NOTE (Feb. 4, 2018): I'm honestly surprised by the reception this fic is getting.

The Courier regretted not bringing any extra rations on this excursion.

That meant he had to leave the brats to go scrounge up some grub for tonight. They call themselves Huntsmen and Huntresses and they can't even bring back a damn carcass to fry. Besides, after the fracas at Cottonwood, he was sure they would botch up something as simple as hunting geckos, much less coyotes and wild dogs.

Suffice to say, Six was actually relieved when he got back. He was expecting some sort of carnage or maybe the NCR probing the kids. Instead, everything was peaceful. They even managed to get a small fire going without his help, laughing and prattling like it was another dull day. No incidents, no bright lights, no magic shit, no massive smoking crater... Huh, I guess I was just being paranoid. Maybe I should've brought one of them hunting with me.

"We're having bloatflies tonight, kids," the Courier announced, holding up a colony of dead mature bloatflies strung up together in an upside-down bouquet.

The brats went green—the girls recoiled while the boys went pale.

Why am I not surprised? Should've expected they'd act like this. Damn it. He shook his head and began laying out his catches over a make-shift grill fastened from bits of rebar, wire mesh, and a couple of iron water pipes. Dusty but not too rusty. And definitely not radioactive.

"Suck it up," he snorted. "It's dinner and there aren't any geckos around."

"Why..." Weiss turned around to keep from heaving upon seeing the puss oozing out of the sizzling carcasses.

"So...large flies for dinner, huh," Ren gulped. He unsubtly began glancing around for barrel cacti while Jaune dug around their collective rucksacks for any food that may have been buried underneath all their supplies.

"You kids need to learn to suck it up," Six barked. "This is the desert. Out here, these little buggers will save your life. They're rich in protein and a good source of energy."

"And..." Ruby covered her nose. "...smelly."

"I want panca~akes...not flies..."

"Nora, don't be so...overtly rude."

"Could be worse, I guess..."

Picky little brats. The Courier pulled out a fresh packet of aspirin, expecting another migraine to come on. "Either you eat or you starve, kids."

"Six has a point," Pyrrha said, standing up and (hesitantly) picking up a skewered chunk of barbecued bloatfly.

Six raised his fist to the sky in gratitude. Thank you, Sparta, for agreeing with me! Finally, someone with some proper survivalist sense—

The look on her face completely betrayed her previous confidence. "These are...edible, right?"

Goddamn it, Sparta. "Why else did I cook them?" he growled.

Pyrrha gulped. She took several deep beaths, exchanging unsure glances with the other brats, then chomped down with her eyes firmly shut. The Courier almost rolled his eyes when the rest of the kids goggled closer to see what would happen next.

"It's...actually pretty good. Very much like chicken," she said, devouring the rest of her dinner.

"See? It's not that bad. Now eat," he ordered as the brats took their respective skewers, with his eyes narrowing pointedly at Weiss. "No excuses, Snowball. Dinner is dinner."

"But...it's a fly."

"Six is right. This isn't really that bad," Yang remarked, happily munching on a mouthful of her share.

"It's a bug. We're eating bugs, Yang," Weiss countered, holding up her stick of grilled bloatfly a good arm's length from her face. "Big, oversized bugs with puss and eggs and m-m-maggots..."

Six let out an audible groan. "Snowball, you had mutant ant stew this morning and you weren't complaining."

Weiss froze, almost dropping her food. In fact, all the other brats tensed up like statues, their half-eaten bloatflies starting to attract smaller flies. They stared at him like he had suddenly grown a third head.

"What?"

"I thought that was...beef," Blake mumbled.

"Yeah. Wasteland 'beef' stew. And when I mean beef, I mean meat that's good enough. Brahmin meat, ant meat, radscorp, radroach, mole-rat, or all of the above in one pot. You kids got lucky today 'cause the chef threw in the menu favorite: brahmin balls. Man, I'd kill for some fried brahmin balls right now; that stuff hits the spot good."

