Tate was sick and tired of spending caps he didn't have on a room rented out by a man who wouldn't tell him where his Pop went. Sick and tired of having his hair grow out too, without Butch around. His black roots were starting to show.
It was torturous, being so near to home but feeling like a whole world away. And this shit had to go down right as he and Butch were...warming to each other. When he found his Pop, he was going to sock him right in the jaw first. Honestly he might cry like a baby afterwards, but he would definitely get the punch in first.
He was scared, but no one had to know that.
So far his days had been spent running errands for Moira and his evenings drinking at Moriarty's. He was 'in debt' but he didn't quite understand what that meant, he was a fast learner, though. Knew it wasn't a good place to be. In the vault everything was free, if occasionally rationed. This caps situation was something else. Moira gave him some caps and tradeables for his errands and other things he sweet talked his way into. Things were alright, he supposed.
When the handsome, older man in tinted glasses beckoned him over, Tate didn't think much of it. The vault suit and Pip-boy seemed to attract attention from all sorts of people, but Tate didn't know what else to do at this point.
The stranger in the suit wore tinted lenses and so did Tate. The effect was their eyes were utterly hidden from one another. He told Moira it was because the sun was so damn bright compared to the artificial lights in the vault. Near blinded him. But it was really because on first getting a good look at him, Deputy Weld had cried "communist scum," and started shooting. And like hell he was going through that shit again. He paid for his private room at Moriarty's just so he could take off the damn glasses when he slept.
"My, my, when I had just about given up all hope." The man gestured to Gob to bring over two drinks to his table. "My dear boy, I am very happy to make your acquaintance. My name is Mr. Burke."
Gob set a whiskey on the table for Mr. Burke and a beer for Tate.
"Ghoul, why don't you bring my friend here something a bit stronger, hm?"
Tate was about to object, but the look that Mr. Burke sent his way made him think twice. Instead he reclined in his seat, slouching down and letting his legs slide away for the chair.
"And you, well, you are not a resident of this putrescent cesspool. That makes you a valuable individual."
Gob returned with a small glass of vodka and placed it in front of Tate before scurrying off. Normally, Tate and Gob got along pretty well, once he had gotten over how fucking weird ghouls looked.
Tate took a hesitant sip of the vodka, it burned going down but it wasn't altogether bad.
"Go on, I'm listening." With each sip his cheeks flushed a bit more.
"The undetonated atomic bomb for which the town is named is still very much alive. It just needs a little motivation."
Under the table, Tate felt Mr. Burke's leg tap against the outside of his knee.
"I have in my possession a fusion pulse charge constructed for the single purpose of detonating that bomb."
Having finished the vodka, Tate began on his beer. Mr. Burke hadn't touched his whiskey though.
"You rig the bomb. Then you get paid, handsomely."
The leg that had been tapping against his moved, sliding between Tate's, spreading him little by little. Tate's face was warm from the liquor. Was vodka really that much stronger? He barely had anything. In the vault he only ever had beer.
"Wait...you're going to destroy the town? I live here."
Well, he did, as much as he lived anywhere.
"Come now, my sweet boy. You would be doing this world a favor by removing this pestilent scab of a town."
Mr. Burke's leg moved gently against Tate's, heat creeping through the fabric of his vault suit.
"I don't know how. No good with explosives. Sheriff Simms asked me to disarm it."
"Hmm," Mr. Burke sat back in his chair, swirling his whiskey about in the glass but still not drinking. "It's not complicated. But still, it appears I have misjudged you." He withdrew and they were no longer touching, but Tate kept his legs slightly spread.
Mr. Burke stood, adjusting his tie and placing his hat back on his head. "I do have a second proposition for you. Perhaps one more suited to your tastes. Come see me at my home, if you are interested."
With that, Burke left the bar, but not before stopping and speaking to Gob. The glass of whiskey was left behind and Gob came by with another vodka. Tate shot it down quickly before heading out the door.
The Wasteland was warmer than the vault, but Tate liked the way the air moved. And he liked the stars and the sky. Still hated his Pop though, because while he liked the air and the stars and the sky, he hated everything else.
He already knew which door belonged to the man in the suit. Over the days he had spent in Megaton, he had seen the man come in and out of it.
