision for the helm's lenses- they both stood right after the doorway to examine a gaping trench that Sanford's fall had torn into the floor.
Down below, they could see the faint outlines of detail from the basement level- and breaking from that, the Deathclaw glanced around at the destroyed display cases, the ruined bookshelves.
"...Are any of those still readable?" She nodded at them hopefully.
"Them? Probably not, it looks like there was a fire here, long time ago- or it could've been the after-burn from the fallout." Sanford cautiously stepped in line with the thin boards of floor that remained intact before the great, oval-like hole torn in the floor. "Watch your step."
The Deathclaw had to slide her feet sideways to avoid leaning over the gash in the floor- she still kept her eyes fixated on the ragged edge of the drop to assure herself otherwise.
Sanford heard the board floor creak with each step he made- it gave him a cringe, he remembered the weightless feeling he got when he had fallen through the floor. The bookshelves, up closer for inspection now- were as dilapidated as Sanford originally saw when he had first glanced them over.
The shelves were cracked, sliding down in places with all kinds of mangled books piled and laid all over.
"...Huh, here's an- 'Herbal Tea Brewing' -recipe book." Sanford chuckled lowly, reaching up- he clenched the spine of a burned, thin text- and partially pulled it out from its position between two larger books. Dust slithered out everywhere, and the paper crumpled. "Too bad it's mangled."
"Mm..." The Deathclaw was picking through the texts with angles of her snout, leaning closer. "Tres' triste'..."
"What?"
"It's sad, to me. Reading is such a simple thing... I haven't been able to do simple, innocent things in a long time, monsieur'." She sighed, looked upwards at the second level of the main building- shrouded in darkness with its wood railing. "...This place is haunting."
"A lot of the old buildings are pretty haunting."
"I mean it in a deeper way, monsieur'."
"How so?"
"There used to be a greater meaning behind this place... Education, remembering the fallen of a conflict that happened a thousand years ago, if that Ghoul was accurate in his knowledge..."
"-Yes, I think he was," Sanford glanced back at some of the books- seeing titles like- 'Uniforms of the Union'- or, 'Model Rifles of the 19th Century'. "I don't know what happened to the other memorabilia... Probably stolen, destroyed."
"At any rate, monsieur'," She turned and blinked at him. "In the strange light of being in here, without those damnable insects- this building is just..."
"Lonely?" Sanford suggested.
"...Yes."
In the shadowy presentation to her looming, scaly body- Sanford looked the Deathclaw in the eye, and he trailed a bit around her shoulders and clavicle- finding the most awkward sense of observation for something that wasn't really... NORMAL, for him.
He didn't get that flaring coldness in his veins when she smiled at him.
"It is strange," She admitted. "My hide would crawl whenever you were in close proximity to me."
"I was thinking the same thing. Wanna' disregard all logic and everything we've known and just rush into relations?"
-A while ago, she would've literally killed him.
But now, she laughed at him- her fanged, long mouth opened, and she LAUGHED at him in this hybrid of being flustered, to actually taking the joke well.
"Cochon sale'!" She waved a claw at him. "Dirty, dirty pig!"
"I'll snort, I will do it."
"Don't." She breathed out heavenly. "Let's go, monsieur'."
"Already?"
"Yes, please."
"-'PLEASE'-? Holy crap, I never thought I'd hear that from YOU."
"Big surprise, you heard it. Now let's find your flying waste-disposal-can."
"That he is, that he is."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Miles and miles away from where Sanford and his Deathclaw friend had surmounted the giant roach- there sat the subject of the man's internal troubles, the robot, the Mr. Gutsy named Hancock- and at this current interval, Hancock was pinned down.
Hancock was pinned down in the most drab way possible- Hancock had all the ability in the world to BREAK this pinning, destroy the one enacting said pinning, and fly away to continue his search for his friend- all in a single motion, but he didn't do it.
Hancock was pinned, but also- Hancock was a diluted freak, who was convinced that he could- 'Talk to' -the other robotic organism in question, that was the reason for his immobile stance.
"If I buy you ice-cream, would you consider listenin' to- THE HAN'?"
"No-vvmmmmm-!"
A pock of laser shots glanced the other side of the raised terrain that Hancock compressed his chassis against.
Thruster powered down, limbs draped at his sides lazily, and two ocu-lenses lowered to observe his claw fiddling with his buzzsaw- Hancock had been badgering the disabled Assaultron in the crater he had blown around her for the last hour or so.
"What if I sing a song promoting the bad-assness of Capitalism in the stead of being RED! That always got the spirits up in the barracks bloc-"
"NO! Nevnnnnnnnnnnnn -Never!"
"You're un-pleasible, woman!"
"Can't even fffffffrrrm -form proper words-!"
"I have unique tastes in vocabulary!"
"-Just-VVNN-DIE!"
"Bah! I've been told to die so many times I don't even recognize it as being directed towards me anymore, honey!"
-The only response Hancock got was another group if red beams slashing into the dirt over and behind his little ridge that protected him from the Assaultron's fury. She was still broken down there, stuck in the center of the crater- and Hancock had been sitting here trying to convince her battle-addled self that he could repair her.