Things had gotten far too quiet. It was at that moment then that Six learned that the kids had an aversion to wasteland meat because all of them—including Sparta and Cat-girl of all people!—were heaving their guts into the ditch behind them.

"Six, why!?"

"Faunus don't eat...that..."

"Never...never ever!"

"Why didn't you tell us!?"

"I thought they were chicken eggs..."

"I'm checking the meat next time..."

The Courier dropped his face into his palms. Why did these kids have to so fucking picky? Why, goddamn it, why?

"That's disrespectful, you know," he seethed through gritted teeth. "At least be damn grateful that you aren't eating the shit they serve at the Ultra-Luxe."

"I'll have you know," Snowball suddenly hollered, "that the food at the Ultra-Luxe is among the best in this whole accursed Wasteland!"

"No offense, Six, but I agree," Hyper added apologetically while patting a retching Yang beside her.

"You ate at the Ultra-Luxe?" Six asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

"We all did," Nora answered. "They had the most wonderful pancakes ever! It was really fancy and the White Glove Society were really nice and polite. A little creepy though with all the masks and the fancy-shmansy stuff they got going there but not that bad of a social club. Say, weren't you there? Don't you remember? You were like on the super-duper high-end guest list or something! You were there, right?"

"Actually, that was when he was passed out drunk at the Lucky Thirty-Eight," Blake corrected. "So he wasn't with us that time."

"They even offered us honorary membership," Ruby added. "And that was before we, y'know, sort of, almost, kinda, messed up their—"

Jaune tapped her on the shoulder. "No need to bring that up again. I'm just glad we're not on the blacklist or something."

Yang held up her hands. "Hey, wasn't our fault the White Gloves get really scummy clientele. All we did was call the bastards out to save the casino some revenue. Who'd a thunk they were stupid enough to try and shoot up the place."

Nora snorted. "Eh, some people are so rich they think they can get away with anything. Still think the White Gloves should've broken their legs instead of just kicking them out...with us, sort of."

"The White Gloves have been the most forgiving of the Three Families," Ren intoned. "Given what we could have gotten, a one-week expulsion from their facilities is not so bad."

That's them saving face 'cause they want to be the Vegas high-class poster child. The Courier raised his brow at them. "I suppose that one time you all stayed the night meant you sampled their, ugh, cooking."

Weiss folded her arms at him. "I don't understand why you simply refuse to go near that place, Six! The Ultra-Luxe serves the cleanest, most filling banquets serving the finest meats and lentils we've had in a good long while, besting all the other casinos on the whole Strip. The White Gloves provide only virtuoso music, the most exquisitely clean facilities, and supreme social amenities that rival even that of Atlas. Why you'd settle for anything less despite being so wealthy just boggles my mind!"

The disbelieving mug the Courier sported throughout her diatribe started to unsettle them though.

The long, drawn-out silence made Yang ask, "Uh, Six? Yoohoo! You still there?"

"Ah... You brats do know that they used to serve human meat at the Ultra-Luxe, right?" he deadpanned. "Didn't you get the memo or did I forget to tell you that whole story?"

Six felt the edges of his duster ruffle in the breeze while a tumbleweed bounced passed.

"WHAT!?"

Huh. I guess I forgot to tell them. The Courier sighed, popped in another aspirin, and went back to tending the campfire as the brats went back to gagging. On the bright side, he didn't get a headache tonight. The downside, though, was that he had to settle for the reasonably expensive prepackaged food being shipped over from California at their next stop.

He really regretted not bringing any extra rations.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 3, 2018

LAST EDITED: June 18, 2022

INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 4, 2018

NOTE (Feb. 4, 2018): This was originally written with Cinder in it but I scrapped it and rewrote it. Originally, Cinder was supposed to make her debut here but I didn't think it would work well. So I drafted another chapter where the Courier ends up taking Cinder in (much to his extreme annoyance) and dealing with the flak he gets from teams RWBY and JNPR. But after that, I don't know what else to do with it. My mind's already coming up with scenarios between Six and Cinder which would make everything awkward for the rest. And yes, I have been reading the other fanfics (including Sand, Fire, and Blood).