Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4992727.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Fallout_3, Fallout_(Video_Games)
  Relationship:
      Butch_DeLoria/Male_Lone_Wanderer, Amata_Almodovar/Male_Lone_Wanderer,
      Butch_DeLoria/Lone_Wanderer
  Character:
      Male_Lone_Wanderer, Butch_DeLoria, Amata_Almodovar, James_(Fallout)
  Additional Tags:
      Masturbation, First_Time, Virginity, Hand_Jobs, Oral_Sex
  Series:
      Part 1 of Tate
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-10-13 Completed: 2015-12-27 Chapters: 20/20 Words: 49013
****** Molecules ******
by imperfectkreis
Summary
     Lone-Wanderer-to-be Tate Zhang spends like three years not jumping
     Butch DeLoria. Okay, well, he jumps him but mostly to punch him in
     the face and then back off because while he's fully aware that he's
     into cock he really doesn't want to be into Butch's cock. Fuck.
***** You better shape up because everything that happens in the vault
definitely stays in the vault, including you, kid. *****
There ain't nobody in the vault that makes him angrier than Butch DeLoria.
Butch surrounds himself with all the other boys about their age, a social
buffer against the endless repetition of vault life. Wally and Freddie and Paul
all crowd around him, worshiping at his damn feet because he had the great idea
to start a gang. And woooowww isn't Butch just so tough, and so great. What an
ideas man, even though they're only fifteen. The other boys don't wanna do
anything all day anymore but talk Butch up. It's going to his damn head,
inflating his hair.
And standing on the outside is Tate.
He doesn't care. They don't like him because he's the doctor’s kid. Tate gets
special treatment because of it. Like that time he was found wandering the
hallways after curfew. When security tried to escort him back to his father, he
took a swing at the officer’s midsection, cracking his hand on the armor
padding. And the other boys all know he wasn't punished for it. Just a stern
warning and back to his dad. So Wally and Freddie and Paul and Butch are gonna
punish him instead. They’ll get him black and blue one of these days.
Instead of hanging out with the other boys, making trouble and wasting time,
Tate lays on the floor of Amata's bedroom, asking her to read to him, because
he likes her voice. The Overseer fully endorses Tate spending as much time as
possible in his daughter's bedroom, preferably with the door closed.
They're fifteen, but they're not idiots. Both Tate and Amata know why. In a few
years they'll be married anyway; the Overseer is probably hoping for sooner.
Tate has been selected for her, special. But he doesn't know why him because
Amata is good, so good, and he's not. She's clever and kind, even when the
other boys attack her with words, coming up on the edge of fists. Even when the
girls taunt her, screech in her ears. Tate promises he'll beat any one of them
to a pulp for her. She just has to say the word.
Amata points out they're all bigger than him, at least the boys. Tate scoffs,
says that doesn't matter. He'll hit his growth spurt soon enough. And even if
he is shorter, that doesn't mean he's not strong.
She plays with his hair, his head in her lap while she reads. They've only got
so many books, but it doesn't bother Tate if it doesn't bother Amata.
The Overseer doesn't know, when he later finds Tate in Amata's bed, sound
asleep and curled around her smaller body, that nothing could be more innocent.
Tate likes the way her hair smells like lemons, whatever those are.
When the time comes and their fathers have agreed to it, he'll be happy to
marry Amata, because she's clever and she's kind. She's a much better person
than Tate deserves. And she listens when he screams about how there's no one in
the vault that makes him angrier than Butch DeLoria because he can't stop
thinking about what his busted lips would feel like against Tate's.
--
"Tate! Wait up," Amata skips faster to catch up, her shoes scraping against the
floor. Threading her arm through Tate's, they walk together. She's got a stack
of books in her other arm and Tate offers his hand out to take them for her.
Without protest she hands them over.
They're sixteen and the Overseer is pleased with them. He claps Tate on the
back every time he catches Tate alone. Either he misses how Tate shivers in
revulsion or he doesn't care. Every time they see each other, he asks Tate
about Amata, like he doesn't talk to her himself, though they all still live
with their parents.
"I take it you wanna come downstairs with me?" Tate means to the reactor level.
He's had that shooting range setup down there since he was ten. His father got
Jonas to do it like some sort of favor. Tate doesn't know what he's expected to
shoot. Stomping on radroaches does just as well as heavily rationed bullets.
"I don't know what you could possibly mean!" Amata smiles.
Tate may not like shooting, but Amata loves it. She's gotten really good too,
lining up her shots and taking them in quiet succession. Tate likes watching
her shoot while he does other stuff. Stuff that will make him stronger, like,
pull ups and sit ups and shit. Just like, stuff that makes his arms burn by the
time he’s finished. He’s gotta figure out something.
They check both ways down the hall before going down the stairs. Tate doesn't
know what will happen if they get caught. She's the Overseer's kid and he's the
doctor's, so it's not like they could possibly do anything wrong. Not like
those 'Tunnel Snake' boys. Troublemakers.
Dropping the books on the table, they go about getting ready. Amata unzips the
front of her vault suit while Tate pulls the BB gun from the locker along with
a bunch of ammo. Amata ties the arms of her jumpsuit around her waist. The arms
on her suit have been getting tight, across her chest too, and she says it
makes it harder to aim when she feels like she's trapped.
Amata loads the gun herself while Tate watches.
"You're not normally this quiet." She lines up her first shot. It's slightly
off, landing in the innermost white ring instead of the red bullseye.
Tate shrugs. "G.O.A.T. tomorrow," he says like that explains everything.
Amata sighs, she hits the white again. "Yeah, but don't worry about it. I hear
Brotch will give you any assignment you want if you ask nicely." She fires
another round, this time it hits dead center.
"Oh, is that so? Is that what you hear?"
She pauses, moving her face away from the sights. "No, just..."
"You already know your assignment."
"Yeah," she sounds sad.
Tate feels like a dick for having brought it up at all. While he's stressing
about what his dad is gonna make of his result, Amata already knows what her
father has hand-picked for her. And it's got nothing to do with what she wants,
or even what she's good at.
While he watches her shoot, Tate uses one of the overhanging pipes up pull
himself up, over and over until his arms are trembling and he can’t do it
anymore. They don't talk much once they’re both focused, but Tate thinks
plenty. What would Amata do if her results weren't tampered? She'd be real good
at security. Or maybe take over the clinic when his dad stops working. But Tate
would kind of dread that. His dad spending all day with his wife. He doesn't
want either of their dads more involved than they need to be.
The ping, ping, ping of Amata's shots start getting further and further apart.
She's picking her shots more carefully, aiming at places other than the center
of the target. The game is getting too easy for her.
"You should try?" she offers. "Might make you feel better to hit something?"
Yeah, it would, but Tate wants to actually hit something. Shooting isn't the
same. He can't say no to Amata though, so he takes the gun from her hands.
She laughs at him good naturedly as he misses the target almost completely,
just grazing the corner of the paper. The second shot is a bit better, but it's
still on one of the outer rings. One of the shots out of five isn't so
terrible, but Tate knows it's a fluke. Amata congratulates him anyway, mocking
that she knew he could do it.
Before they start packing up, Tate grabs her by her waist. It's soft and sort
of beautiful in its own way. The extra weight has made her cheeks fuller. Even
though he doesn't like women, he likes Amata and can appreciate how pretty she
is. How she lights up any room she deigns to walk into. The vault doesn’t
deserve her.
She laughs when he grabs her. Tate swings her around before putting her back on
flat feet. He keeps his hands on her hips, while she throws her arms around his
shoulders. Her head rests against his chest, even though he’s sort of sweaty.
"I'm sorry," he speaks into her curly hair.
"You need to stop saying that."
He can feel her hand clutching onto the collar of his vault suit, like he's
gonna run through her fingers if she doesn’t hold on tight. But he’s not
planning on going anywhere.
"I am, though. You deserve someone who is gonna love you. Not me. This isn't
fair to you."
"You do love me though." She pulls back, keeping her hands where they are. Her
eyes are so big and bright. Tate wants to believe she is as happy as she looks.
"Of course I do. But you know what I mean."
And Tate knows that she can't even counter with 'it's not fair to you either,'
because it's different. There is no 'fair' option for Tate. There's no way he
gets what he wants a hundred percent. They both know that much, and Amata knows
well enough not to tell him lies.
"Tate, I'd rather have you, and your love, than a dozen men who want to sleep
with me but don't care about me one lick."
"I'm still sorry." He kisses the top of her head.
***** Welcome to sixteen; welcome to the rest of your life! *****
The G.O.A.T. isn't exactly hard, but it isn't easy either. It's just...strange.
A bunch of questions that don't even make any sense. Tate doesn't have a
grandma and he hates baseball. He starts out trying to answer them seriously,
because, well, fuck. He doesn't want to face the wrath of his father for
fucking this up. Tate starts scraping the sharp nub of his pen into the lacquer
of the desk, kicking up plastic filament. About four questions in he doesn't
know what is even going on anymore. Why any of this matters?
That and he starts bleeding on his exam. Fuck.
Before the exam started, Butch and the other boys tried to corner Amata. Paul
grabbed her waist and she screamed but none of the adults did anything. They
never do anything. ‘Horsing around,’ ‘that’s how to know he likes you.’ Tate
did something though, grappling Paul around the hips and slamming him to the
ground, his head bouncing against the metal floor. Tate'd cocked back his fist
to knock him in the face before Butch pulled him off by his shoulders, arms
sliding down to wrap around Tate’s torso. Screaming and thrashing, Tate tried
to throw down Butch next. But Butch had been ready. On top of that, it was more
of a fair fight. Butch was much stronger than Paul, and better at holding Tate
off.
"Okay, okay, fuck. We'll leave her alone, Nosebleed. Fuck." Butch said through
gritted teeth and Tate’s yelling.
Tate was still ready to bust Butch’s face in for what Paul had done. But Brotch
called them in for the exam.
Now Tate sits, like the good student he’s not, bleeding from his nose onto the
grayish recycled paper on his desk. He tries to wipe it away before it drips
again. Better all over his face than on the G.O.A.T. Maybe.
He rushes through the final questions so he can just get out of there and wash
his face. Amata has already finished and left. She barely spent any time at
all. But that's fair enough because she already knows her answers don't matter.
If she weren't trying to keep up appearances, she could've just turned in the
exam blank.
One more drop of blood hits the paper and Tate can't take it anymore. He
circles some shit randomly and gets up. Shoving the exam into Brotch's hands,
Tate turns to leave before his teacher tells him to wait a moment, he'll have
the results right away.
"Um, I'd rather just go." It's like Brotch can't see the blood all over his
face, his swollen lip too. Makes it funny to talk.
Brotch waves him off, "it'll only take a moment." He looks back and forth from
the key open on his desk to Tate's exam. He scans across answers with his
finger, matching them up.
Tate curls his hands back into fists. Like he's gonna have to fucking fight
Brotch too just to clean up the mess from his last fight. Fuck.
"There we go," Brotch smiles, handing Tate back his exam. "Tate, You're the
vault's newest chaplain."
"The fuck’s a chaplain?"
But Brotch has already turned his attention to Christine, who is handing in her
exam and leaning over the teacher's desk with the zipper on her suit pulled a
little down. He doesn’t even take the time to scold Tate for cursing.
