She makes copies of everything, she labels anything she touches, and she changes her password literally every week. Luckily, she's also forgetful, and writes little notes to remind herself.

And I take full advantage.

But these things are fuckin' everywhere, so here I am in her room cleaning up after her as I sort through the shit on her desk. They're all pretty normal things… Birthdays, work appointments, and finally – one that looks remotely like a password. JJAb3wocKY.

Her computer buzzes and the screen fills up.

Vault 101 Personal Terminal.

— Abigail Catherine Chance —

Personal Entries

Assignments

Boooooring Wooooork Thiiiiings

Notes

Of course, this isn't the first time I've been on here. I skip straight to her diary.

Entry 466

I like being a nurse. I *like* helping people.
But is Wally Mack really people?
It's so aggravating. I must be professional. I mustn't judge. I must do no harm. I mustn't 'snark' at the boys.
Wally damn well knew I couldn't say anything either! And it's only ever me that gets lectured for being rude, so, as usual, I have to let it slide.
It was only for five minutes, and dad was there the entire time. But should I really be thankful for such torture?
I wonder if I can convince dad and Jonas to let me become a pharmacist instead.
I'll give Wally some ipecac. Tell him it'll grow his tiny penis.

Entry 467

I managed to sneak out after curfew with Amata back down to the targeting range today, buuut we almost busted a light when she tried shooting this time. She made me promise that next sleepover we'll just stay home and read instead. I guess I can't blame her.
I wish we could go shooting together, though.
It's just so cathartic to imagine the targets as Tunnel Snakes.

It's just an endless folder with nothing useful in it. Everyone hates Wally, Amata's got a stick up her ass – And Abby's little rabbit hole ain't secret either. I found it years ago. I've even used her gun a couple of times.

This shitty computer is supposed to be her mind and there's nothing I didn't already know. And there's not even any reference to me.

Surely, I, as the bane of her pitiful existence, deserve a mention?

So, I backtrack to the main screen. Let's rifle through 'notes'. Sounds worthwhile.

Vault 101 Personal Terminal.

— Abigail Catherine Chance —

Notes

Nursing Job

Butch DeLoria

Overseer

Tests

Bingo.

Vault 101 Personal Terminal.

— Abigail Catherine Chance —

Notes

Butch DeLoria

Jackass.

Wow, Abby. My feelings are so hurt.

Hah. This wasn't even worth the effort. What does it take to get into her head? I've done everythin' short of getting my toothpick and-

"Butch."

Fuck if my heart didn't give out for that one second. I don't let it show though. I slowly slide off the seat to face Abigail, steaming in the doorway. How the fuck did I forget to close the door?
She's pissed, that's for sure. But maybe a charming smirk will ease the feeling of violation.

"You were on there?" she points. Her frown is just plain ugly.

I roll my eyes. "Kinda obvious that I was."

Abigail sighs, as expected. "What did you read?"

"Enough." I say. It's a broad answer. Make her guess, and make her squirm.

Her eyebrows twitch. I only barely notice. She hums, crossing her arms. "Enough?"

"Enough." I nod.

What does it take to make her do something?

She hums again, and steps forward. I step back and hit the wall, because I'm an idiot and I let her corner me. I frown to let her know. You do not put Butch-man in a corner.

"How'd you even…?" she leads on, staring. She has a violent stare.

I laugh in her face. I pick up a bunch of her notes and wave them in the air, "Hello, Miss Forget-Me-Not?"

"Oh for!" she sighs (again), spinning on her heel. And she stands there, searching for something in the dark corner of her room.

Yeah, I may have forgotten the door, but what kinda sneak would I be if I went around turning lights on?

She finally finds her old baseball bat, and swings it around before facing me again. I switch on my snake smile.

"Abby, babe. You look gorgeous today. I said that earlier, yeah?"

The bat's interesting, sure. But it isn't like she's gonna use it. So I try and charm her, but she clearly ain't buying my shit. It's worked for both Christie and Susie, you can hear their panties drop a mile away, but Abby is stubborn.

(And she may be stubborn, but I know she's thought about it. She's even dissed my 'brazen' charm in her diary before.)

"Hah, tell me something I don't know." And she fuckin' stabs at me with the bat, just missing my chin. I almost laugh. She thinks she's witty.

I swat the bat out of the way. She ain't using it and it's just blocking my view. I raise my eyebrow, and she just sighs. More fucking sighs.

Resting the bat's tip to the ground, with one hand on the handle and the other on her hip, she asks me "Why won't you just leave me alone?"

She's starting to sound like Amata. I shrug.

She slams the bat onto the ground and kicks it away. "Fucking damn it, Butch!" she groans. Finally! "How many times do you have to do this? Why do you constantly invade? Why do you even bother? You know what's on my computer, you know pretty much everything. Why can't you just piss off?"

This is what I came here for. Distress, anger, reaction. Her knuckles are glowing white, and the dark of the room made her eyes look wild. She's been like this only once before.

"I find you interesting."

I mean, it isn't not true. But it's more like… tryin'a make her do something interesting, and be interesting while doing it.

"Ah, the Tunnel Snake's way to seduce a girl: be an absolute creep!" she quips, "I'm sure that works for the floozies, but if you haven't noticed, it's not working here."

Whatever she thinks, I suppose.

"Hey, I didn't say anythin' about seduction. But if that's what you want…"

She wails, "Oh, will you just leave?"