This was okay, it meant he didn't have to spend the caps for a bed tonight. The vodka had made him a bit bolder. This would be fine, just a little bit of fun. So what if the guy was older? He and Butch fooled around plenty of times in the last year and the experience had been nothing but positive. This would be fine.
"Welcome, I had hoped I had not judged incorrectly a second time. That would reflect rather poorly on me." Tate had only managed half a knock at the door before Mr. Burke opened it, two tumblers of liquor in one hand. He passed one to Tate before traveling back into the living room.
Mr. Burke sat on the plush couch in the center of the room and spread his arms across the backrest. A lit cigar burned in an ashtray on the coffee table. Plush was really the word for the place. What Tate had seen so far of Megaton had consisted of dingy mattresses and rusty structures. Everything was rickety, nothing stable. But this was nice, with carpet on the floor and clean glasses lined up in the kitchen.
"I must apologize for the state of the place. Luxury is difficult to cobble together in such a sore on the landscape." Mr. Burke finished the liquor in his glass and set the tumbler on the table in front of him, exchanging it for the cigar. He still wore his suit but had loosened his tie and removed the tinted glasses.
"No need to be shy now, pretty bird. We both know why you are here, yes?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Come, sit with me."
Tate toed off his boots and left them by the door. It seemed like the right thing to do, rather than trek mud through the house. Mud on the bottoms of his shoes was a new thing too. He sat next to Mr. Burke on the couch, still clutching his tumbler and taking slow sips from it. The whiskey didn't suit him as much as the vodka had.
An arm curled down off the backrest and instead came to settle over Tate's shoulder. He settled against Burke's side, feeling warm and drunk and comfortable and sipped while Burke finished his smoke.
"Hey, you haven't seen my Pop, have you?" Tate was desperate for something to break the silence.
"Wouldn't know."
"Well, he looks like me, I guess. Taller, with black hair and brown eyes."
Burke laughed unexpectedly. "So not your size, with a different hair color, and I have yet to have the pleasure of seeing your eyes, pretty bird."
"Right, well..."
"Now is perhaps not the opportune time to be discussing your father. As I plan on doing things to you of which he would be unlikely to approve."
"Yeah, yeah." Taking the initiative, Tate put his empty tumbler down next to the ashtray and turned towards Burke, pressing their lips together. Burke tasted like whiskey and smoke and smelled like it too along with some other cologne. For now, he let Tate move against him as he liked, but wrapped his arm around his waist, half-guiding the teen to come closer. Another hand brushed against the outside of his thigh, then the inside, coming to rest just inches from where Tate wanted to be touched.
Little by little, Tate worked his way into Burke's lap, straddling him and running his hands down the older man's chest. Too old, really, old enough to be his father. Still, he began teasing Burke's buttons open, undoing the tie at his throat. The confidence of some experience combined with the liquor and Tate felt pretty damn good about himself.
"Pretty bird, let's do away with these." That tease of a hand left Tate's thigh and moved to his face, sliding his sunglasses up and off the bridge of his nose. He gasped in surprise but was too late to stop Burke. "Quite, pretty, why would you hide your eyes?"
Tate hadn't realized that he had screwed his eyes shut when he tore away from Burke's lips, as if he could keep things hidden that way. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and met Burke's gaze.
"Robot out front called me a commie. Tried to kill me."
Burke ran a careful finger across the short dark lashes that punctuated Tate's monolids, first one set, then the other. "Beautiful." Tate closed his eyes again as Burke kissed the right side of his brow bone, "exotic," then the other side.
Instead of listen to Burke keep talking, Tate silenced him, if only temporarily, with his lips. Most of his buttons were undone and Tate pawed at Burke's chest, trying to get both the shirt and jacket off in one go. There was that laugh again from the center of Burke's chest. Fingers unaccustomed to work pulled down the zipper of Tate's vault suit halfway.
"Tell me, pretty bird. Have you kissed someone like this? You're so young."
Tate didn't think 19 was so young. "Yeah."
Burke kept hold of him around his waist as he arched away from the couch and worked one sleeve off, then the other, switching positions to keep Tate firmly in his lap. With the manipulating, Tate could feel Burke's erection pressing into his thigh.
"With a man, pretty bird?"