Tate takes his test and leaves. On the way to the bathroom, he tosses it into
the trash. He'll have to look up his assignment later or something because he
at least knows the vault doesn't have a chaplain now. Right? Whatever.
In the bathroom Tate splashes cold water on his face. It clings to the black
hair that is starting to get so long it falls into his eyes. He doesn't want to
get it cut because he's starting to realize how much of a copy of his father he
is. He doesn't like it. And his dad always keeps his hair short, so maybe he'll
grow his out long. As long as the Overseer and his dad will let him. Maybe
he'll fight them over it.
He rubs under his nose, trying to get the blood out of his skin. It pills up
under his fingers and falls in gross little dark balls into the sink. It's not
broken or anything. No one hit his nose, though he knocked his lip when he
tackled Paul. Weird that his nose started bleeding.
The door behind him opens. He can see Butch's reflection in the mirror, a smug
smile on his face.
"There you are," Butch flicks his switchblade open and closed, but Tate isn't
really scared of it. He's faster, pretty sure he can knock the knife out of
Butch's hand if he tries anything. Were Butch to get a cut in, it would be a
fuck of a lot harder to explain to the Overseer why he is carrying a contraband
razor, rather than how Tate ended up with his head busted open against the
bathroom tile. Tate doesn't think for a second Butch will really use the knife.
"What do you want now, Butch?"
Butch's ears flush pink. "You fucking embarrassed me in front of my gang. I
can't let that slide, Nosebleed. Though it's nice to see you living up to your
name." Butch takes a step towards Tate.
Tate turns, fast as he can manage, and throws himself against Butch, pinning
him to the wall. Shit, shit, he meant to get him on the floor. He's probably
heavier than Butch, maybe a little? Okay, nope. He's not a hundred percent sure
because Butch's got a good couple of inches on him too. Grabbing Butch by the
front of his vault suit, Tate pulls him back away from the wall, intending to
throw him to the floor where he'll have the advantage.
Butch is ready, though, and as Tate starts throwing him, shifting their weights
around, Butch gets Tate to stumble when he's most vulnerable. Tate crashes back
into the sinks. The sink edge hits Tate in the gut but he doesn't have time to
catch his breath, just work through the pain and oncoming dizziness. Butch is
coming at him and Tate steps to the side, sending him into the sinks instead.
Tate sweeps at his legs, this time bringing Butch down to the ground.
He kicks Butch in the side, which is a dumb mistake because while Butch coughs,
he also grabs Tate's ankle, knocking him over too. He takes the fall on his
shoulder, managing to avoid smashing his head against the tile.
Butch is worn. Tate isn't. So Tate still manages to pounce on top of Butch,
pinning Butch's arms to his sides using his own body weight to augment the
strength in his thighs. There's no one to stop him from punching Butch in the
face. Hard. He does it twice. The second time something cracks. Butch’s jaw.
Tate feels the fracture reverberating through his arm. Butch shrieks. Tate
starts, loosening his thighs around Butch's arms in shock.
Fuck. Fuck. He didn't mean to do that.
"Shit, shit, I'm sorry. Fuck." They're going to be in so much trouble. Both of
them.
Butch clutches his jaw and tries to keep quiet. He lets out this low, pained
groan though. Butch knows well enough that they're both fucked of this gets
out. While he's not screaming anymore, he is holding onto his jaw, wheezing
too, sharp, heavy breaths of agony.
"I think I have a stim, hold on." Tate lifts his hips up off of Butch to reach
into his pocket. He's got a couple of gum wrappers that Amata handed to him, a
pen, fuck. The stimpak is in his other pocket. Tate breathes a sigh of relief
when he finds it.
Uncapping the needle, Tate babbles along, trying to keep himself calm. "Okay,
this is real simple, yeah? I've seen my dad do it a bunch of times. I gotta put
it in close to where the break is, though."
Butch glares at him with those striking blue eyes and Tate feels kind of worse.
They're a little shiny, like water sliding over ice. Not that Butch is crying.
Butch isn't weak like that. But getting your jaw broken, well, that'll make
anyone's tear ducts start working. Whether they want them to or not.
He moves his hand away so Tate can put the end of the needle into his jaw. Tate
tries to hold his hands steady as the stim pricks Butch's skin. The slide in is
easy. They both exhale in sync when Tate depresses the syringe, sending the
chem directly into Butch's battered face.
When the drugs hit Butch, his eyelids flutter closed. Tate can see how thick
and dark his lashes are. He doesn't mean to stare, but fuck. How is he not
supposed to watch? He's fucking handsome, worst part about Butch is that he
knows it too.
Butch's mouth opens a little, like it's pleasurable to take the chems. Tate's
never felt like that before with stimpaks, but he's never applied one directly
to his face either.
Blood drips from Tate's nose again, one little red speck falling on Butch's
vault suit. He thought that was over for today.
He can see the tip of Butch's pink tongue inside his mouth, fuck.
Fuck. He scrambles off of Butch. He might be obvious. But if he stays on top of
Butch it's going to be a fuck of a lot more obvious if he pops an erection and
shit, shit. It's been almost a year since he last cried over this idiot. Tate
thought he was over this.
Luckily, Butch looks still kind of blissed out from the healing chems, and not
interested in trying to fight Tate for being a perv. The stimpak should be
doing its job. Only a couple of minutes more. Tate looks at his pipboy screen,
trying to count out the seconds and stop from remembering Butch being between
his thighs.
When Butch finally groans, coming back to himself, Tate crawls over to where he
lays on the floor. He hangs his face over Butch's, sure to leave plenty of
space. But he wants to be there when Butch opens his eyes.
"Tate?" Butch still looks kind of out of it.
"Yeah?"
"What the fuck?" Butch coughs.
He can see now that Butch's mouth is full of blood too. All over his tongue and
teeth.
"You need to spit out that blood in your mouth."
Out of spite, probably, Butch swallows it. It’ll make his stomach sick.
Sitting up, Butch wraps his arms around his knees. They should stand up, both
of them. Someone could come into the bathroom any minute, find them still
bloody messes on the floor. Tate wipes at his nose with his shirt sleeve.
"You're an asshole," Butch says it like he's talking about what was for lunch.
Tate laughs, just a little. Because he doesn't want Butch to know how scared he
was. "You were gonna do the same to me. I just like, struck preemptively."
"Naw, I wasn't." Butch's eyes settle on Tate's face. "You're just making it
worse. You should wash your face."
"That's why I was here in the first place." Tate jumps up, heading to the sink.
He lets the water run for a second to warm. While he's scrubbing away the
blood, Butch stays seated on the floor.
"I wasn't gonna," Butch says.
He leaves after that.
Tate gets angry again. This time at himself. And Butch too, but now Butch is
gone so he can't use him as a punching bag. FUCK. He just barely holds back
from screaming. Just, the whole thing hasn't made him feel any better. Maybe
even worse because what the fuck does Butch mean? He 'wasn't gonna,' what?
Break Tate's fucking jaw? Jump on him and pummel him until they both get
confinement until they cool down? Stare too long at Tate's eyelashes?
Looking in the mirror, Tate runs his own finger along his lashes, they're
short, black, and stick straight out. No, Butch wouldn't stare.
By the time he reaches the clinic, he's worked himself back up into a rage.
Stewing and steaming about the G.O.A.T. and the vault and Butch. And his
fucking eyelashes. He clenches and unclenches his fists, ready to put one
through the wall. But the walls are metal and he's more fragile than that.
He doesn't pay his dad any mind, going straight back through the clinic to
where the patient cots are. He flips the closest one, sheets and surgical
tubing flying everywhere. When the cot topples over, he starts kicking it,
screaming. He slams it into the wall until it's all bent and broken and
useless. Wrecking something completely makes him feel a little bit better. His
dad watches him from the other side of the glass.
Tate's tired.
Only now he notices his dad has a patient in the other bed. Stevie Mack, laying
on his back and staring at the ceiling.
"You're fucked up, kid."
Tate doesn't like being called 'kid.' And Stevie isn't even that much older
than him. Just in his early twenties.
There's no avoiding his dad, so Tate heads back into the office, wringing his
hands. But his dad doesn't look angry, maybe a little tired, but not angry.
"What did you get, son?"
Tate shrugs, pulls at the sleeves on his vault suit. It's starting to feel a
little tight. He's been putting on weight the more he works out downstairs. He
likes the way it makes his body look. Harder, less like a scrawny kid.
"Chaplain. I dunno what that is, though."
"Oh, that's wonderful, Tate. That means you'll get to help others when they've
lost direction with their lives, you'll perform wedding services, and mitigate
disputes. It's a covetable position."
His dad must think he's stupid. Tate knows what his dad is really saying, while
spouting a bunch of nonsense about how he should be happy to be named chaplain.
'It's not doctor.'
Tate eyes his father suspiciously. "That doesn't sound like me." And it
doesn't. Helping people doesn't sound a damn thing like him. And how is he
supposed to help people who are lost, confused? He doesn't know what the fuck
he's doing half the time, or why.
"Give it time." His father's tone makes it clear that his word is final.
His father doesn't say anything about the blood on his vault suit. No one ever
does.
***** You'd Better Earn that Archive Warning Label or Else the Populcace is
Gonna get Antsy *****
Tate doesn't want to think about anyone when he touches himself. He doesn't
wanna. Ideally, he'd just blank out, think about nothing, and touch his cock
until he comes in his hands. That's always his intent, since he started a
couple of years ago. He doesn’t remember how, though. How did these weird ideas
got into his head? Where did he see them, or hear about them?
Breathe in and out, rub his hand over his cock, come. It should be easy. But it
never goes that way. He wishes it would.
He slicks his hand with lotion from his dresser drawer. It smells a little like
honey, too sticky-sweet. He doesn't like it.
Pulling his boxers down, he frees his cock, splays his legs a little. When he
first touches his hand to his cock, he hisses. He didn't wait long enough for
the lotion to warm up. His palm curls around his erection, working in short,
sharp strokes. He likes it better when it pulls a little. Like he's fucking
really fast. No, don't think about fucking, just sensation. Think about the
feel of his hand, how it's getting warmer now, those thoughts are safe. He
spreads his legs a little further, pulling up his knee towards his chest.
Rolling his hips up off the mattress, Tate tries to bring himself off before
things get too complicated. Too weird in his head. But it's not working, fuck.
His mind is blank, yeah, but he’s frustrated.
He tries something else.
His boxers come all the way off, his shirt too. He double checks that his
bedroom door is locked. And it's past three in the morning and his dad is
probably asleep. Probably. Yeah, it's fine. He'll be okay.
Tate gets back into bed, spreading his legs more than he did before,
unrestricted by his boxers. Pouring more lotion on his hands, he rubs them
together this time to warm it up, not so much that it absorbs into his skin.
Not so much his palm this time, but his fingers. It's difficult to breathe
evenly, heady with anticipation as he is.
It's not that he hasn't done this before, he has. He knows himself, sort of, as
much as he can at sixteen. His fingers are slick as he circles around his hole.
Waiting doesn’t help. Slowly, he pushes one finger in. It's slow going at
first, because he's nervous and kind of scared. He’s always sort of scared. Not
that he likes other boys, that doesn’t scare him, but that he likes this in
particular. That he thinks about what it would be like to get fucked. He knows
enough from the other boys’ talk that you put your cock in a girl. Everyone
thinks he’s putting his cock into Amata. But he doesn't know, not for certain
that he can, that he could be, with another...fuck, fuck.
