Tate finished his power armor training earlier in the day. That meant the inevitable. Tomorrow would be the assault on the purifier. Butch had to force himself to breathe.

The Brotherhood hadn't offered the training to Butch. That was alright though, Tate had always been the golden child. Wasn't entirely clear why. Maybe because the whole world was so eager to kiss Dr. Zhang's ass, they just assumed his spawn was hot shit too. Good riddance to that old man.

For all the preparations to be made for tomorrow's attack, their room in the Citadel was quiet, almost peaceful. Butch sat up on the bed, his back against the wall and Tate seated between his legs, his back pressed against Butch's chest. Tate read from Future Weapons Today, though no one had ever seen him even look at an energy weapon before. They had bleached his hair before his training in one of the heavy steel utility sinks and it still smelled like chemicals.

While Tate read, Butch thought about Tate's hair.

"If you die tomorrow, I'll have to kill you."

Tate snickered, but didn't turn his head. "We really gonna do this? Act like this is our last night on earth? I got this, Butch."

Butch let his hands dance along Tate's sides, he had never been ticklish.

"You should see me in the power armor," Tate's voice was downright giddy. "I can punch clear through concrete walls. It's killer."

"Yeah, you'll be pretty safe in there. Guess you hadn't considered my safety, eh?"

"Like a legion of Enclave fucks could lay a finger on you, Serpent King of the Mighty Tunnel Snakes."

"Mmmh," Butch's hands moved from Tate's sides to sliding up the hem of his tshirt, running his fingers along his best friend's defined abdominal muscles.

"Butch..." That wasn't a tone Butch was used to hearing, something kind of sad but kind of stern. "Don't, not tonight."

"The fuck? Tate Zhang, King of thinking with his Tunnel Snake and nothing else, doesn't want to fuck? Who the hell are you and where is my best friend?"

"I'm serious." Tate pulled away from him and turned so he was facing Butch. The warm area of Butch's chest cooled rapidly.

"Nosebleed, you wanted to fuck like...five minutes after Charon died...in front of his goddamn corpse. You are always horny. Or that time at Paradise Falls."

"Not two of my finer moments, I guess. And you weren't even there for Paradise Falls. But I mean it. It would be like, jinxing it."

"Sex would be jinxing it?" Butch rubbed the back of his neck and willed his breath to steady.

"Then one of us will be sure to die. Nah, we wait until after and then I fuck the shit out of you, then you can fuck the shit out of me, it'll be great. Then we can kill some raiders or something. Or play grenadeball."

"A second ago you were convinced that we weren't gonna die."

"We're not, just stick to the plan and keep it in your pants."

There was a knock at the door.

"Yeah, if I don't give it to you, you'll jump some Brotherhood hack in the hallway..."

Tate had clamored out of bed and grabbed his sunglasses off the dresser before getting the door. It was Sarah Lyons, the Sentinel leading Tate into battle tomorrow with that giant ass robot. Tate hated robots, but he had no choice but to agree to this one.

Out of her power armor, Butch got a better idea of how stacked Lyons was. The answer was really fucking stacked. Muscular arms, flat stomach, nice tits, and that ass. If Tate had ever shown half a cap's worth of interest in women, Butch might have been threatened by how much time they spent together over the last couple weeks.

"Hey, Tate, we could use you for a minute." There was the barest hint of flirtation, Butch was sure of it.

"Hey, Sarah!" Butch smirked and waved from his position on the bed.

"Butch," she acknowledged him with a curt nod.

Tate was already reaching for his boots. "Yeah I'll be right there. Don't wait up for me, okay?"

Butch waved them both off dismissively.

With Tate gone and only half an erection to keep him company, Butch thought about what color Lyon's nipples might be, before and after being bitten.

Tate had been right. With that fucking giant robot they cut through the Enclave like a knife through butter. All the while its booming voice yelled about Commies and Democracy; failure and success; Reds and the American Way; the Chinese and the liberation of Alaska. To his credit, the only time Tate flinched was back at the Citadel.

"Mission: Destruction of any and all Chinese Communists."

Didn't matter that the robot had been programmed to recognize Enclave soldiers as the communists. Didn't matter that Tate only had the faintest idea what communist meant, let alone what it took to be one. That shit was ancient history. Only thing that had mattered was those two words kept getting bound up together. Chinese. Communist. So Tate flinched and Butch pretended like he didn't see it.

Tate was right about Butch too. Without power armor training, he was forced to hang back behind the Brotherhood Knights, but it turned out he wasn't half bad with the laser rifle that had been shoved in his face on the way out. It cut sharply through the air and made a cool sound and sometimes it turned fully armored Enclave soldiers into piles of sweet-smelling ash.

When the Enclave stealth troops broke into the line, Butch danced around them with his powerfist ready, as skillful as could be expected of him. He pulled them out of stealth kicking and screaming and one of the Brotherhood would ash them in his hands before they could even get real loud. Powder turned his hands iridescent white. The whole thing was fucking awesome.