And I sneer, teeth and everything. "What if I don't?"

She just stands there, stuttering, with her face bright red. When will she do something? Fuckin' anything? She's so close…

"Ya know," I drawl, "we didn't settle what we started before the G.O.A.T."

Abigail smiles. "There's nothing to settle, asshole. I won then, and I'll win now!"

And she fuckin' sucker punches me!

… Hah, fun.

Call me fucked up. But ya know, those passive aggressive sighs get real grating after a decade or so. A little actual aggression really shakes things up.

And her eyes are fuckin' crazy. She busted my lip, course she's proud of it. Abigail isn't afraid to fight me, she's just so stubborn that I need to rile her up a little. I raise my hand to swipe at my lip – Damn, that's actually a lot of blood for one punch.

So I grab at her right hand and go to say 'Good shot', but she fuckin' jabs me with her left.

It's like clockwork, the Vault. Of course, you got the day-in day-out shit, but I'm meaning… nearly everything. It's routine, consistent. Stale.
There's few exceptions.
And I got a breath of fresh air right here.

So I knee Abigail in the stomach. There's no need to go soft, she can take it. She gasps and doubles over, stumbling back to distance herself. She's carrying on, tryin' to breathe so I take my time to waltz into the centre of the room. And she realises what I'm doing so she gets herself into a defensive stance. I brace myself.

See, this is the great part about fighting Abigail. I have no fuckin' clue what's gonna to happen next.

Even fighting gets boring when you know exactly what the opponent is gonna do. I know exactly how Wally fights, he's a fuckin' brick and hauls his weight around. Paul dances and skitters around like a damn radroach. Freddie just cowers in a corner like the fuckin' bitch he is.

Abby's unpredictable… when prompted.

She uses her leg to reach behind her and kicks the baseball bat out the room, making a huge racket. I'm distracted for the slightest second and she runs full speed into me, elbow first. She slams me into the ground, and her hair is just everywhere so I'm spluttering as she tries to jump back up.

… I gotta remember that trick.

Ya know, I'm sure the expression 'red hot fury' had to come from somewhere, but it never clicked for me until I was feeling the heat pouring off her and seeing her flushed cheeks. (Sure, I'm probably looking the same way right now, but I don't care.)

Abby scrambles up, trying to pin me down but I'm able to shove her off easily. She tries crawling away, but I dive to squash her, knocking the wind out of her and leaving me free to show her how to pin someone down successfully. I lean my shins on her thighs and held her by the wrists. It was a pretty provocative position, and she knew it.

So, I giggle. Yeah, I fuckin' giggle. She didn't hear, thankfully. She was too distracted tryin' to breathe again and pull out of my grasp. Honestly, it just made to moment sweeter.

"Aw, don't be like that!" I tutted, leaning in. Her stare is like a fuckin' laser.

"I can make the boo boos better, Nosebleed."

She turns away, and I lean in closer to whisper in her ear "Let's be lovers, not fighters."

Abby turns looks at me. And she bites my nose.

"Fuck!" I reel backwards, grasping my nose, she fuckin' drew blood! And stupidly I left her arm free so now she's tryin'a rip my hair out. It feels like my nose is going to rip off too.

"Really? You fuckin' bite my face and then you go for my hair?"

She laughs maniacally, obviously happy with herself. So I grab thick clumps of her hair, see how she likes it! I pull back, cutting her laughter and now because I've let her hands free, she slaps me, getting my eye.

Fuckin' Abby.

So I recoil, what else do you do when someone slaps you so hard you start tearing up? And I realise that I'm an idiot because she now has enough leverage to shove me off. And she shoves me hard. I go backwards and just miss cracking my head on the bedframe. My legs are all twisted and she's not helping by stomping all over them.

"My turn!" she huffs, fuckin' dropping onto me. Now I'm the one lookin' like a fish tryin' to breathe.

"How'd you get even fatter?" I cough. (A cheap insult but hey. Works.)

I whack at her chest, tryin' to shake her clammy hands off, but she's holding on like she's on a mechanical bull. She chokes as I got a hand free anyway and got her in the mouth. I wrestle the other hand away as she spits blood on my jacket. Fuck, when did that get torn?

And then, we hear the familiar, agonising phrase that signals the end of all fun and excitement down here.

"This is Vault Security, stop what you are doing immediately!"

I sigh. Back to normal.

Plot notes:

Due to pacing, We're going to pretend the G.O.A.T. is held during the year when a majority of a class turns 18, and this is when they transfer from school to their jobs.

Author's note:
This work is based on a one shot I originally wrote in 2014, and then wrote another three chapters for, before going to uni.

During that time, this story was an idea I could always come back to when I didn't want to think about real life, but never had the energy nor the language to write what I wanted to say.

So during the pandemic years, I've been able to come back, and now I have more skill and experience writing than I did in high school, and its been really fun to come back to this story.

Buuuut that also means this thing's a beast full of edits and a beginning that now doesn't match the rest. So if you did read this story between 2020 to the first half of 2022, you likely read the chapters from 2014, instead of these new edited for consistency chapters from 2022.

I strongly encourage you to reread the entire story, if you happen to be one of those people. It's rare, but never say never I suppose!

I'm still proud of what I wrote in 2014, but I'm also proud of the work I'm doing now. Feels good.

I hope you enjoy, too.