130758271257: flakandshrap got more grenades
271257130758: how many?
130758271257: 4
271257130758: k be down in a sex
271257130758: *sec
130758271257: lol

Butch put out his cigarette on the metal railing and tossed the butt into the water. His Pip-boy screen dimmed from inactivity. On his way back below deck he clapped Charon on the back. Guy would probably still be out here hours later. Never was much for grenadeball.

He swung by the Weatherly to grab Tate's baseball bat and his own sunglasses. Not because he had any sort of weird paranoid about people getting too good a look at him, but because the sun was actually really high in the sky at the moment. And the downside of grenadeball was if you missed, you lost a limb. Upside, it was awesome.

Twirling the bat like a baton while he walked the halls of the ship, Butch managed to keep himself entertained until he reached Tate. The other vaultie was all smiles, two freshly purchased grenades in each hand. Smiled so wide Butch could see his perfect rows of white teeth.

"Hurry up!"

Tate was absolutely kinetic, his left leg bouncing and both his arms twitching. They had been in Rivet City for six days now, and showed no signs of leaving. Butch knew that Tate was torn up about what happened at Big Town, but that wasn't his fault, wasn't any of their faults. Those kids were tougher than they let on, though. The survivors would rebuild and be stronger for it. Strange, that Butch thought of them as kids though most of them were the same age as him and Tate, a couple older, even.

As they crossed the bridge back to dry land, Butch didn't fail to notice the look that Tate gave Chief Harkness. They'd been discussing the guy for days now, but they still needed more proof. The holo in Sister's room wasn't quite enough to be sure, but they were running out of places to look. Butch still didn't know what Tate planned to do if the security chief was the missing android. He'd asked Butch's opinion but he didn't really have one. Knew the recall code though, they'd gotten that off of Zimmer. Knew the recall code and that maybe, just maybe, it was that security chief with his fucking perfect face that Tate kept staring at.

"So I guess we get two shots apiece." Tate left three of the grenades by his feet and tossed the fourth in his hand.

The rules of the game were simple; pitcher tries to chuck the grenade at the batter and blow them up. Batter tries not to get blown up and, hopefully, smashes the grenade as far out of range as possible.

"How many stims you bring?" Butch drew a line in the dirt, even though it wasn't like the rules of the game were sophisticated enough to warrant any notion of a strike. You were out when you crippled a limb, obviously.

"Six, here, you take three of 'em." Tate reached into his overstuffed pocket and handed Butch three of the syringes. The objective wasn't to actually lose the limb, after all, just flirt with danger a little bit. And if it ended with getting to play doctor, well... "You bat first. I'll pitch."

Butch smirked, "you're a shit pitcher, Tate."

"I just play to my strengths, asshole."

Tate pulled the pin and chucked the explosive as hard as he could at Butch's face. The distance between the pitch and the batting area was plenty, and grenades didn't travel as fast as baseballs did, and it wasn't just a double entendre, Tate wasn't that great a pitcher, so Butch easily readjusted his position and smashed the explosive clear of the playing field. In the distance they both heard it detonate with a satisfying clap.

The second hit didn't go quite as far and the grenade blew up just behind Tate, who had to duck out of the way to avoid getting hit by the line drive. Some of the gravel and dust flew back in Tate's direction, but it looked like his vault suit did enough to protect his skin.

"Alright, Nosebleed, my turn to pitch." Butch dropped the bat on the ground and walked towards Tate, who remained rooted in place. Looking around for observers quickly, Butch figured they were alone enough and tilted his head down to kiss his friend. He was only marginally surprised when Tate grabbed at the lapels of his jacket and pulled him in, extending their contact.

When they finally did pull apart, Tate was smiling. Good. Maybe he was starting to feel better and they could get away from the damn boat. The blond didn't release Butch's jacket though. Held on and played with it between his fingers, re-adjusting his grip a couple of times.

"You wanna play or what?"

"Yeah, of course." Tate released him and turned away. The sound of his zipper lowering just a couple of inches cut through the muggy Wasteland air. Butch couldn't help but smirk, it was such an obvious flirtation.

Tate kicked up the bat and it landed quite squarely in his grip. This part of the game he was quite good at. Had been his idea, after all. When things were happening close to him, Tate was really masterful. It was judging distances at range he had always had trouble with. No matter how much he practiced with that b.b. gun back in the vault, his aim was never as good as Amata's. Even Butch overtook his accuracy, though he had been let in on the group activity a little late. If only he could smack bullets with a bat.

Because he was a fucking show-off, Tate liked to point out where he planned on hitting the grenade. Fucker got it right most of the time too, even though pitches were deliberately erratic. Tate pointed off at a metal garbage can turned over on its side some distance behind Butch. Still close enough that they would get to watch the explosive go off.