But it feels really good. More than that, his brain is buzzing, thinking about
how he must look. Spread, with his back against the sheets and his mouth open.
His cock hard between his legs and one finger buried inside his ass. It makes
him feel....dirty. Weird. In a way he likes.
Panicking a little, he pulls his finger out, wipes it on the tissue he has on
the bedside table. Giving up on not thinking at all, he thinks about what Butch
might look like out of his vault suit. What Butch might look like in Tate's
position. What Butch tries to think about when he’s hard. What Butch tries not
to think about.
--
Amata holds onto one arm, her books tucked under Tate’s other. They're heading
down to the reactor level to shoot. They've got about an hour before dinner
when no one will miss them. Well, they probably will miss them, but they'll be
utterly wrong in their gossip. The gossip Tate catches in bits and pieces
circulating around the vault makes his teeth hurt, right to the nerve.
Leaning against the door, the arms of his vault suit tied around his waist,
waits Butch. He's playing with his switchblade, trying to look like he hasn't
been hanging around waiting for anyone in particular.
Tate mistakenly thinks if they just ignore Butch, he won't say a damn thing.
But he's blocking the door.
"Move," Tate barks.
"Why?" Butch asks. It's pretty neutral, at least coming from Butch. Could’ve
been accusatory, but it’s not.
"We don't have to tell you," Tate shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
He doesn't wanna fight Butch again. Not in the open like this. But he'll do it.
Butch looks Amata up and down, pointedly ignoring Tate. "You know, if Tate
ain't keeping up his end of the bargain, let me know, doll."
Not wanting to hit Butch changes to needing to fucking pummel him real quick.
But Amata grabs Tate's wrist and hisses "no, Tate," under her breath. His fist
still gets halfway to Butch’s smirk because she can’t actually hold him back.
Butch keeps that smug fucking smile on his face as he walks away, promising
"another time, doll."
"Let's just go," Amata unlocks the reactor level with her keypass.
Downstairs Tate is so aggravated he punches one of the lockers, leaving a heavy
dent in the door. He slides down onto the floor while Amata rubs his back with
one hand. She's been through this cycle before. She's an angel.
Knowing well enough Tate needs to handle himself for a bit, Amata starts
shooting. The ping, ping, ping of BBs against the paper and the metal wall
beyond is comforting in its regularity. Tate just wants to fall asleep on the
floor, but that would be a waste of the hour.
Amata turns and smiles at him when he drags himself up off the floor.
--
But that's not the end of it. The end of Butch. In the vault there isn’t an
end. Butch is there in little ways he wasn't before. Either that or Tate just
didn't notice. No, he would have noticed because Butch always smells a little
like aftershave and a little like something else too. He’s using the aftershave
to cover up the something else. And heat rolls off Butch in waves when he’s
near. But that just might be Tate's imagination.
The point is, Tate doesn't expect Butch to sit next to him in the diner. When
he does, Amata, seated across from Tate, doesn't say anything, she just picks
over her dinner, putting the warmed, canned peas to one side. She doesn't like
them but if Tate is still hungry he'll eat them after he’s done with his own
meal.
"Don't you have your 'gang' to eat with?" Tate reaches across the table with
his fork to pick at Amata's plate. But he aims at her Salisbury steak instead
of her peas. She always dices it into these little pieces first. That gives
Tate a tactical advantage in stealing her food.
Butch shrugs, but when he does, he shifts closer to Tate. Tate tries not to
choke on his steak. The unyielding bar of heat that is Butch's body is hard to
ignore.
"They need to be taught a lesson. I ain't always gonna be there when they fuck
up. Ya hear me?" Butch drinks out of Tate's open water bottle.
Their arms brush against each other as they eat in relative silence. Tate does
end up eating all of Amata's peas. And half of Butch's too when he slides them
onto Tate's plate with his fork. To make up for Butch’s earlier infraction,
Tate sneaks a swig out of Butch's cola.
--
Butch is turning seventeen. Tate gets an invitation sent to his terminal. He
doesn't really know what to do with it, because while he wouldn't mind seeing
Butch anymore, not as much, anyway, he's not sure he wants to see Butch and a
whole bunch of other people at the same time. He doesn't know why Butch wants
to see him around a whole bunch of other people either.
Since they ate dinner together, once, Butch has kind of been keeping back.
Which means they don't scuffle nearly as much as they used to. But the unspoken
truce also makes Tate kind of anxious. There's this pit in his stomach every
time he sees Butch in passing, a knot that won't unwind because Tate doesn't
know what has changed. He sure hasn't. Because when he's alone in bed he still
tries desperately to think of no one, then someone who’s not-Butch. He had been
succeeding too, for awhile.
It's just that the vault is cramped. And there aren't a lot of options for wank
material. And Butch once almost beat him in a fight. Butch still lost, but not
as badly as someone else would’ve.
--
When Tate finds out Amata is invited to Butch’s party too he feels a little
less nervous.
Class got out an hour ago and Tate sits behind his metal and chipboard desk
that's got this placard that reads 'VAULT CHAPLAIN' on it with bold, decisive
letters cut into brass, but there still ain't anyone around to train him as to
what to do. So during apprentice hours he just mostly sits with his chin on his
desk and listens to Amata read. The Overseer is more than happy to let her
spend time with Tate rather than follow him around.
"No, I am not deceived." Amata reads. Tate has heard this book before. It's his
favorite, though he can't articulate why. "In her dark eyes I read a genuine
interest in me and in my fortunes. Yes, I feel it; and I may believe my own
heart which tells me — dare I say it? — dare I pronounce the divine words? —
that she loves me!
"That she loves me! How the idea exalts me in my own eyes! And, as you can
understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I honour myself since she loves
me!"
"That's the entry from my birthday," Tate observes. Amata hasn't read the date,
but he knows it well enough.
She flips the page, even though that's not the end of July 13th's entry. "There
isn't one for his."
"Read from March 16th, you know the part I like?"
They're already dressed for the party, but there is another twenty minutes of
apprentice hours for all the residents who have just passed their G.O.A.T. And
they couldn't be early either so they'll probably wait another twenty minutes
after that anyway.
The folds of Amata's fir-green dress fall over her legs, fanning out on Tate's
desk like a lily pad. Tate's slacks are too long at the ankles but he figures
no one will notice. He lets them drag on the floor rather than rolling them. If
Butch knows anything, they'll all be good and drunk as fast as possible right
under security's noses.
"Every word she uttered was a dagger to my heart. She did not feel what a mercy
it would have been to conceal everything from me. She told me, in addition, all
the impertinence that would be further circulated, and how the malicious would
triumph; how they would rejoice over the punishment of my pride, over my
humiliation for that want of esteem for others with which I had often been
reproached. To hear all this, Wilhelm, uttered by her in a voice of the most
sincere sympathy, awakened all my passions; and I am still in a state of
extreme excitement." Amata's crisp voice glides over the words with a
comfortable familiarity. Tate has asked her to read this passage to him before.
He'll ask for it again.
***** There's a closet with your and my names on it and I mean that literally,
figuratively *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
At the party, the others steer well clear of Tate and Amata when they enter the
room. They gather up in tight bunches at the tables around the diner, keeping
their backs turned and their faces in conversation. He and Amata shouldn't have
come. This is some sort of shitty joke on Butch's part. This is to embarrass
them. Nothing changes.
Tate keeps his hand in Amata's, squeezes it tight. "We should go."
"Tate, I can't." Her brown eyes meet his darker ones. No, she can't, they can't
leave because in fifteen or twenty years she's gonna be Overseer. She's gonna
be Overseer and he's gonna be her husband and Tate feels sick to his stomach.
These fucking kids are gonna be looking at her like they do her dad now. Except
they'll all be grown. Grown but still terrible.
Tate tries to smile, because Amata already is smiling. There’s little truth in
it. But the others don’t have to know that.
When Amata steps towards the compact group of Freddie, Christine, and Paul,
Tate is by her side. At first, they're not particularly welcome, but bit by bit
the others start melding them in, too caught up with the same stories they've
told a dozen times and covert drinks from little canisters to worry about
ostracizing Amata and Tate. So when Amata laughs, and it sounds genuine, it
makes Tate happy.
A hand comes to rest on Tate's shoulder, a thumb pressing against his neck,
right where his shirt collar ends. He spins around, only to knock his face into
Butch's.
"Ow, fuck!" Tate yips.
"Fuck, Nosebleed." Butch holds his nose, twisting it a little before taking his
hand away. "The fuck?"
"You startled me!" Tate exclaims.
Butch's hand isn't on his shoulder anymore. It's resting on Tate's waist. And
while Tate’s flask is filled with shitty warm beer, it suddenly feels like
liquor in his blood. Too hot, too much. Butch’s hand doesn't move.
"I wanted you to," Butch hesitates, "just come with me, okay?"
Tate looks back at Amata. She's talking to Susie and Wally, curling her hair
around her finger and smiling. Tate figures it's okay to step out for a minute.
Tomorrow the spell will probably be broken again and they’ll be the vault’s
least popular couple, but for now, this is tolerable.
"Yeah, okay."
Is it weird Butch is leaving his own birthday party? Probably. But not a single
one of them is normal. Sane. How could they be down here? They just have to
make the best with what they've got. Tate plans on it. He'll cobble together
enough bits and pieces of junk to be happy. And he'll make Amata happy. And he
won't cry anymore over stupid fucking Butch with his blue eyes and long
eyelashes, who leads him down the hall to one of the supply closets.
"Get in," Butch opens the already-unlocked door and motions for Tate to go
first. He's hesitant. But the worst that could happen is Butch could start
wailing on him and that's not an entirely negative outcome, so Tate steps
inside, though not without a suspicious glare, a tilt of his chin so he can
actually look into Butch’s eyes.
Butch snaps the door shut behind them, already fiddling with his pipboy light.
The utility closet only has the one emergency light overhead and their pipboys
are brighter than that. Once illuminated, Tate can see that Butch is smiling,
fuck.
Getting up onto one of the sturdier boxes, Butch takes a screwdriver to the air
vent patched into the wall over their heads. Whatever he's doing, he's done
before. The grate pops right off in Butch's hands. Tate looks away because
Butch’s dress shirt starts to ride up.
"Here, put this down somewhere," he hands the grate to Tate, who just tosses it
on the closest shelf. Metal on metal makes a horrible racket.
"What the fuck, Butch?"
Butch hops back down off the box. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a pack
of cigarettes and a lighter. "It's still not allowed until I'm eighteen. Which
is bullshit."
Tate realizes that's what he's been smelling on Butch for the last year when
they get too close.
"And I'm fucking here because?"
"You're still sixteen, Nosebleed, so it's even more juvie delinquent for you.
Gotta keep up my reputation." He offers the pack to Tate. Tate doesn’t take it
at first; he's never smoked before.
"So you gonna brag to all your buddies you locked me in a closet to smoke. I
dunno Butch, that sounds," he leaves off the end.
Butch waves the pack again so Tate will take his before pulling a stick for
himself. Putting it to his lips, Butch lights his cigarette first, inhaling and
exhaling louder than entirely necessary. He passes the lighter to Tate. Leaning
against the closet wall, cigarette hanging from his lips, Butch looks
impossibly good. Tate hates noticing.
