NOTE (Feb. 1, 2018): Because a few people were asking, I thought I'd write a follow-up. Haven't played Fallout: New Vegas in years, though.

The Courier was drunk when he let them loose on the Strip.

It seemed like a good idea at the time as it finally got them off his back for once. So far, he had been enjoying a nice long solitary afternoon at the bar up in the Aces Theater with nothing but his paid-for alcohol while Billy Knight monologued on stage about how hilariously shitty life is in this part of the Mojave. No whiny brats, no damn upkeep, no questions. Just me, Miss Pina Co Lada, and Mister Vodka On The Rocks...

Well into the evening, he was already too deep in the bottle to notice the hand nudging him off the bar.

"Sir? Sir..."

"Mmm~, Veronica...ask Raul...he'll fix it up for 'ya..."

"Excuse me, sir."

"Damn it, Vee," Six slurred, his head planted firmly between his arms and a cemetery of drained liquor bottles. "I'm busy..."

"Six." Tommy Torini's voice sobered him up a bit.

For the first time since happy hour, he glanced up. "Wha~?"

"You're, uh, friends got into some trouble," the owner of the Aces Theater explained.

The Courier scrunched his eyes. There's Tommy. And two—or was that four?—NCR suits in front of him with their bright 'MP' armbands and stenciled helmets. What was with the cattle prods? "I swear, officer... Wadn't me this time..."

"Sir, that's not what we're here for," a military police sergeant began. "You were referred to by a..."

Six could barely hear what they were saying. He just about shrugged them off until he heard...

"...Miss Ruby Rose claims that you are their legal guardian."

Wait, what? The Courier snapped his head back up at them. "Who?"

"Sir, would you please come down to the station with us?" another officer requested.

It took Six awhile to register what he meant. Station? What station? The NCR Embassy? No. McCarran Headquarters? No, that was way too far. Wait... Station, station, station...have I been there before? Then it clicked. "The old LVPD building down the road?"

"Yes, sir."

Did I do something again? I swear I paid Crocker off that one time but... The sudden realization kicked him back into sobriety. "Ah, shit."

"Six! Over here!"

In his mind, the Courier was raving in anguish fueled by pure, vexing frustration. Meanwhile, his body calmly followed the NCR MP to the holding cell where Yang's arm had been waving at him through the bars. Weiss was sulking in the back of the cell while Blake was standing on the only bed around, staring through the barred window above them. Ruby twiddled her thumbs next to her sister, trying to look as innocent as guiltily possible.

"Six! Great! I swear it wasn't my fault," Blondie started. "You see...um..."

Six's tired eyes moved from one person to another.

"Hey, don't look at me," Hyper protested. "It was a natural response!"

"What the fuck did you four do now?" he seethed.

Yang deflated in front of him. "Err, long story?"

The MP sighed. "Some drunks groped her, they got into a fight, drew in a big crowd, nearly caused a riot in front of Gomorrah. Sir."

Ruby chuckled nervously. "Yeah, uh...that's sort of...what happened. Heh-heh, whoops? Crazy night, right? Say, could you, um, bail us out?"

Goddamn it. How much are these kids going to set me back? Four thousand caps? Eight? The Courier nodded at the MP who proceeded to unlock their cell. Blondie and Hyper hugged him while Snowball walked by looking miffed with Cat-girl giving him an apologetic tap on the shoulder.

"Hey, guys!" someone called from the far end of the corridor. "What about us? Ruby!"

"Who the fuck—" was all Six managed to get out until he heard the most painful thing to come out of Hyper's mouth to date.

"Jaune! Of course! Hey, Six, could you bail out our friends, too? They're over there at the back. Six, meet Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren. Could you bail them out for us? Ple~ase? Please, please, please, pretty please with cookies and milkshakes and sugar on top?"

Are you fucking kidding me, woman, his mind screamed. Seeing four more kids in overly colorful weird-ass outfits—is that redhead wearing Greek armor?—staring back at him like he was their only hope was enough to give him a migraine on the spot. Where the fuck are you all coming from?

"With all the hardware these kids got, you wouldn't think they were Brotherhood of Steel agents," the MP whistled while cycling through his keys.

"Brotherhood of what?" that blond Jaune boy asked.

"Long story," Yang said. "Right, Six?"

Goddamn it, kids, he thought while he rubbed his temples.

Needless to say, all these kids made it back to the Aces Theater in time for Bruce Isaac to hit the high notes on his latest single. Meanwhile, the Courier was back at the bar in the far back, three bottles in and sixteen thousand caps poorer—eight thousand for the bail and the rest on damages and bribes. No~obody kno~ows the troubles I've seen~... No~obody kno~ows my sorro~ow...

"Six. This. Is. Awesome!"

"I didn't know you owned the whole tower."

"Are you some authority figure here?"

"Can Victor make pancakes?"

The Courier dropped onto a stool by the bar in the massive cocktail lounge of the Lucky Thirty-Eight while his Securitron valet Victor poured him a strong mix from all the hard hitters stockpiled behind the shelf. He really needed a good drink after all the shit that went down over the past week. Teams RWBY and JNPR—what drugs were these kids on that they named themselves like that?—was costing him by the thousands in damage control. That was not to mention the countless times Yang, Ruby, or any one of these brats nearly got them all kicked out of every casino on the Strip.

"Look at this view!"

"You can see the whole Mojave."

"Vegas is very bright tonight."

"Hey, um, Pyrrha? You want a drink?"

"Of course, Jaune."

Six had already downed four whole glasses when Victor started blasting Sinatra's Blue Moon over both its built-in speakers and the speakers installed around the lounge. Of course, the kids started dancing like they were at a Californian promenade or some fancy Ultra-Luxe ball. Even Snowball, Cat-girl, and that redhead Spartan were doing the waltz with their respective team partners. So much for some peaceful quality drinking time...

Later that night, a few good hours after the brats all went downstairs to the presidential suite for some shut-eye, he stumbled into his personal quarters half-plastered only to find his own luxury bed occupied by a snoozing Hyper, Snowball, Cat-girl, and Blondie. Goddamn it.

"Colonel, it's for you," said the puzzled radio operator. "It's him."

Colonel James Hsu of the New California Republic Armed Forces picked up the receiver. "Yes, Six?"

"Colonel!" sputtered the voice on the other end of the NCR emergency frequency. "Shit...ah, you ever had kids?"

Hsu exhaled deeply before gesturing at the operator to lower the volume a bit. "Six, this line is for emergency purposes only. Do you need any support?"

"I need a fucking babysitter," came the slurred response.

The colonel was pinching the bridge of his nose at this point. "Six. You're drunk."

"Wha'da'ya mean I'm drunk?" An audible hiccup. "Fuck it...I'll get Cass to come over..."

The line clicked off before Hsu handed the receiver back to the operator.

"Is everything okay, sir?"

"Everything's fine. As you were," he dismissed while walking back to his office.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 1, 2018

LAST EDITED: June 18, 2022

INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 1, 2018