Butch wondered what it was that everyone in this stinking, barren wasteland saw in that teacher's pet, goodie two-shoes.

Well, ok. He got what they saw in her. Probably the exact same thing he saw in her that day when she came out of that room with his mother wiping Radroach guts off her cheek and told him she was safe. Butch could never tell anyone how much he'd wanted to take that annoying, smartarse beauty in his arms and kiss her like they'd spent their lives being something other than enemies.

Instead he'd give her his jacket. That's gotta mean something, right? He'd sure seen the surprise in her eyes, especially when he'd let slip he'd always kind of liked her… But he'd stopped himself from letting on just how much. Butch had learnt that I love you was a helluva lot harder to say than cry home to your daddy, nosebleed. He'd spent a long time thinking it was better to say the complete opposite of how he felt, because the complete opposite of how he felt didn't make him seem like a sissy.

Thing was though, who the hell was there to think he was a sissy? Here, nobody knew him except her. Things were different out here and fuck Butch wasn't stupid. He knew he was no Einstein or whatever but he was far from being dumb and no matter how much she humoured him, they both knew there was no place for the Tunnel Snakes out here and maybe, just maybe, Butch was ok with that. The ghoul guy didn't seem to give a fuck what anybody felt about anyone so long as he could keep playing bodyguard and the raider dude seemed happy so long as he could smoke and shoot at things and overall, Wasteland people seemed to care more about not dying than they did about Butch.

So why couldn't he come straight with her?

What if she laughed at him?

Worse yet, what if she laughed at him and kicked him out? Butch felt a tingle of panic run up his spine because he had nowhere else to go. His eyes sidled to where she sat slumped in a chair. She'd only just managed to wiggle out of her armour before she'd collapsed, exhausted from lugging scrap metal to that guy in Underworld and getting back again. She'd insisted they rest when they got there, and had promptly gone off to help the guy try and repair whatever shit was broken that time. When they'd all woken up after a solid eight hours, she was still pounding on some old heater, trying to get it to run. The ghoul guy had suggested she rest, but she'd shook her head, insistent that they get back to Megaton because she had to deliver a letter from Carol to Gob.

He wished he'd backed the ghoul up. Butch didn't like this guilty feeling creeping up into his throat and sitting there like an overstuffed Molerat and he hated seeing her so damn drained. He watched her shiver a little in her thin tank top and ridiculously short shorts and sighed, getting up and padding over to her quietly. Shrugging off his jacket, he tucked the worn leather around her gently, careful not to wake her up.

Smiling slightly, he walked away. He didn't know if he would ever be able to shake off his damage and tell her how he felt or not, but one thing Butch DeLoria did know was that he would stick with her no matter what, so long as they both lived. And hell, even though he still knew it wasn't much, he would always be around to give her his jacket.

I always thought the jacket thing was kind of cute. And Butch isn't really a bad guy or anything. I love him to bits. Maybe not as much as I do with Charon, though… Did I just make a really insensitive joke about the ghoul condition? Yes I did. Charon's next!

~KD