He knew it made no sense, and that he would've been better off firing a SECOND rocket into the crater and forgetting about it all- but Hancock got this drive towards a result which saw the Assaultron not being destroyed.
After all, interacting with apes all day did kind of get maddening after awhile- even if he was fully out of his central processor by this point. Hancock never met any robots that he didn't have to shoot before they could talk up until now- as most of his kind were in even worse shape than himself.
So here came this Assaultron, and it turned out that the GUNNERS, had gotten to her first. What the balls? Where was his luck?
"Got flushed down the bowl and catapulted into the cesspool of Tom-fuckery' and hell a LONG time ago..." Hancock relented for himself with a grumble. "I hate my life."
If the Assaultron heard him- she didn't make it known to any other kind of response than even MORE lasers flying around in his general direction.
Hancock waited for the fire to slacken, and kept himself busy looking around his scanner monitors and the physical area of the dirt lot and hills around him. There were still Gunner corpses that were crackling in the night as the flames still worked their heat on their singed flesh.
Some of the bodies hadn't stopped burning for hours, and some of them were still covered in flickering embers- Hancock laughed at it.
"At least your friends are here to give me a nice campfire, baby-cakes!"
There was no laser fire from THAT comment- Hancock angled an ocu-lense over the raise in blasted earth and gazed into the crater.
"Oooohhh, honey? You alright back there-?"
CLM CMLCM CLM
CLM
CLM
-He ducked back down when the lasers started flying.
There was so much dust flying around above him from all the times she'd shot the wall of the crater, it was crazy.
"If only I had some kind of... Uhm... DAMN! What did that ape call it? SANFORD! If you're dead! Help me from the great beyond!"
...Hancock obviously received no response.
"-BAAHH! Fuck your own face, you pudgy cherub!" Hancock glanced up with an ocu-lense, grumbled, and tapped his buzzsaw on the ground with a few metallic clacks. "Welp'! I'll be back dearest! I'm off to vent my anger on those unfortunate to cross me and my friend!"
Hancock's thruster lit up, and he shot up and away from the direction he had come- beelining it for the edge of the lot, and back into the hills- as if he hadn't just wasted half-a-day of his time berating an incapacitated fellow robot.
Ignoring the brief flicker of red from a few laser shots she loosed off into the night behind him- he called back one last time, his passing making the flames on a corpse waver about as he flew over it.
"I expect dinner when I get back, hon'! Bacon and eggs!"
-0-0-0-0-0-
There was a road that extended east from the fringes of the development- and that was the direction they needed to head if they were to reach the fortified Gas Station that Sanford and Hancock had built for themselves.
However, the vindictive nature of his combative side, and the fact that he was awfully angry at having his friend taken away from him- combined to make Sanford suggest, that they first wipe out the Super Mutants that had captured and attempted to eat them.
"I think we should kill all of them." He told her as they looped around and started walking through the open terrain they had crossed to reach the town in the first place. "We can get my shotgun back, and I'm sure they've gathered some pretty potent weapons after all that time camping there."
"Monsieur', I only agree with this because I'm itching to get payback."
"Ah, good- then I don't have to explain my second reasoning."
"You think we're capable of taking down an entire camp of them?"
"Do you want to stay behind?" He asked seriously, stopping his walk to angle the suit at her- he already had one of the two SMG's in his grip, and he sounded at his darkest- it made her look in awkwardness, she wasn't used to that.
"...No," She squinted, arms draped at her sides. "No I don't. I'm not going to see you go into that place alone like that."
"Then we are perfectly capable of wiping them out." Sanford smiled- falling back into step. "These hills were a bitch to walk through and now I gotta' do it again... Pfft."
"What of their little chieftain?" She asked, knees getting higher in her steps as the terrain inclined upwards. "He seemed rather armored."
"He's mine, don't touch him." He responded quickly. "I'm gonna' kill him last."
"...Monsieur',"
"What?"
"There is a difference between looking at a fight strategically, and just running in without a plan. It increases the risk."
"I'm aware of that- but me and Han' have had times where it was needed, and, I'm not gonna' say it's NEEDED here, but I'm angry enough that I want to."
"If you think that will solve this problem, je' suppose'."
"It'll be fine- I've been doing this too long to let these green bastards take my friend from me without a fight."
"Can we talk about something else?"
"...Yep," He grumbled, looking off into the night away from her. "I'm just... I'm really angry."
"Understandable."
"...Hm... Hey,"
"Yes?"
"Maybe when we get back to me and Han's home, I can show you my old house, the one I lived in before the war."
"It still stands?"
"Amazingly- and it's a five minute walk from the station me and Han' fortified."
"That sounds intriguing. How much of it is left?"
"The ceiling is still up if that tells you anything."
"So a shell?"
"A shell indeed."
"I'd love to."
"That'll be a trip down the memory highway, even though I've walked through it before... Every time I go back, I remember something else."
"Did you have a family two-hundred years ago?"
"Yeah, I told you- ma' and pa'."
"Anyone else?"
"...No, no not really. I think my mother was an only child, and I think my father was an only child too- a weird thing, my dad said it must've ran in the genes," Sanford laughed- looking around the dark hills in light observation. "I miss them some days."