Tate tries, unsuccessfully, to light his cigarette a couple of times. He can
get the lighter to work, that's not the fucking problem. And it burns the paper
when he puts the flame to the end. But the damn thing won't light.
"You are fucking killing me." Butch plucks the cigarette from Tate's mouth.
"Here, hold this." He passes Tate his cigarette to hold. Putting Tate's
cigarette into his mouth, Butch lights it for Tate before handing it back.
"You'll get the hang of it." He blows smoke back out.
Tate is definitely not the kind of fuckup that thinks about Butch's lips having
been on the cigarette before his. Nope.
Tate sucks in, pouring smoke into his lungs. It burns. Fuck it burns and he
doesn't really like it. Tate doesn't want to fucking cough in front of Butch.
He tries to hold it back, his eyes watering and nostrils stinging. The only
small mercy is the room is still sort of dark, so maybe Butch doesn't notice.
Butch doesn't say anything about Tate's pathetic display. Tate doesn't say
anything because his mind is still racing about how to play off this whole
thing like it's fine. Like he's not a fucking idiot.
"We should do this more often," Butch comments. Once he finishes his cigarette,
he takes the other out from between Tate's tight fingers. It's gone out from
inattention, so Butch has gotta light it again.
Butch also doesn't make fun of Tate for having beer in his flask instead of
hard liquor. Butch's flask has vodka in it, but they both drink from Tate's
instead, passing it between them once Butch is done smoking. Tate still doesn't
know how they ended up here, but he doesn’t mind.
This is maybe the longest they've gone without insulting each other. But that
can't last long because Butch ends up asking Tate if Amata's ass tastes as good
as it looks.
Tate shoves Butch hard. Butch trips over the box behind him and smashes his
head against the corner of a tall crate. Fuck.
"Fuck, Nosebleed, fuck!"
They get Butch cleaned up, sort of. Tate doesn't want to stick another stim
into Butch's head, not after how great the last time went. And they're already
a little drunk. Well, Tate is a little drunk and fucking pissed because again,
AGAIN, Butch has demonstrated superior tolerance for getting fucked up.
Because they're gonna avoid the stim they have to put pressure on the back of
Butch's head to stop the bleeding quick. Butch shucks out of of his dress shirt
and pulls off his singlet.
Butch's chest isn't nearly as well-developed as Tate's, so that's some small
measure of satisfaction. But he's already got a line of dark hair that runs
from the middle of his chest all the way down his navel. And Tate ain't got
that. Tate's gotta stop staring. He sets his jaw and scowls because naw, naw,
he's not gonna get fucked up over this even when Butch turns around and he just
wants to fucking jump inside Butch's skin instead of hold the clean shirt to
the back of Butch’s head.
"My hair is going to be fucked," Butch groans. "You're the worst, Tate."
"I'm the worst?" He pushes harder than he needs to into Butch's head wound.
"Did you literally fucking hear the words that came out of your damn mouth?
Fuck you."
Butch growls, "Sorry, Nosebleed, that I try to talk to you and your dumb ass
once in a fucking while."
Tate pushes the shirt too hard again, trying to dig his fingers into the wound.
"You can fucking talk to me without insulting Amata."
"I was paying her a fucking compliment."
Tate rolls his eyes. "You're disgusting, Butch."
Butch huffs. Tate pulls away the shirt. The blood on it is still fresh looking.
He presses it back.
"Just like, that's shit we've got in common, right? Fucking girls."
Tate freezes, not even having the presence of mind to hurt Butch again for his
needless infraction. The thing is, Tate has never outright lied about this
before. Everyone assumes he and Amata have been sleeping together for ages.
They just let the rumor go because it doesn't hurt them any. Amata doesn't want
someone else; Tate can't get what he wants. So they let people think what they
want. No one gets hurt. Tate knows he can lie. He can lie really fucking well
if he needs to. But he doesn't know if he wants to lie about this.
"Earth to Tate? What's going on with my fucking head."
"I haven't slept with her," he blurts out, even though Butch has clearly moved
on from the subject.
"The fuck?" Butch swings around. "The Overseer lets you crawl all up in her
room alone all the time. You two don't even have to sneak around. What the
hell? How come you haven't sealed it? It ain't because she's ugly."
Tate screws his eyes shut. This is something he knows he doesn't want to lie
about. Conceal, deflect, maybe, for Amata's sake. His dad doesn't need to know
every personal fucking detail of his life. Ninety-nine percent of the vault
can't know about this. But he wants to tell, someone.
"I respect her too much."
He can't. He can't tell Butch because Butch will tell everyone else. And then
Tate's plan for the rest of his miserable vault life will be fucked. He's gotta
do the best with the circumstances he's been given. He's not about to make it
harder on himself.
--
Tate's eating lunch with his dad when Butch slides into the booth next to him.
He gets in real close, brushing his arm against Tate's. Their hips touch too.
Tate can't even complain because at least it breaks up the monotony of relaying
the first half of his day to his father. Why his dad needs to know every
fucking detail of his life is beyond him.
"Hello, Butch," his dad looks unimpressed with their guest.
"Hey, doc." Butch reaches over Tate's plate to grab his water bottle from the
other side. He drinks half of it in one go. Tate can't bother to be angry at
him for it. "I came to borrow your kid."
James' suspicion is clear as day. He's already spoken to Tate about minimizing
his time with DeLoria. 'That boy is a bad influence,' as if Tate just has reams
of people wanting to make friends with him. He's not even sure Butch wants to
make friends with him, even though they sort of interact more than they did
before.
Butch smiles at James and grabs Tate's arm. "I'll bring him back in one piece,
promise." Pulling at Tate, they both slide out of the booth without further
explanation. James doesn't say anything, but Tate can't imagine he's happy.
They go to the supply closet, close the door. Butch gets up on the box, removes
the grate. He insists it helps dissipate the smoke better. Tate is unconvinced.
"I'd make you do it for me, but you ain't tall enough."
Tate punches Butch in the ass for that, not hard. But instead of turning and
jumping into Tate's face, Butch just laughs.
Getting off the box, he lights his cigarette. This time he doesn't offer one to
Tate. And there's no booze, so Tate's got nothing to do but stand around and
watch Butch smoke. It's exceedingly awkward.
"What did you need me for?"
"Company?" Butch says it like it should be obvious. Like they’re obvious.
Tate's sure they're anything but.
Chapter End Notes
     As always comments and kudos are super super appreciated. They
     basically make my day.
***** Between a rock and a hard place there's always the option to just let
yourself get crushed *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
“Your hair is too fucking long.” Butch is supposed to be at apprentice hours.
Which means he shouldn't be shuffling into Tate’s office, his vault suit in
rumpled disarray while his hair still looks perfect. He smells heavily of
smoke, which suggests the chaplain’s office wasn't his first stop on his
delinquency tour.
Tate looks up from his computer monitor. There are these files from the last
chaplain he’s been trying to sift through. But they’re dated about seventy-five
years ago. None of the notes make any sense to Tate. More and more this
position feels like it's made up, some sort of fake duty to keep him out of
other people’s business instead of messing with their lives. But from what he
can tell, his job is to mess with people’s lives. To intervene.
“It's fine.” Tate’s hair is starting to reach down the back of his neck. As it
gets longer it lays even flatter under its own weight. The more his dad tells
him to go get it cut, the less Tate wants to do it. He has to tuck it behind
his ears to keep it out from in front of his eyes. Even then there’s no
guarantee his vision won’t be obscured.
Butch rolls his eyes. “You realize cutting hair is like, my fucking job, right?
So let me do it.”
“What? No, I’m not letting you near my hair, Butch.” Tate slides his chair away
from his desk, back into the wall.
“You like looking like a girl? Come on, let me cut it. Not here, like, over in
the shop. But you can’t go around looking like that.”
Self-consciously Tate touches the ends of his hair. It’s been so long since he
last had it cut that the ends are starting to split. “Nah, I like it just
fine.”
“Bullshit,” Butch glares at him.
Leaning over the desk, Butch knocks over Tate’s empty water bottle to grab at
his hair. He gets a good fistful of it and pulls so hard Tate’s chair rolls
forward until his stomach crashes against the edge of the desk.
Pissed, Tate jumps up, some of his hair coming out in Butch’s fist in the
process, and launches himself over the desk, taking Butch to the ground with
him. It's less elegant than it looked in Tate’s head, but it works. Butch gets
the wind knocked out of him and Tate pins his shoulders to the ground.
But Butch has gotten marginally better at getting his ass kicked since the last
time they fought. Kicking up with one leg between Tate’s, he dislodges Tate’s
leverage advantage to roll them both over so he's on top instead. He doesn't go
for the face. At least not this time, but he pulls up Tate’s shoulders before
knocking him back against the floor. Tate litters obscenities across Butch’s
face before spitting. But gravity makes that gross for both of them. He hits
Butch, but there's a price to pay as Tate’s saliva drips back onto his own
face.
They're both so shocked that their grip on each other loosens. Tate wipes his
face with his hand. Butch sits back on his heels.
“I hate you,” Butch sneers.
“Then why are you here?”
Tate sits up, the back of his head throbs, but when he touches it his fingers
come away clean, no blood.
“Why don't you want your hair cut?”
“You'll make fun of me if I tell you,” Tate snaps.
“Won't.”
Tate can't help but laugh. They just instigated a fistfight over some dumbass
shit. They've fought over even less than that before. There doesn't seem to be
a way for the two of them to coexist in any peace. Except when Butch slides in
next to Tate in the diner, pulls at his arm, tells him to come. It's absurd.
“I don't wanna look like my dad. I don't like it when I do.”
Butch snorts. “Give yourself some credit. And give me more. I ain't about to
make you into him. And like, he's old. And you're not. And.” Butch leaves off
there. “And I have an idea, okay?”
--
It's not until the next day that Tate makes it to the shop to have Butch deal
with his hair. He hopes he doesn't come to regret it, but having just, so much
hair is starting to get unmanageable. He can't avoid having it cut forever.
Butch sits on the counter, doing something with his pipboy. The way he's
twirling and pressing the dial makes it look like he's typing something out. It
would be easier to do on a terminal, but there aren't any terminals in the
little cramped barber shop. When Tate comes in, Butch looks up from whatever it
is he’s doing.
Butch’s face lights up, “Good, Nosebleed, you came. Thought I was gonna have to
fuck with you again. Sit down.”
Tate is still apprehensive, his palms warm, but worst case scenario, he can
still just punch Butch in the face and make a break for it. It’s his catch-all
solution to any problem, at least as far as Butch is concerned.
“Wait, when was the last time you washed your hair?” Butch asks.
“Um, like, three days ago?”
Butch picks up a cardboard box from the counter and scans the text on it.
“Okay, yeah that should be fine. Really though? Three days?”
Tate about decks him just for the comment.
But Butch manages to get Tate into the chair without either of them losing an
eye or needing a stim. Small victories, right? And Tate’s so annoyed that he
forgets how close Butch has to stand to him to do his ‘work.’ What kind of
fucking job is cutting people’s hair anyway? He guesses more work than he
currently does. Tate does approximately nothing.
Butch mixes something terrible smelling In a bowl with a plastic spatula. It
takes Tate a second to recognize what it is.
“Bleach?” He wrinkles up his nose.
“Yeah,” Butch puts the bowl on the counter, grabbing a black-bristled flat
brush instead. “I was gonna surprise you. But how do you feel about being a
blond? Might make the outside of your head match what's on the inside.”