The Memorial was breached and Butch pushed on ahead to catch up to Tate and Lyons. It was impossible to tell anyone apart in that fucking power armor, but even if he didn't know who they were, they sure as shit recognized him and the metal sea parted. They were still making mincemeat of the Enclave, but he had to reach Tate.

Two suits of armor were standing in front of a secured door, just about the same height, had to be them.

"Tate!"

One of the helmets turned. "Butch?" Tate's voice was mechanic and staticy through the helmet, but unmistakably him.

"You thought you could just leave me, Nosebleed?"

"Yeah, guess I did, dickface." No distortion in the world could have hidden Tate's glee.

Lyons sighed through her helmet. "Let's go."

On the other side of the door was some fuckwad in a trench coat and two more Enclave soldiers. Should've been easy to take them out, as far as they had come. Trench guy was, well, in a fucking trench coat with some lame ass pistol. Lyons and Tate were fucking badasses so the two Enclave in the tesla armor shouldn't have been any trouble either. But Tate, that shit, took of his helmet and instead of shooting started talking to the guy.

"Eden betrayed you. See this vial?" Tate's voice had that venomous quality to it, like the way he used to talk to his dad back in the vault. Like the way he talked to Harkness back in Rivet City or how he talked to Butch after getting those notes off of merc's bodies that he never let Butch see. "He trusts me more than he trusts you."

"That's not true! That plan was abandoned months ago." Trench coat guy was getting real nervous real fast, like someone important had betrayed him. "He'd never go behind my back!"

"Just walk away, Autumn. It's not too late." As quickly as it had surfaced, the venom was gone again.

"And you...would just let me leave?"

Tate nodded, but Butch knew the only promises Tate ever kept were the ones to him and to Amata.

"How can I be sure that you won't just shoot me once I turn my back on you?"

"I won't."

Butch caught the corner of Tate's eye. He was ready, they could only hope Lyons was ready too.

"I suppose it doesn't matter much now...fine. I will leave you to your fate."

Autumn passed Tate and Tate took his head clear off with a single punch. He wasn't kidding about that armor. Well, Tate hadn't lied, hadn't shot him.

Turned out the Encalve goons were too chicken shit for their own good and just made a break for the door. Lyons got one of them good in the leg. So good, that the leg burned right off. Out of mercy she finished him off. The second one still had a wall of Brotherhood on the other side of the door to contend with.

"He killed my Pop." Tate was staring down at the headless corpse. Whatever that vial was, Tate dropped it in the middle of Autumn's chest and smashed it with his foot. The strength of the armor meant that he broke all of the corpse's ribs too. Snap, just like that.

As if in some kind of trance, Tate started pulling off his power armor. "I hate this shit..."

Sarah removed just her helmet and put one hand over her face. This was it, they had done it. Tate was right, they lived.

Then there was Dr. Li's voice over the intercom, worried but collected.

Butch refused to believe it. The pressure in the control room was too high and the systems were cut off. The process of starting the purifier, a process they expected to take their time on and figure out, had to be done now or the whole building would go up. All of this would be for nothing.

Tate screamed back at her, that this was somehow her fault. Her voice cut back just as sharp, that he really was his parents' child, selfish. The intercom didn't stand a chance, Tate smashed against it with his bare fists until they were bloody and raw, but in the end, he rendered the intercom inoperable.

"It has to be now," was the last clear message they got from Dr. Li. Lyons hadn't moved an inch, letting Tate wear himself out.

"Tate, one of us has to do it." She spoke like the commander she was.

"I'll do it," Tate's breathing was still ragged, but the words were clear enough.

"No fucking way, Nosebleed. You said we're getting out of here alive and I know that fucking shit is killing whoever goes in. So no. No fucking way, you ain't doing it."

"Shut the fuck up, Butch. We don't have time."

Tate looked reridiculousn his tshirt and ratty jeans, about to save the whole goddamn Wasteland like a punk. No shoes either.

He had promised. And he didn't fucking break his promises to Butch or Amata. Those were the only damn promises he kept.

"You idiot, fuck you."

Butch grabbed Tate by the back of his head and pulled him forward until their teeth smashed together. Lips came later I'm the suddenness of it all. This beautiful, violent world that everyone expected Tate to save for some reason or another. Fuck them. Butch never could figure it out. Maybe only because Tate was beautiful and violent too.

"Can't let you, Tate, love you too much."

Grabbing Tate by the front of his shirt, Butch smashed him as hard as he could against the nearest console. With the wind knocked out of him, Tate paused just long enough for Butch to make a dash for the purifier. He took the stairs two at a time and could hear Tate already on his heels.

Tackled from behind, Butch's face smashed into the metal grating. Quicker than he could have anticipated, Tate flipped him over and struck him in the face. Again. And again.

"You don't know the code, dickhead."

And black.

If the world had been merciful, Butch would have stayed blacked out until long after they had pulled Tate's body from the control chamber. Instead, he was only unconscious for thirty seconds at most. He watched Tate double over from radiation sickness as he tried to get the code in before it was too late. Watched blood run from his nostrils like water from a tap. Watched him vomit all over the console just seconds after the purifier roared to life. Watched him collapse in a heap and stop moving too. Had to watch it all, couldn't tear his eyes away.