"Only some days?" She had her eyes sweeping too- the last thing either wanted was to run into something ELSE on this crazy night and not be ready for it.
"Meh, I dunno'."
"I miss the few allies I held over the years."
"...Hm. Some days?"
"Every day."
"Oh. How many?"
"How many what?"
"How many were there?"
"Allies?"
"Were they friends too? Or just, they were there entirely for the mutual benefit of working together?"
"...I had an elder in my pack- he didn't have a name, he treated me like his child."
"You appreciate that? Or get annoyed by it?"
"Both." She smiled. "He was kind, I respected him."
"And he didn't have a name?"
"The pack was in this strange limbo of grasping human culture with their intelligence," She shrugged. "None of them had names, but they all kind of understood what they were."
"And where did they live? All these other Deathclaws?"
"The borders of this place called -'D.C.'- I hope I said that right."
"Borders of D.C. and what?"
"...Vir... VIR-Something... Virginia! Yes, Virginia. Titres' humaines'..."
"Wow, that's... Far."
"I did say I've been running from the Enclave for years, Sanford."
"I never doubted- it's just more proving to hear it from you."
"...There was another, a younger one, around the same aging as mine."
"Like... I don't know, did you call them- 'Children'-?"
"No, we called them younglings, or whelps. And no, not that kind of age."
"So... Young adults?"
"I suppose?"
"Alright."
"It was a male, he never had a name either. I wronged him greatly before he died."
"How so?"
"I always saw his attention as a pestering annoyance... All he wanted to do was understand me, we were so different, and I was this alien newcomer."
"He tried to talk to you, and, you brushed him off, sort of thing?"
"Yes."
"And he died before you could leave him with something involving less animosity?"
"Mmhm."
"I know how that feels. I never told my parents I loved them before they were gone. I had a fight with the only kid on the block I was friends with before the bombs, and, he and I had been great pals'."
"Have you and that robot ever fought?"
"Hancock? No, actually. Isn't that amazing? He's out of his gourd and me and him never really argued or got loud about anything... We've disagreed, but, nothing major. He's a good friend- if really insane."
"I suppose I haven't known him to understand."
"I mean, I would understand if you didn't want to travel with me, because of Han'," Sanford said. "He's... Difficult, for others to deal with who don't know him. He requires a lot of patience."
"No, I don't think I'll change my mind for the robot."
"That's good."
"Mmhm."
"You've smiled more times today, than the last few combined."
"...Perhaps I have."
"That's good too. And, you know, just to change the subject- I'm starving!"
"Just thought of that now, hmm?"
"Well I'm running out of good stuff," Sanford reached down to the scorched, roach-blood licked rucksack on his thigh- he lifted the flap over, dug around, and came back with a white cardboard box that had, written in red letters- YUMYUM, Deviled Eggs.
"I'm gonna' get the shakes if I don't eat something..." Sanford used his gauntlet to tear into the side of the box with a tearing sound- used his armored thumb to straighten the tear he made, and then reached up to take off his helmet. "You want anything?"
She watched him attach the helm in a mag-grip on his hip plating- and nodded.
"Sur'."
"...Was that a yes?"
"-Yes, sorry, I'm so used to being alone and talking..."
"It's fine. I'm thinking..." He shuffled around in the rucksack, stopping his walk briefly to angle his leg higher. "...I'm thinking Sugar Bombs won't be good for you, right?"
"Do you have meat?"
"Yep- it's processed, and not fresh, but... Here! Salisbury Steak?"
"Anything."
"Alright, here, I'll open it for you-"
"No need."
"...Okay, here ya' go."
He handed her a little red box that was eroded enough that no words or imagery on it could be discerned. She opened her palm, and he placed it in the center- before leaning back and tipping the eggs over his mouth- she saw a few rounded, whitish shapes slide out.
Sanford chewed quietly, and squinted at the side of the box.
"Tu' hunwed anb' fiphtween yeer's acspiwed'." He muffled, shaking his head slowly. "Damb."
She took her own ration in a careful grip between two of her fingers- and slowly used the tip of her other claw's pointy to jam into the little foldable side she had seen him tear into.
She slid the nail downwards and created the little trench effortlessly in comparison to his brief tugging match with the egg box- she peered inside and expected the horrors of packaged, ancient human slop to grace her sights.
Inside there were these thin slabs of brownish meat in a brown gravy- it looked... Nasty, to her.
But, it actually smelled pretty decent.
She leaned closer and sniffed at the contents, hummed in consideration- and thought- Whatever -before tipping the whole thing over her opened, fang-riddled maw.
The entire meal was gone in a single second of her clapping her jaws shut, chewing once, and swallowing.
Sanford had just eaten the last egg, and stood there mid-chew with his eyes wide.
"Damn," He swallowed. "That was fast."
"...Do you have any more?"
"You liked that stuff, huh?"
"Possibly. Was that a yes or no?"
"A French Deathclaw who likes Salisbury Steak," Sanford laughed, pulling out another package of the stuff. "This Wasteland is fucking insane, and I LOVE it."
-0-0-0-0-0-