“Fuck you,” Tate snaps, “that’ll make my hair blond?”
Butch smiles, “so that a yes?”
“You were gonna change my hair color without telling me?”
“You said you didn't want to look like your dad? This will totally work.”
“Okay but like, what about my eyebrows? They’ll still be black?”
Butch swirls the brush around in the bleach concoction, picking up a healthy
amount on the bristles. “Trust me, it'll be a good look on you.”
Tate considers Butch’s proposition for a moment. Yeah, okay, so that's one way
to get his haircut and not have it look at all like his dad’s. And what, it's
just hair, it'll grow back. He won't be stuck with it forever. Unless Butch
like, gets bleach in his eyes and blinds him. But Tate's pretty sure that even
without his eyes he can still beat Butch to a pulp.
“Okay,” Tate sits back in the chair. “Do it.”
Butch puts on gloves before he starts smearing the bleach onto Tate’s head.
He's careful to lift the hair up in bunches to make sure to get the underside
too. With the ends he's sort of careless, mumbling about how many inches he's
gonna take off when he goes to cut. Tate just sort of zones out, liking the
attention in sort of an abstract way. Makes the back of his neck sort of
tingle. Not because it's Butch, but also because it's Butch. Even though it's
already past four in the afternoon, Butch still smells sharply of aftershave
and duly of smoke. At first Tate concentrates on not getting hard, the way
Butch surrounds him to work, the sound of Butch breathing, the scrape of the
brush, the way Butch’s scent comes and goes. But after the first five minutes,
he calms down. Tate nearly falls asleep towards the end.
“Okay, sit up now we gotta wait.” Butch peels off his gloves, tossing them in
the bin and starts fiddling with his pipboy again. “Don't touch it.”
For a while they don't say anything. Butch keeps doing whatever it is he's
doing on his wrist. Tate just stares at the wall ahead.
“How long is this gonna take?” Tate slides down in the chair, legs stuck out in
front of him and his ass almost to the edge of the seat.
Butch shrugs. “Like, another forty minutes or something.” They've already been
at it for fifteen.
“The fuck, Butch, you couldn't warn me? We’re gonna miss dinner.”
“And, so? It ain't my fault your hair is so dark. And then I still gotta cut it
after that.”
Tate groans. This sucks. This sucks. This sucks.
Another ten minutes pass and Tate is restless again.
“What the fuck are you doing with your pipboy?”
“Why do you care, Nosebleed?”
“I don't, but someone trapped me in a shitty converted closet for two fucking
hours.”
When Butch smiles, Tate suddenly forgets to be angry. It only takes a second
for him to come back to himself. What a fucking idiot he is.
“Okay,” Butch starts, “but you can't like, show anyone, ya hear?”
“Okay,” Tate shifts around in the chair, sitting back up straight.
But Butch doesn't say anything. He just goes back to his pipboy, typing
something out. After a minute he looks up. Tate’s still waiting for an
explanation when his pipboy lights up unexpectedly.
271257 > 130758: cool right
“How?” Tate looks up from his screen.
Butch looks really fucking pleased with himself, eyes sparkling, “I've been
going through a bunch of old trashed terminals. Found some stuff out about how
the network inside the vault works. Figured it out. You're the first person
I've tried it with.”
“Butch, if you can do shit like this, why the fuck are you cutting hair?”
It's Butch’s turn, apparently, to be angry. “Fuck you.”
But Butch isn't that mad. He explains to Tate how to send a message back,
leaning over his shoulder to point out where to navigate to on his pipboy, what
‘ports to open.’ Tate just blindly follows Butch’s directions.
“Okay, back up, let me type something and try it.”
Butch steps away, his scent traveling too.
130758 > 271257: Suck my dick.
Tate realizes too late that maybe that wasn't the best message to send. Like
maybe Butch’ll take it wrong, even though Tate’s not entirely sure which way
around is the wrong one.
271257 > 130758: you wish
Somehow, even though typing on the pipboy is cumbersome as hell, talking to
Butch this way is easier. Tate practically bounces in the barber’s chair as he
types his response, it may not be as clever as he thinks, but it makes Butch
smile.
130758 > 271257: You wouldn't be able to handle it.
Tate doesn't notice the minutes creeping so much anymore, not with the back and
forth of the messages. Butch leans against the countertop while he types. He's
much faster at it than Tate, his fingers practically dancing with the dial.
271257 > 130758: i’ll be the judge of that
“Okay,” Butch finally speaks aloud again. You're done, stick your head in the
sink.”
“I'm not fucking-” Sudden memories of earlier bullying episodes flood Tate’s
mind. When he wasn’t this strong. When numbers meant everything. And Butch had
allies. Tate didn’t.
“No, Nosebleed, like backwards so I can wash the bleach out.” Butch starts
arranging his kit for cutting, little blades and scissors and it makes Tate
fucking nervous all over again.
“I can just go shower and wash it myself.”
“Let me do my fucking job, Tate.”
Tate exhales, getting up from the chair and into the other one near the sink.
It's sort of a cobbled together thing. Butch stands to one side and turns on
the water, letting it run until it's warm while Tate just waits.
“Don't get any ideas. The sink is for the girls, you know, the hairdresser. But
like, I gotta wash the bleach out. So like, let's do this. Tell me if the water
is too hot.”
Butch pushes on Tate’s forehead until his hair is under the stream, some of it
rolling against his scalp. It's not too hot, it's sort of just right.
“Now stay still, and be quiet.”
Pouring shampoo into one hand, Butch gets to work. He’s gotta half lean over
Tate to reach his hair. His singlet is kinda loose and sort of falls away from
his body when he leans. Butch is maybe too rough massaging the shampoo into
Tate’s scalp, and Tate’s pretty sure he keeps catching him with his nails too.
But he sort of...likes it. The way it pulls. Fuck.
“Your hair is really thick.”
Tate just grunts. He doesn't want to make conversation anymore. But he doesn't
want to be alone right now either. And he really doesn't want to get hard, so
he just thinks about how hungry he is, and pissed off that Butch made him miss
dinner.
Butch finishes washing, toweling off Tate’s hair until he makes Butch stop. He
can fucking do it himself. It's mostly dry by the time Butch pushes him back
into the chair.
“I gotta cut it, then you can see.”
Tate keeps his eyes closed while Butch snips. The sound of metal on metal.
Clumps of hair fall onto Tate’s chest and lap. There really was a lot of it.
More than Tate realized. He had just like, gotten out of the habit of looking
at his face that much.
“Okay, cool.” Butch passes Tate a hand mirror to look. “It'll still need to dry
more, but that takes fucking forever apparently.”
Tate looks at himself in the mirror. Butch was right, he does look different.
While he cut Tate’s hair, it's not super short, still falling a little bit into
his eyes, strands of it brushing just at his ears. More than that, it's a
yellowy-blond color, obviously unnatural, but he sort of likes it. And Butch
was right about the eyebrows too, they don't matter.
He wants to thank Butch, but then he might get some crazy idea like Tate is
gonna actually trust him from now on.
Chapter End Notes
     comments and kudos are always very much appreciated! Also we may be
     making progress with these two idiots...
***** Being Willfully Obtuse is No Way to Get What You Want (What is it You
Want?) *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
His father doesn’t approve of the haircut. In fact, he nearly yells at Tate
about it. Doesn’t though, he just curls his hands into fists and tells him to
march straight back to get it fixed. But there isn’t any fixing it. Tate’s
pretty sure it won’t get back as black as it was until it grows out. Plus, his
dad’s disapproval is enough to convince Tate that this was a very good idea. He
should do it again.
Tate and Amata take all their usual precautions before heading down to the
reactor level. Look both ways, listen for footsteps, look both ways again,
Amata using her keycard while Tate keeps on looking. Never has it failed them.
But over the last couple of months Butch must have gained some sort of secret
stealth powers or some shit because two steps down and he comes right up behind
Tate, laying his arms over his shoulders and sticking his nose into the back of
Tate’s head. The both of them nearly go flying down the stairs together. As it
is, they drop four steps before Tate gets hold of the railing and braces them
from further rapid descent.
Amata, somehow, is spared. She stifles her laugh in her hand while closing the
door. It takes her a second to revert back to seriousness. Because, yeah, sure
Tate nearly falling to his death is fucking hilarious, but Butch finding out
about the shooting range is less so.
“Whatcha doing?” Butch rocks back on his heels, releasing Tate before sticking
his hands in his pockets.
Tate turns around. Butch is still on the higher step, which makes him really
fucking tall in comparison. It’s petty as hell, but Tate goes up two steps to
make up the difference.
“It’s none of your fucking business, Butch.”
“It looks like you don’t want this to be no one’s business, so better tell me
before I get some loose lips.” Butch comes up to Tate’s step. Fuck, it’s only a
couple of inches, but it still feels like more.
Amata, of all people, betrays Tate. “Come on, Butch, let’s go.” She stomps down
the stairs, pushing between both of them as they square off. “If you could wait
until you’re off the steps before bashing each other’s faces in, that would be
great.”
“Wait! Amata,” Tate takes off after her. She’s going two steps at a time and
hits the floor first. Tate takes her by the shoulder and turns her around.
“What are you doing?”
She drops the volume of her voice. “Making friends.”
Tate loosens his grip on her shoulder, letting his hand drop to his side. Ain't
much of a friend, if you ask him.
“I would think you’d want to make friends too,” she smiles.
Butch meets them at the base the stairs. He stands behind Tate, a little too
close. Enough that a half-step back and their bodies would be pressed together.
Tate shouldn't think about this because it's certainly not where they’re
headed.
Tate leads the way around the bend to where the shooting range is. “Butch if
you fucking tell anyone.” He starts working the numbers in the lock while Amata
sets the targets. “I'll come to your room and cut the skin from your kneecaps.”
“What an...oddly specific threat, Nosebleed.”
It is the best he could do on the fly. At least it sounds convincingly
threatening.
Pulling the BB gun from the locker, Tate lets Amata take over. Fuck, if Butch
knew he's a terrible shot after about seven years of not practicing, he'd never
live it down. Because while Butch might keep his mouth shut about the gun, he
would never keep quiet about Tate’s ineptitude.
“Woah, okay, so, this was not what I was expecting.”
“What exactly did you think went on down here, Butch?” Amata asks. With the gun
ready, she steps into place at the range.
“Dunno, knitting circle, literary debate, Tate already told me you two don't
fuck.”
Amata lowers the gun to make sure she gets a good glare in on Tate.
“No, I guess we don't.” She hits the target twice in close succession, a
warning if there ever were one. Tate’s not sure though if it's meant to strike
fear in Butch or in him. “Here, Butch, you want to try?” She holds the gun
vertically for Butch to take if he wants.
Tate sits on the table, fingers curled around the uneven edge, watching Butch
handle the gun. He's too self-conscious to work out with Butch around. Amata
walks Butch through the basics of aiming, stance, pulling the trigger.
Surprisingly, Butch doesn't bitch. He takes Amata’s instructions, obviously
excited to shoot.
They look good together, Butch and Amata. Butch is tall, well, not that tall,
dark, and handsome. Amata is all petite curves and a winning smile. They’re
picturesque, side by side. Like a pre-war advertisement of an ideal couple
buying their first Mr. Handy for their new suburban home, before the fading
gets to the paper, making it brittle-yellow at the edges. Idly, Tate wonders,
if they had a kid, would the baby have Butch’s eyes?
