Azure Promise
Summary - How exactly did James know to look for Ben? He was dead and gone, right?
Notes - Pre-Season 1
Disclaimer – I do not own or pretend to own anything from either the Fallout games or from Nuka Break, the web-series (but I'm very happy to be a huge fan!)
"It may sound a bit strange, but I've been fallin' apart for 'bout a week now. Today's the deadest I've felt so far. Not sure if I'll get better. Not sure if the world'll get any better."
Raspy and low, the voice trails off in a sigh and the man shudders as he remembers; poisoned, toxic rust-clouds blooming like spring mushrooms. Trembles, slight movements underfoot that changed with sharp cracks, throwing everything around into a manic dance of death. And the ash...hopes, dreams, and futures scattered to the wind for thousands of lucky people, others left to drop and moulder in their final steps if not. He kept his mouth closed every time the wind kicked it, otherwise he could only think of himself as a cannibal. As for the screams, the curses, what he wanted most was for those unending assaults on his memory burned out, not burned in. Keeping his eyes closed didn't make it easier, it just combined the assault on the rest of his senses.
"I was by myself when the earth began to shake, in a small, long-ago place my father showed me that was always good for findin' arrowheads. Couldn't spit without hittin' one. Heh. That gave more courage than I'd thought it'd take, you know, being on my own. Made me happy for the first time since I left you."
He slipped his stolen paintbrush into his stolen paint, its azure color the promise of older days. Dead Days. Gone Days. Soon-to-be-Forgotten Days. A faint hope that he too, would not be soon-to-be-forgotten. Or maybe he was already-forgotten, and didn't know. Schrödinger's cat in man form.
"I seem to be doing okay for a dead guy. Moving around at least, even if it looks like I went through hell. And sure, I'll have to worry about food in a day or two, but there's no shortage."
Harsh laughter echoed around the empty parking lot, and he turned around, quickly eyeballing all the places someone, or something, could be hiding. That particular lesson had been quickly, and harshly, learned in the first few days.
"Well, there is a shortage of people, but by the laws of economics, that means there's a bounty of necessities."
Catching the drips on the side, he raised the sodden brush, glancing about at his possibilities. The door itself might be a good bet...or maybe, right before the control panel? Yes, that would be the best spot. Nobody would vandalize it trying to pry the place open. And good luck to them trying to force a Vault door open, they'd have to be super mutants or something.
Slowly, unconcerned with time and intent on legibility, he painted. Wrote. Made art with words and words of art, a shadowed Leonardo working on a similar devotion to a different God. A Goddess. A, no, the woman who had been the sun of his world, had made him laugh, made him smile, made him see every sparkle of life...who had made him cry, made him curse, made him see every mote of taint. She had been his everything, and now, he was her nothing.
He finished when it got dark. Darker, really, if he was being honest, what with the dust clouds. Not like there was anyone else to lie to. It wasn't done, but it had to be, so he signed his name at the bottom. Too many words would ruin it as surely as too few would. He opened a sealant, sprayed it across, tossed it away somewhere unseen. Then he left. Walked across roads and deserts, steel and and sand; walked through days, seasons, years, centuries. And every hour, every minute, every second possible, his heart remained behind, written on the wall in paint colored of another world.
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