"Yeah." Well, boys, really, but they were both about 18 when it started, so, maybe men.
"And what about this?" Burke took hold of one of Tate's hands and guided it to his erection, having the vaultie's hand run down the length of it through his suit pants. It twitched a bit under Tate's light touches. "Have you pleasured a man with your hand, pretty bird?"
Tate knew his face was flushed, and not only from the liquor. He was sobering up, sort of. "Yeah."
"And what about your mouth, pretty bird." A well-manicured finger ran along Tate's bottom lip, dipping in slightly then continuing its path. "Have you sucked cock, pretty bird?"
"Yeah." Tate could feel his own erection growing in the confines of his vault suit. He wanted to get on with it already. This teasing was driving him up the wall. With Butch, they had always cut this crap and gone right to grinding or sucking or whatever it was they were gonna do.
"And here?" Burke moved both his hands around Tate's body and grabbed hold of his ass, pulling the teen towards him and pressing their bodies together. His hands squeezed and then he ran the tips of his fingers along the line of Tate's crack, spreading him through the vault suit and pressing against his hole. Even through the layers of fabric, Burke seemed to find him vulnerable. "Have you allowed a man fuck your ass, pretty bird?"
Coarse language had always done it for Tate. He and Butch had started out watching forbidden holotapes together that the barber had found on one of the old terminals. It was a peace offering that lead to their messing with each other. Tate had liked how the guys in the tapes spoke, so it didn't matter that the subject on the other end of those statements had been some artificial looking doll of a girl.
"No," Tate gasped as Burke bit at his shoulder, now exposed as his vault suit pooled around his waist.
"Mmm," the sound emanated from Burke's throat and vibrated against Tate's flesh. "Good boy, why don't we go to bed, hm?"
Nodding, Tate climbed off of Burke's lap, clutching at his vault suit so it wouldn't slide off his narrow hips. Burke's hand rested on the small of his naked back as he guided Tate to the bedroom. The bed was big and clean and the room smelled like Burke's cologne. It was way nicer than the room he rented at Moriarty's.
"We're overdressed." Burke stood behind Tate, his erection pressing just above the curve of the blond's ass. Tate always had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about being shorter than most other men in the vault. Out here in the Wastes, he seemed more average height, but Burke was still a good few inches taller.
Burke's fingers tugged at the zipper at the front of Tate's suit and finished pulling it down. Since his arms were already free, he only had to push the suit down over his hips and thighs to get it to fall to the floor. Burke kissed between his shoulder blades and Tate shuddered at the contact.
Suddenly, Tate was pushed forward and he fell face first onto the bed, his legs dangling a bit off the edge. Burke's hands grabbed his hips, pulling them up so Tate was on his knees on the bed. Leaving one hand on his hip, Burke's other hand pushed at his shoulder blades, keeping his head down and his ass in the air.
Tate knew he was stronger than Burke, much stronger. While Burke may have been taller, he was rather lanky, all things considered. Tate was shorter, but dense, muscular. He and Butch tried to one up each other in that respect. Wasn't much else to do in the vault. Hair only grew so fast and there was only so much...chaplining for Tate to do, he still didn't really understand what his job was. So there wasn't much to do in the vault other than work out and mess around in supply closets. Tate knew he was much stronger than Burke, but he didn't fight him, didn't want to.
When Burke's hot, moist tongue pressed against his entrance, Tate jerked and shivered and moaned. He didn't make a move to touch Tate's cock, but for now that was okay because this felt fucking great and it was something new and exciting. It wasn't until the tongue was replaced with two long digits that Tate squirmed and felt his stomach drop. What had he gotten himself into?
He kept repeating in his mind that this was okay, this was fun and the bed was really nice. It didn't matter that this same guy fingering his ass had asked him to blow up the town. He backed off, after all, when Tate hadn't been interested. And he was a good kisser and whiskey wasn't so bad really when Tate was sucking it off of Burke's tongue.
"Ready, my pretty bird?"
Tate groaned in response because he was a little past words at this point. This wasn't Butch though, but Butch was behind sixteen solid, sealed, inches of vault-tec security doors. Butch was safe and warm below ground. Butch didn't know the taste of irradiated water or the fear that came from raiders being just in the other aisle of the supermarket your next meal was supposed to be coming from. Tate missed Butch, but this was okay.