Butch laughs at something Amata says. The smile twists Tate’s stomach into
knots, a hard lump he can't dislodge.
Lesson over, Amata leaves Butch to shoot on his own. She kicks at Tate's foot,
asks him what's wrong.
“I think he likes you. I think that's what this is about.”
Amata scrunches up her face. “I don't think this is about me, Tate.”
He brushes off the implication for now. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Aw yeah!” Butch pumps his fist, drawing attention to himself.
Tate can make out where Amata’s shots landed previously, all nestled in the
center. Butch’s fan out a bit from there. His shot isn't perfect, but it's
already better than Tate’s, little pinprick holes scattered around the outer
rings of the target. Butch practically slides over to Tate and Amata, his hair
bouncing as he crashes into the table, nearly knocking Tate off. He holds out
the gun. “Your turn now, right, Nosebleed?”
“Naw,” he pushes the gun back towards Butch, “I get to do it plenty, you have
fun.”
Butch looks like an excited child. Well, they are, right? He might be seventeen
but that's still not grown. The six months between their ages has always felt
like a lot to Tate. Butch is always just that little bit more. But maybe the
gulf isn't so vast, insurmountable. Tate’s lungs flutter at Butch’s smile,
broad and heavy, like it'll drag down his face as he grows older. But right
now, he has the strength to keep it up,
Fuck, fuck Tate wants to lean forward. To know how Butch’s smile tastes. Maybe
it’ll rub off on him. Maybe he can rub off on Butch. Heh.
“It's out of ammo,” Butch observes.
Tate at least knows how to load the gun right, so he offers out his hand to
take it. Butch passes it over. It's amazing how agreeable he is when he's
getting what he wants.
“Show me, yeah? So I can do it myself next time.”
“Sure, yeah, okay.” Tate motions for Butch to sit next to him on the table so
he can watch. Amata keeps messing with him, kicking gently at his toes while he
tries to focus on the gun.
He slides the safety into place, showing Butch how it should latch. “Cause you
don't want to accidentally shoot yourself in the dick.” He only takes four of
five BBs at a time in his hand, to make sure he can control them all as he
slides them into the opened chamber. There’s not a wrong way around to put
them, and they can't really get bunched up. Tate feels sort of silly, having to
walk Butch through a process that is actually so simple. But Butch had asked.
Tate closes up the chamber. “You’ll obviously unlock the safety again before
you shoot.”
Butch watches him with rapt attention, his mouth closed. Seated like this,
Butch looks even taller. Tate tries to sit up straighter, since Butch is sort
of hunched. It doesn't help that much. He passes the gun back over.
“Are you sure you don't wanna?”
“I'm good.”
Butch hops off the table and goes back to the range. Amata takes his place at
Tate’s side. She rests her head on Tate’s shoulder, her hair puffing up in his
face. He doesn't mind.
“Enjoying the show?” Amata asks.
Tate doesn't have to look to know she's beaming. Well, she's clearly taking in
the view. The way Butch’s vault suit clings to his body, his shoulders, ass,
and thighs. It makes Tate’s palms sweat against the table. Nobody ever wears
the right size suit.
Tate's starting to believe that ‘right sizes’ don't exist. How could they
though? There's like, this closet with all these unused suits stitched two-
hundred years ago by hands that probably didn't even know what they were for.
Some of the clothes in the vault, like the really really old clothes, shit
people brought in from the outside when they ran, have tags on them. The tags
say where they were made. Honduras, Vietnam, China. He's seen these places
labeled on Old-world maps. Some of the books they've got have maps like,
printed in color inside the covers too? He knows these places are far away from
“Washington D.C.” And he knows “Washington D.C.” used to be upstairs, on the
other side of the door. Honduras is a little closer than the other places.
China is the reason they’re down here. The old, degraded printed pamphlets he
found in another closet, on the rec room level, let him know that China are the
ones who ruined the world. He doesn't know much other than that about it.
The vault suits don't have tags in them like that. But Tate still wonders about
the people who got the sizes all wrong.
“He's still an asshole,” is the only thing Tate can come up with as a reply.
Amata shrugs, “I never said he wasn't.”
By the time Butch gets finished, it’s way past time they should be at dinner.
Tate’s already wondering how the rumors are gonna change, what possible
explanation the residents are gonna spin to explain this one away.
--
“Tate? Son, do you have some time?” James stands in the doorway of the
chaplain's office. His shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’s always been
a little paler than Tate, it makes the black hair on James’ arms more distinct.
Tate has nothing but time. Endless reams of it cascading by. Tate feels like
he’s got a pen in his hand but nothing worth writing down. He’s given up on
this job. He’ll finish his classes, come to his office, do nothing at all.
“Yeah, sure,” he doesn’t take his feet off the desk. If it really is ‘his’
desk, he can do what the fuck he wants.
James takes the opposite chair, the one meant for people who need chaplain-ing
or whatever. He looks at Tate, then his feet, then back at Tate. “Really, now?”
Tate slides his feet to the floor, but doesn’t sit up in his chair any better,
letting his feet disappear under the desk until his ass is just on the very
edge of the chair. James doesn’t bother correcting him again.
“I’ve heard you’ve been spending more time with the DeLoria boy?”
While not entirely sure what he had been expecting, Tate knows it isn't that
question. Who his friends are (and more often, aren’t) has never been his dad’s
business. His dad has never really shown an interest in his social life. Except
when the trouble he gets into is so great that security makes James intervene.
“So?” Tate wishes he had something, anything, to help him look busy. But
there’s nothing.
James sighs, “It’s not that I don’t want you to get along better with the other
boys. But I just don’t think Butch is a very good choice for a friend.”
Tate’s not sure how his dad gets off on thinking he knows anything about the
intricacies of teenaged-vault-social-politics. But then again, his dad was a
teenaged vault-boy once too, right? But that must have been a long time ago.
And the boys were different. And his dad’s not like him.
“It’s the vault, dad. I don’t have a whole lotta choices.”
“Of course you do, son.”
What the fuck is he even on about? James knows well enough that isn’t the case.
“Dad, there are like, four guys in the vault my age.”
James isn’t budging, crossing his arms over his chest. “Tate, you’re nearly a
man now. Maybe, maybe it won’t be so lonely when you’re a little older.”
He means, ‘when you marry Amata,’ but he won’t say it out loud.
“I like Butch,” Tate winces. He didn’t mean for it to come out that way. But
it’s an innocent enough mistake. James doesn’t say a thing about it.
“He’s just not the sort to...last very long. He’s pushing his luck as it is.
And I don’t think he’s a very good influence on you. I don’t think he makes for
a very good friend. I only want what’s best for you, Tate.”
Tate mumbles that he knows, because that’s the quickest way to get his father
to leave.
Chapter End Notes
     oh man, I actually was like, so fucking touched by how many people
     commented on the last chapter. Ah, I really really appreciate the
     people who take the time to comment/kudo and, man, just, thanks.
***** The air is recycled, so are the clothes, but maybe the mistakes are new
*****
Chapter Notes
     As a note, there are a couple of references to self harm as
     correlated with manic periods in this chapter. Not as an act of
     depression/suicide attempt, but in the wake of excessive emotion/
     energy. They include scratching and throwing his body against an
     immovable object.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Tomorrow is Tate’s seventeenth birthday. Butch said he’d bleach Tate’s hair
again, so the roots don’t show. They’ll do it first thing so that Tate’s hair
has time to dry before the party.
Tate doesn’t even want the party. He just wants to spend time with Amata. Or
with himself. Butch can come too, he guesses. Not that Butch would want to be
seen with Tate in public. But Tate doesn’t want a bunch of people who still
regard him with suspicion watching his every move. They still remember when he
was twelve and he scratched up and down his arms with blunt nails until they
bled. Tate tries to remember why he did that? Something about forgetting to do
his homework? And he didn’t want to tell Brotch that he had forgotten. So he
hurt himself until it was no longer an issue. The work forgotten as he was
shuffled back to his father.
Strange to think about, now.
He’s restless in his bed. For a few days now he’s barely slept. His mind keeps
racing, racing, circling back around to the start. He thinks about Amata’s
hair, the swell of her breasts under her vault suit. She knows, of course, has
since they were ten or so, that Tate likes boys. Since he told her he wanted a
date with Butch for his birthday, maybe before. That was so stupid. Tate
wonders if he’ll have to touch her, though, when they’re married. Even though
she knows. If he’ll have to put his cock in her. If they’ll have to make a
baby. That’s all he ever hears, in subtle ways, echoing off the walls of the
vault, bouncing between the adults too like a bullet that ricochets but without
any force behind it. Eerie, wrong.
There are other possibilities for Tate’s future. Not real ones though. Just,
fantasies, stuff, fuck. Tate rolls onto his stomach in a vain attempt to keep
his erection down. He’s masturbated almost every night this week. Keeps hoping
one of these times will wear away the restlessness. But his dick is just rubbed
raw and it hurts when he gets dressed in the morning. During the day, the pain
is a little better, he doesn’t have to think about it as much. But in the dark
lonesome, it’s all he can focus on.
He angles his hips up off the mattress, slipping his hand between the sheets
and his body, dipping into his boxers. His cock is already hard. He whines into
the pillow, then bites down.
There’s no use in pretending. It will only draw out the inevitable. The faster
the can get off, the faster he might get to sleep. Tate curls his fingers
around his cock, hard, smooth in his hand. He hisses at how raw it still is.
Rocking back onto his heels, he comes up on all fours, the sheet over his back
slips away. The cool air of the night cycle brushes against his back, his ass.
Fuck. He wants to get through this, he wants to sleep. He doesn't want to feel
so fucking alone.
“Butch,” he doesn't bring his voice up above a whisper. This is harmless. Just
a fantasy. The vault is claustrophobic. Butch is handsome. His hands are bigger
than Tate’s, have been almost always. Even when they were little.
He's stronger than Butch. He knows it for certain now because sometimes they
catch each other off guard on the reactor level. They grab at each other's
arms, suits, and hair. They tussle rather than screech and claw. There used to
have to be a provocation for them to fight. But that's optional now. Now
it's...fun? Tate always wins, because Tate is stronger, even though he's still
shorter.
Because he's stronger, it means, it means he would have to let Butch. Butch
couldn't just take from him. Butch couldn't force him. Tate would have to give,
to yield.
He thinks about Butch behind him, running his bigger hands over Tate’s back,
down to his ass, the tops of Butch’s thighs pressed against the back of Tate’s.
How warm they would both be, so close. They're close too when they fight, so
it’s almost the same. Tate almost knows. And he knows what Butch’s name tastes
like in his mouth, but not what Butch’s mouth would feel like against his
flesh. And he wants to. Fuck, he wants to.
Tate wants to know what it would feel to have Butch inside him. He’s reasonably
sure, after some experimenting on himself, that yeah, yeah, someone else’s cock
would fit in him. And that, fuck, fuck, that’d he’d like it. So he thinks about
that. Because he’s done fighting it. He’s done pretending like he doesn’t like
it when Butch, specifically Butch, is over him or under him but always between
his legs, against his body. And Tate chooses that, because he’s stronger,
because he could stop Butch if he didn’t like it. But he would like it. He’s
sure.