Just like he predicted, Tate hit the can head on. It bounced in the air from the force of the blast and made an awful lot of noise. Seemingly for a job well done Tate lowered the zipper at the front of his vault suit a little more. Now it was painfully obvious that he wasn't wearing an undershirt and Butch was getting a pretty good look at Tate's defined chest and just a hint of abdomen. Nice.

"Gonna call your shot again, Nosebleed?"

This time the blond pointed to halfway between the two of them. Given the damage radius that these grenades normally gave off, it was a dangerous choice. Butch let Tate make it, though.

Made his shot and dirt flew up into their faces when the grenade went off. The sunglasses kept any of it from getting into their eyes and Butch was pretty well protected by his vault suit and Tunnel Snake jacket. When the dust cleared there were red pinpricks of blood against Tate's exposed chest. Didn't look like much damage though.

"Fuck that was awesome." Tate's hands were shaking and he dropped the bat.

Butch took two steps towards his friend but Tate was faster. Running at three-quarters speed he crashed into Butch, knocking him to the ground and climbing on top of him. Tate's heart was pounding so hard in his chest that Butch thought his friend was about to burst open. But Tate was laughing through wet, open-mouthed kisses when normally they were kind of reserved in public. Just sort of an unspoken thing. Butch didn't really know why, though. He'd scream from the top of the boat that Tate was his if he could. If he could be sure that Tate was actually his, after all.

Turning his head to the side, Butch tried to look over to the deck of the boat. It was a funny angle, but he didn't see Charon up there.

"Let's go inside." Butch ran his hands up and down Tate's arms. They were still shaking from the adrenaline.

"Tell me why we should go inside, Butch?"

He was always like this. Liked to talk about what they were going to do. Even back in the vault, though they hadn't really done that much. It took Butch awhile to warm to the idea, but this was Tate, so he'd do it.

"So I can suck your cock in private."

"And?" Tate bit at Butch's bottom lip until he gasped a little in pain.

"Fuck your ass, Nosebleed." Butch punctuated his statement by grabbing onto Tate's backside with both hands and squeezing. Got a hot as all hell moan in response.

Tate scrambled to his feet and zipped his vault suit back up. Butch made a show of patting the dirt off of his legs. The baseball bat was retrieved and they made their way back to the ship, Butch trying as best he could to be subtle about the boner in his suit. The things were really unforgiving in contexts like this.

Bypassing the marketplace they headed up to the hotel. When the hallways were empty, Tate's hand would brush against his, or against the outside of his leg. Little things that actually made Butch kind of nauseous in their normalcy.

Vera wasn't at her desk and Butch got a crazy idea about fucking Tate in the lobby. But it was just that, a crazy idea. The robot was still there and would undoubtedly stop them. Or just like, scream in horror.

Inside the room was a bit of a mess. The kind of mess that accumulated in temporary living quarters that had ceased being as temporary as they should have been.

Tate was already stripping. He hadn't worn underwear under his vault suit either and Butch got a little harder thinking that Tate had been like this all day, had wanted him, all day. It wasn't just momentary mania brought on by their dangerous amusements.

Butch tossed aside his sunglasses but left his vault suit on, for now, and pushed the very naked Tate onto the bed. "Sit on the edge."

Tate obeyed, letting his legs fall over the side and rest on the floor and spreading his thighs far enough for a kneeling Butch to fit between. Perfect. Tate was hot shit and knew it. The two of them had that in common. From one of the open packs, Butch grabbed a bottle of lube and tossed it on the bed next to his friend. He'd get to it in a minute.

In the meantime he threw down one of their heavy hooded sweatshirts to soften the floor. Kneeling between Tate's legs, Butch went to work on his half-hard cock. Tate got bigger in his mouth within a minute or so and started panting heavily.

When Butch couldn't talk, always seemed like Tate made up for it by rambling twice as much.

"Ah, fuck, Butch. You look so so good with my cock in your mouth. Fuck, fuck," he whined.

Butch knew he wasn't actually that good at sucking Tate off. Only ever took about half of him into his mouth, kept the rest of it in his curled hand and tried real hard to make the pace between the two the same.

But that was the thing. This was Tate and so he would try. He would try really really fucking hard because in the end, it didn't matter how many good things or how many bad things his friend did in the world. All those people who cursed him or wanted to lick his boots only cared about what Tate did for them. No one else gave a fuck who Tate was. But Butch did. Because Butch wanted Tate before this whole fucking above ground world had ever heard of him and he was just dumbass Nosebleed who annoyed the shit out of him half the time and the other half made him hard in his pants just by smiling the right sort of way.