"Do it already."
It was agonizing, the way Burke slid into him, inch by inch until he was sheathed. Tate held back everything he felt in that moment, because he wasn't sure any of this was real. Wasn't worth crying over. Only a few days out and he already suspected things got worse than this. He'd seen the naked corpses in raiders' beds.
"My pretty bird," both of Burke's hands tangled in the bleached hair at the back of Tate's head, holding his face down in the mattress. "You're so young and tight."
"Move," Tate grumbled into the mattress.
His head and shoulders remained pressed into the mattress as Burke fucked him, long and slow like this was supposed to be romantic. And yeah, Tate didn't find it entirely distasteful. But Burke had also left his pants on, only opening them to free his cock and his belt buckle pressed into Tate's thigh. Not so romantic after all.
Once he managed to get his hand on his own cock, things felt a lot better. He felt full and kind of slutty and he got off on that. It was this terrible in between state he was having trouble with. Part of him wanted to be here just because the bed smelled like detergent and not like piss. Part of him liked getting fucked from behind because it made him feel cheap and dirty, but part of him liked it because he couldn't see Burke; he could pretend it was Butch.
All the same, he jerked his cock until he came on the otherwise-clean sheets. He panted and moaned and thrust himself onto Burke's cock until he covered his insides with cum. The wet pop as Burke withdrew was such an obscene noise. Tate liked it just fine. His hips dropped to the mattress and he stretched his arms over his head, working out the tension he had stored up while bent into an unnatural position.
"You look good like that, pretty bird." Burke kissed his back and ruffled his hair.
Tate slid around until his back was against the mattress. The pillows were soft and the room smelled different now, but still nice. Burke had zipped up his pants and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Won't you reconsider, about the bomb, love? We could be rid of this place and I'll take you home with me. The view from my suite will be all the more beautiful with you in it." His hand rested on Tate's naked hip, just where the muscle cut into a sharp v.
"I gotta find my Pop. He's the reason I'm out here." Tate stared up at the ceiling. "You know what I mean now, right? About us looking related?"
"I saw him speak to Moriarty. But I do not know where he went after that."
The mattress rose as Burke stood. Tate could hear him moving about the room, but he kept his eyes closed. He was more than half asleep when Burke nudged him awake.
"It is time for you to go, pretty bird." But he was so warm and comfortable. Had he really been asleep that long? Tate looked at his Pip-boy. No, he hadn't even slept ten minutes. Sitting up in the brightly lit room, he saw his vault suit, sunglasses, and some mechanical object sitting neatly on a chair across from the bed.
Burke was telling him to get the fuck out. No one could call Tate an idiot.
"Yeah, okay." He swung his legs over the side of the bed and padded to the chair, carefully dressing himself. His upper thighs and ass were fucking sore already, a little bit in his back, too. Great, fucking great. Tried whoring himself a little for a nice place to crash and that hadn't worked out. And he was too damn proud to ask to stay.
Covering his eyes with the sunglasses, he headed for the door, leaving the device-thing behind. Tate was tying his boots back up when Burke emerged from the bedroom, thing in his hands.
"I cannot take you away from this place until you arm the bomb, pretty bird." He pressed the pulse charge into Tate's hands, kissing him only when it was clear Tate wouldn't drop it.
"Yeah, okay." Sticking the thing awkwardly in his pocket, he left Burke's house.
He didn't look at the sky or the stars as he stalked towards Megaton's public house. Facing Gob was not something he would be interested in at the moment. The ghoul was too damn perceptive.
Instead of using the ramps to change between the settlement's sloped levels, Tate grappled old of rickety guard rails and pulled himself up and in between bars, sliding with practiced grace. His pack was back at Moriarty's, he'd have to grab it in the morning.
That night he slept with his sunglasses on. In the morning, he put the pulse charge away in his pack. Carried it around with him for months. Carried it long after Burke's love letters stopped and the mercs began. Carried it after he bought Charon and freed Butch. Carried it after Charon died. Carried it when he started the purifier and he supposed it sat in his pack through the coma. Carried it after they picked up the android. Carried it after Butch told him he loved him, why couldn't Tate love him back?
Tate threw it into the sea at Point Lookout. Watched it sink.