Coming in his hand, sharp, on the edge of painful, Tate’s other arm shakes, his
legs too. He reaches for a tissue to clean himself. His pipboy screen lights
up.
Tate doesn’t even wait to make sure his hand is properly clean. He sits back,
legs folded under him, and reads the message.
271257 > 130758: i cant sleep you up?
130758 > 271257: Yeah.
271257 > 130758: excited?
271257 > 130758: sorry thats a stupid question
271257 > 130758: i got nothing
271257 > 130758: to say
Butch isn’t giving him the time to type anything out. Tate’s not as quick with
the dial yet. Still, there’s something, fuck, charming about the messages. Tate
knows he’s reading too much into it. But at least they’re friends. For now.
130758 > 271257: It’s not a big deal. It’s only seventeen. It’s not important.
271257 > 130758: well am i the first person to wish you happy birthday?
Tate smiles.
130758 > 271257: Yeah.
271257 > 130758: good now GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP
130758 > 271257: You messaged me first!
271257 > 130758: NIGHT NOSEBLEED
No more messages come, but Tate keeps on staring at his screen, long after it
has dimmed.
--
Butch fixes Tate’s hair with only a few cursory grunts. “Same like last time?”
Yeah, same.
Except this time they don't exchange messages through their pipboys, smiling
about their secrets. They don't taunt and tease. Tate doesn't know what's
wrong. He doesn't want to ask either. After slicking the bleach through Tate’s
hair, Butch checks his pipboy and leaves.
130758 > 271257: What the fuck is wrong with you?
Tate doesn't dare leave the shop because he's got fucking bleach in his fucking
hair and it's starting but burn and most of all FUCK BUTCH. With nowhere to go,
Tate steams where he is. No message from Butch returns.
Butch's kit is still on the counter. Tate grabs up the scissors, opening the
blades wide. He stabs the pointy end of the blade into the thick, green vinyl
of the barber’s chair. Ripping down, the fabric tears apart, screeching under
his assault. The white-puffy filling starts spilling out like a cloud of
entrails. Eviscerated. He does it again. And again, until the cushion is
decimated.
After thirty minutes, Butch comes back. He looks at the mangled chair, clenches
his jaw, and tells Tate it's time to wash the bleach out.
Tate doesn't let him, storming to the showers to do it himself.
--
No one comes to Tate’s party but Amata. It's the best of all possible worlds.
Tate eats the vault-provided cake until he’s sick to his stomach. The icing he
doesn't like, scraping it away from the cake and leaving it in a pile on the
side of the platter. Before Amata is done eating, Tate smears half of the icing
on Amata’s face. It musses up her makeup. She smashes the other half into the
front of Tate’s dress shirt, laughing the whole time.
The white sugar clings to her curls, even after she tries to brush it away.
Tate knows for certain how much he loves her. Now, always. He won't forget. He
loves her much so that it fills up his lungs completely, ready to burst.
They dance to the random songs playing through the jukebox. Tate hates all of
them; Amata knows the words by heart. She lays her head, icing and all, against
Tate’s chest. He keeps his hands firmly on her hips. The songs loop around a
second time. Tate realizes he doesn't like them because it's been the same
twenty-four or so songs his whole life. And none of them are applicable to him.
The jukebox goes out. They don't start it again.
“I got you a present.” Amata takes a half step away, keeping hold of Tate’s
wrist.
He follows after her, just to the other end of the diner. Her gift is wrapped
in bright paper, tied with a ribbon that she sometimes wears in her hair. She
holds the present in both hands, though it's not large, waiting for Tate to
take it.
“Thank you,” he really doesn't care what it is. That it's from Amata is enough
to satisfy him.
Tate’s careful with the ribbon, working open the knot. He hands it back to
Amata. Her dress has no pockets, so she ties her hair back up with it. The
paper is glossy under Tate’s fingers. He shreds it.
It's a book, one that he hasn't seen before. At least, he doesn't think. It's
by Johann Goethe, like the other book, The Sorrows of Young Werther. The one
Amata reads to him. He flips through the pages idly, thanking Amata again. She
knows well enough he won't read it himself.
Plucking the book from his hands, she sits on the table top, leaving enough
space for Tate to squeeze in next to her. He plants his hand by her opposite
hip, the length of his arm behind her back. Amata turns to the first page.
“Again you show yourselves, you wavering Forms,/Revealed, as you once were, to
clouded vision./Shall I attempt to hold you fast once more?/Heart’s willing
still to suffer that illusion?” She stops to take a swig out of Tate’s flask.
It's only beer. “You crowd so near! Well then, you shall endure,/And rouse me,
from your mist and cloud’s confusion:/My spirit feels so young again: it’s
shaken/By magic breezes that your breathings waken.”
Her voice isn't quite as smooth as when she reads about Werther, but she's had
more practice with that text. Tate rests his chin on her shoulder. He wonders
if he could write poetry. But what even about? His life is no great tragedy,
just little inconveniences added all together until they drive him mad. The
endless stretch of the life his ancestors lucked into.
He can't focus on Faust, though through no fault of Amata’s. The next time she
reads, he’ll pay better attention.
Butch is no Charlotte. And he is no Werther. Or maybe the roles are supposed to
be reversed? Tate’s not sure.
“Amata?”
She looks up from the book.
“Yeah, Tate?”
“What is it you want most in the world?”
Amata closes the book around her well-kept fingers. Her nails are painted
bright pink. Her lips a darker red.
“I want to be a good leader, when the time comes. I want you and I to be happy,
always. I want to stop thinking about the world outside.”
Tate doesn't point out that they’re not even happy right now.
--
Butch, like everyone else, doesn't come to the party. But Tate does see him
after.
After he kisses Amata goodbye on the cheek, he shuffles back to his quarters.
His dad asks him how the party went, as if oblivious to Tate’s social standing
in the vault. Tate mumbles out, “fine, I'm tired.”
His dad makes an offhand remark that he thought Tate would be out later. It's
already past eleven. Tate repeats that he's tired. He wants to go to bed.
The overhead light in his room is already on. Butch sits on the edge of his
bed, hands clasped in his lap. How the fuck did he get in?
He's in a tee and jeans, rather than his vault suit. Where Butch got jeans is
anyone's guess. He’s industrious, sort of, in his own way. His hair isn't done,
falling instead in a loose, soft pile on top of his head, fanning out like
down.
The bile of this morning’s anger scorches at Tate’s throat. Cut through with
the realization that Butch is in his bedroom, in his bed. And, and he doesn't
know why. Butch just stares straight ahead, like he can see right through Tate.
Does he know? Fuck, does he know last night, the night before, how Tate touched
himself, thinking of Butch’s hands on him?
“You didn't have to wreck my shit, Nosebleed.”
"You didn't have to fucking treat me like a piece of shit," Tate hisses. They
have to keep their voices down. His dad is still up in the adjoining room.
Butch acts like this is Tate's fault. Like he is the one sending sentimental
messages in the middle of the night, then acting like the other boy doesn't
matter in the morning. Like Tate is a piece of fucking trash to be discarded in
the light of day.
"No," Butch puts his hands over his mouth. "I guess I didn't."
Tate doesn't say it, that he thought he and Butch were friends, or something
approaching friends. That would mean admitting that he thinks about Butch when
he's not standing in front of his fucking face. When he's not sitting on the
edge of Tate's bed, leaning forward with his face in his hands.
"I don't know if we can be friends, Tate." Pulling his hands back into his lap,
Butch says it like it's up to him and him alone. Like Tate's got no say in the
matter.
Jumping, Tate throws himself at Butch, hands reaching for his throat. Butch
doesn't fight him, though he grabs Tate’s wrists, holding on tight. Tate only
chokes him for a few seconds, before he realizes what he's doing. His hands
loosen, planting on either side of Butch’s head instead.
He's fucked, he's so fucked.
Butch is still holding Tate's wrists. His thumb stroking along the right one.
The one without the pipboy to impede their contact.
Tate pulls his hand back, standing up. He can't be this close. He can't. And
he's so full of, full of anger and sadness and frustration. But he's starting
to realize he can't just wreck Butch when he gets angry. There are
consequences. The thing inside him is still too tight, too much.
Tate throws himself against the opposite wall. Letting his limbs go loose on
impact. He crumples to the floor. Not that he blacked out, but he feels empty.
Alone. He can't hear Butch, but there's a thudding in his ears, a hollow sound.
When his eyes do open, Tate only dimly remembers having done anything at all.
Butch sits next to him on the floor, his back against the wall and his legs
stretched out in front of him. His hands are at his pipboy.
Tate’s pipboy lights up.
271257 > 130758: we cant be friends
130758 > 271257: Fuck you.
271257 > 130758: not my choice
271257 > 130758: overseer
They sit together for awhile longer, listening as Tate’s dad goes about his
evening. Tate can feel wet blood running from his nose, clinging to his lip. He
does nothing to stop the flow. Eventually it'll stop on its own. When they're
sure James is in bed, Butch gets up to leave.
Before leaving, Butch offers Tate a hand up from the floor. Tate accepts it.
When Butch wraps his arms around Tate, he freezes.
Tate only barely registers Butch saying that he's sorry.
Chapter End Notes
     Comments and kudos are always super super appreciated just like
     ahhhh. Okay. So even though FO4 comes out next week I should still be
     able to update, as I have a few more chapters in rough draft.
***** Camouflage is a Stange Thing, Seperating the Prey from One Another *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Tate sees Butch in the hall the next afternoon. He's got his arm draped over
Christine Kendall’s shoulders, the tips of his fingers resting just millimeters
from her breast, above where she’s pulled the zipper down real low. Butch’s
thumb runs over the fabric of her vault suit like it did Tate’s wrist last
night.
Amata finds Tate an hour later on the reactor level. His fists are bloody, wet.
She takes the stim from Tate’s pocket, aiming the needle between each joint.
Rationing out the chems, she pricks him six times, three on each hand. Tate
watches as his knuckles stitch closed. They’ll scar. He’s got a bunch of scars
on his hands and knees, but not anywhere else.
Shooting as if nothing has happened, Amata waits for Tate to speak first. As
little or as much as he wants.
“I hate him.”
Amata pulls down the gun. “You've been saying that for years.”
“I've meant it for years.” He hangs his head between his knees.
Her hands work at filling back up the gun’s chamber even though it's only
three-quarters empty. “I'm sure you have, Tate.”
“I don't need anyone but you.”
Amata sighs, tells Tate not to lie, it's unbecoming of him to do so.
--
Wally asks Tate, point blank, if he's queer. Tate knows that word now, he
didn't know it two years ago. But he found it in a book. It means ‘odd’ or
‘homosexual’ depending on context. Tate figures that he's both.
“You asking for yourself? Or a friend? Because I gotta say, I'm not sure you're
my type.” Tate wrinkles his nose.
Wally scoffs, “I seen how you look at Butch.”
Tate forces a laugh until it turns genuine. “Fuck, man, fuck,” Tate wipes away
tears. “Me? Me? You and Paul and Freddie have been riding his dick since we
were fourteen and you're saying I look at him funny? Naaah.” He drags out his
denial.
With lit coals in his eyes, Wally steps towards Tate, fists raised. But it's no
good. Wally ain't a fighter. Tate moves out of reach from his strike, sliding
to one side. The display is so pathetic, Tate can't even be mad. He does kick
Wally in the back of the knee as he leaves, sending Wally crumpling to the
floor.