Once Tate was hard and heavy in his mouth, making pliant little noises, Butch pulled back and rested on his heels. He grabbed the lube bottle and warmed enough of it in his hands to get Tate started. If he were more dexterous, maybe he could jerk off Tate at the same time as stretching him, but he hadn't gotten that trick down yet. Placing his free hand on Tate's thigh, he worked a finger in past the barest hint of resistance.

He tried not to think about it. Tate wanted him; he wanted Tate.

"Oh, fuck, Butch." Tate grabbed his own dick and moved his hand in irregular strokes, more to keep himself hard than to actually get off. A second finger went in and Butch drew patterns against Tate's thigh with his other hand.

A whine of frustration fell from Tate's mouth and it about killed Butch right there. Fucking dead how needy and worked up he got. All the time too.

"You ready?"

Tate nodded vigorously, his blond hair bouncing around. It got really floppy. Made him look a little younger, sometimes. Maybe not. Maybe they were supposed to look this young? Fuck if Butch knew. Everyone out here looked so old and worn out, though.

"Was ready ages ago."

Butch smirked and stood up to do away with his own clothes, just sort of tossing them into the pile Tate had started. In the meantime, Tate readjusted his position on the bed, lying on his back and keeping his legs apart.

"Like this, Butch?" He was still toying with himself.

"Yeah, wanna watch you come."

Wanted to watch him always.

But couldn't tell him that.

Not yet, anyway.

Well prepared like this, Butch easily slid into Tate, but they both hissed at the contact. It was good. Really fucking good. Felt like Tate was everywhere around him, warm and in a good mood for the first time in ages. Tate got his legs up and onto Butch's shoulders and it was fucking perfect. Great thing too that Tate wasn't really that much shorter, just a couple of inches, and they could kiss like this when they wanted. Butch always wanted and Tate would let him.

Butch stuck his hands on either side of Tate's head to support his weight. Between their bodies Tate stroked himself while Butch stroked into him. While the air in the room had been cool when they entered, it was warm around them now.

"Harder, please." Tate was always so fucking desperate about everything. Never wanted to wait.

Shifting his weight onto his stronger right hand freed Butch's left to pull on Tate's hair. Ran his fingers to the roots and just pulled until Tate screwed his eyes shut. Even though they had managed to damage it through the constant bleaching, it still felt soft in his hand.

Butch slammed his hips against Tate's hard enough that it would leave marks. Wanted to leave marks all over the other marks, forget the other marks even existed. Forget that there were handprints larger than his own that marred Tate's skin.

At first Butch thought about all these things, but the anger and jealousy receded as his focus narrowed to the body beneath him, squirming and whining and rolling his hips despite his submissive position. Fuck did Tate look good like this. Felt good too. Felt hot and sweaty and solid. His neck was exposed as his hair was pulled and Butch leaned forward and bit. Bit him just on the side of his neck until he gasped and mewled. When Butch pulled away he could make out the individual impressions of his teeth.

"I'm your whore, right, Butch?"

"Yeah, Nosebleed, mine."

He wanted to do more, to be better. Butch released Tate's hair and shifted his weight onto his left arm so he could slot his right hand between their bodies, pulling Tate's hand away from his dick and replacing it with his own. It took focus, maybe more focus than Butch entirely had, but that was good because otherwise he was about to come too soon and like hell he was gonna leave Tate unsatisfied. So he pumped Tate in his right and and fucked him as hard as he could with his cock. Tried different things until Tate's short fingernails were scratching the shit out of him. The blond's entire body started spasming and it felt so fucking good.

But fucking good on two levels. One because it just felt amazing, but it always felt amazing when Tate came and started bucking around. Sometimes Butch worried that with all the thrashing he'd like, accidentally rip his dick off. But that had never happened so he was probably in the clear to just enjoy it. Second because Butch had managed to please Tate better than he had before. Managed to do two things at once when normally he could only really manage one. They were getting better. And if he got good enough...

"Fuck, Butch, fuck. Fill me up."

Okay, he'd be lying if he said he didn't like Tate's talking sometimes, because that was hot as hell.

Now that Tate was spent, Butch's hand returned to his hair, pulling and not really caring that it was covered in cum.

"Mine, Tate, you are mine."

"Yes, yours. Always yours."

That was enough to tip Butch over the edge. Even if it was only a pretty lie. But Tate did keep his promises, so some part of that had to be true. Stopping and starting up again, Butch spilled into Tate and slowed his pace. Wound all the way down until they were both motionless, just holding together for comfort.

Butch slid out as his arm grew tired and grabbed his undershirt off the floor to try and wipe at least Tate's stomach and his own hand clean. Tate looked utterly spent, but also content. Good.

Eventually they would have to get up and shower, but that need seemed really far away at the moment. Butch slid back into bed and curled his arm around Tate's torso, holding him firmly in place against his chest, smelling his hair and trying not to think about anything other than the present, pleasant moment.