--
271257 > 130758: i miss you
130758 > 271257: I thought you weren't supposed to talk to me?
271257 > 130758: when do i ever listen to the overseer
130758 > 271257: When he said we couldn't be friends.
Tate stares at the exposed piping on his bedroom ceiling, the web of tubes that
gives them air, water, life. Everything necessary for survival runs through
metals and plastics as much as hope and expectation. If they burst, everyone's
fucked.
271257 > 130758: come downstairs
271257 > 130758: please
It's 2:34 in the morning. His dad will be asleep. James doesn't get the
insomnia that Tate does.
Getting his vault suit on is a hassle, but Tate doesn't have anything else,
other than dress clothes. Fuck it. He pulls on his dark dress slacks and a
singlet. He’s fucked enough anyway if he gets caught out this late. Pocketing
his keycard, he slips out the door. James is nowhere to be seen.
Because the floors are slightly hollow on the residential levels, Tate can hear
the movement of security easily, the way they make the ground shake with the
stomping of their boots. As he descends, it gets harder to listen. Tate starts
hearing the rumbling of the vault itself, shifting and settling in the earth.
The vault is never really still, an entity in its own right.
During the night cycles the overhead lights are low. But it's never dark here.
Tate isn't sure what darkness looks like. Even their bedrooms have always-on
emergencies, always bathing them in faint white.
With the reactor level door open, Tate slips inside. The overhead lamps are
already on. Butch beat him here. Or someone did. He hasn't given up on the idea
this is some sort of cruel joke. That Butch and his friends, his real friends,
are all waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. That he’ll finally get that
beating they've always threatened.
But it's just Butch and the smell of smoke. There's a coffee cup next to him he
fills up with ash. It's white, pristine, new. Butch is always finding new
things and Tate doesn't know how.
“I'm here,” Tate declares.
“I can see that.”
Butch holds out his flask. It's full of beer so Tate drinks. When he's
finished, he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What do you want, Butch?”
“To not give a fuck what the Overseer wants.”
“You don't.”
Butch laughs. It's bitter. Like unsweetened coffee straight from Butch’s ash
cup. “Of course I don't.”
Tate doesn't know how to continue the conversation. It wasn't his to start
with. Butch talks over a divide Tate can't see, something he's been told
doesn't exist. And though he has this vapid, empty feeling, this sense of
absence, he still can't see the contours, where the emptiness begins and where
it ends.
“I just gotta be more careful about seeing Amata and you is all. Her dad
doesn't like it.”
Of course he doesn't.
Tate finishes off Butch's beer before he even stands a chance. Butch doesn't
complain.
--
Butch still comes down to the reactor level to shoot with Amata. They trade the
gun between them. Sometimes she grabs the back of his shirt when he won't hand
the gun back as quickly as he should, lingering over the smell that the gun
makes right after it's fired. Warm, foreign. Eventually, Butch stops asking why
Tate doesn't shoot. Apparently “don't wanna, don't like it, like fists better,”
one of those statements, settles Butch’s curiosity.
So Butch and Amata take turns shooting and Tate thinks they look happy
together. They might even be good together, were they both different people.
Because Amata, for all her light and warmth, is still her father’s daughter.
She doesn't so much ask as command and it clearly grates on Butch’s nerves. And
none of them know a lick about Butch’s father but Tate bets he's still his
father’s son because upstairs Butch’s hands are still all over Christine
Kendall. Had to get that from somewhere. Tate wonders where that leaves him.
Because his father is a doctor, had a wife, and raised a son who can only ever
imagine the happiness of his best friends and not his own.
--
When Amata turns seventeen, her party is filled with adults, insincere
laughter, and Tate. She entertains guests like a well-worn host. Her ruby
colored dress floats around her like a dream, setting off the flush of her
cheeks. Tate stands by her side for the first forty-five minutes, smiling at
the jokes others make. He twines his hand in hers, squeezing when it gets to be
too much. His hand sweats.
She tells Tate it's okay, he can sit down. Paul’s dad hands Tate a glass of
wine with a wink. Amata already has a glass in her hand. She puts it to her
lips, color staining the rim. Tate sets his wine down on the counter and
forgets it exists.
Being in the diner at all makes Tate nervous. This steady march he's following
towards adulthood. The panorama of the rest of his life etched across the faces
of his elders. They smile, they chat, they make nice with liquor and pills and
pretend like they don't live like boxed radroaches, just waiting for someone to
tear off a limb. Tate tells himself he’ll learn to wear the costume too. In his
dress slacks and white shirt, dancing to two-hundred year old songs on the
jukebox, it's hard to act correctly right this second. Tomorrow, in his vault
suit, it’ll be easier to remember his place.
“Dance with me at least,” Amata downs the last of her wine before setting the
glass next to Tate’s full one. Tate doesn't know how long he’s been waiting for
her, crowded into the corner of the booth. And he was doing so well earlier.
Mary Kendall said he is charming. That Amata is lucky.
Amata rests her head on his shoulder as they dance. Some of the adults take up
positions as well, copying each other's gestures of intimacy. All Tate has are
copies. But that's culture, right? An infinite regress of minor mistakes.
Mistakes that perpetuate the cycle of vault life. The dead out, new babies in.
A population kept stable. Each and every one of them has been accounted for,
right? The Overseer has all the right numbers. One day, those numbers will be
in Amata’s palm.
Amata’s arms wrap around Tate’s neck, heavy with the weight of her
responsibility. Everyone watches them. They always have. Tate tucks his head
down, kisses her on the lips where everyone can see.
--
After the party finishes, Tate goes to Amata’s room, the Overseer conveniently
delayed in his office. He hadn't come to his daughter’s party.
For once, Tate tries reading to Amata. He sits on the floor, his back against
Amata’s bed frame. It has been slow going getting through Faust. Tate wonders
if after Werther, five hundred years ago, everyone else was as disappointed
with Goethe as he has been.
“Where is the heavenly joy in her arms? Let me warm myself with her charms! Do
I not always feel her absent breath? Am I not the fugitive? The homeless one?
The creature without aim or rest, A torrent in the rocks, still thundering
down, Foaming eagerly into the abyss? And she beside it, with vague childlike
mind, In a hut there, on a little Alpine field, So, her first homely life you’d
find, Hidden there in that little world, And I, the god-forsaken, Was not great
enough, To grasp the cliffs, and take them, And crush them into dust! I still
must undermine her peaceful life!You, Hell, must have your sacrifice. Help,
Devil, curtail the anxious moment brewing. What must be, let it be, and
swiftly! Let her fate also fall on me, And she and I rush to ruin!” Tate shuts
the book. He isn't interested in reading any more.
Amata, still in her dress, sprawls across her bed, leaving no space for him.
Her curls fall off the side, almost in his face.
“But you have such a beautiful voice, Tate,” she mocks. He could barely get
through the passage. He's unaccustomed to reading aloud.
She sticks her hand in his blond hair, pinching it between her fingers and
tugging.
They wait until after midnight for Tate to leave, to make sure that her father
sees him ‘sneaking out,’ of her bedroom. The Overseer gives Tate a smile. Fuck
he hates this. He hates this so fucking much.
Walking the hall back to his quarters, a hand reaches out of a closet, pulling
him inside and snapping the door shut.
“Fuck you, Butch!”
Tate gets ready to swing, aiming at Butch’s chest rather than at his face. But
the loud “oof! What the hell?” isn't Butch’s.
Tate looks up, up further than he would need to were it Butch pulling him into
the closet. Instead, it's Stevie Mack.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Tate says incredulously. Because seriously. Is
this a thing with everyone now? Fucking supply closets and secret meetings?
Because Tate isn't sure he can handle the stress of it. Were it Butch, he'd be
angry, yeah, but he’d calm down eventually. But he and Stevie barely talk.
There's no explanation for their encounter.
“Why did you punch me?”
“I don't know, because some disembodied hand pulled me into a damn storage
room?”
Stevie grunts, maybe realizing that Tate, in fact, has a point. Tate turns on
his pipboy light to illuminate the closet.
“What do you want?” Tate would just as soon deck Stevie as he would anyone else
who tried to fuck with him, but Stevie’s in his security uniform, baton on his
hip. He was at the party earlier and there’s whiskey on his breath. His shift
must have started after. There’s not much point to sobriety on duty anyway. But
if Stevie is on duty, why is he in the fucking storage room?
“I heard...stuff about you.”
Tate rolls his eyes. “Yeah, we all hear stuff about everyone else. Can I go
now?”
“Like, stuff from my brother. About you. About,” Stevie can't choke out what he
wants to say. Tate’s not sure of the consequences of walking out on this
conversation. Maybe he gets tossed in confinement. But maybe he comes out ahead
too because he wasn't doing anything other than breaking curfew and the
Overseer about high-fived him two minutes ago when he thought Tate had just
banged his daughter, so.
Stevie grabs onto Tate’s shoulder, trying to pull him closer. Tate reacts at
the touch, pulling away and back towards the door.
“I'm going to go, now.” Tate turns the handle. “And you're gonna let me before
this gets any worse for you, okay, Stevie?”
There's this sort of haunted rejection in Stevie’s eyes that Tate can see even
though the room is mostly just dim pipboy green. Tate would recognize it with
his own eyes closed. If Tate shows any emotion in return, he’s fucked. Stevie
is fortifying himself after this intoxicated slipping of his cobbled together
survival.
“Get out,” Stevie bites, but Tate is already halfway gone, his heart pounding
in his chest. He bleeds from his nose onto his chin.
--
Tate doesn't tell Amata what happened with Stevie; he doesn't tell Butch, or
his father.
Chapter End Notes
     thank you so much to everyone who has commented/kudoed ahhhh just AHH
     the fact I can write for a seven year old game and people are still
     interested when the new one is right around the corner is just great.
     But thank you for your continued support of my garbage ideas.
***** On to Bigger and Better Things that Look and Feel Exactly the Same *****
271257 > 130758: where have u been nosebleed
130758 > 271257: Sick.
271257 > 130758: like hell you are
271257 > 130758: i aint seen u in weeks
130758 > 271257: Sick.
271257 > 130758: fuck you
His father doesn't make him go to class. Every morning Tate says he feels
unwell. James asks him how, how does he feel unwell? Because he has no
temperature, no visible ailment. Tate says his head hurts, his stomach is sick.
He just wants to stay in bed. Just one more day.
And even though his father is the vault doctor, and can find nothing at all the
matter, James lets Tate stay in bed. He goes back to sleep until noon. In the
afternoon, he sits on the couch in their common room instead of going to class,
reading from Faust silently. Even though the book sucks, Tate has nothing else
to do. Sometimes Tate goes to his office after classes are finished, even
though he didn't attend school. No one but Butch bothers to ask questions about
him.
He's seen Amata a few times, but no one else. She comes by when her father
tells her to visit. Sitting on Tate's desk, she reads silently from vault
manuals. There are passages in the thick, soft-cover books she highlights,
biting the pen between her teeth in between swipes. What the books contain, she
doesn't tell Tate. Not that he's curious or anything. Not about the details.
Well, maybe just in broad strokes.
“My father is lying,” she observes.
“Wow, I never would have guessed. He just seems quite the honest fellow.” Tate
lets his eyes go sort of unfocused in front of the computer monitor.
Amata flips back a number of pages, looking for something she's already read.
“I think the vault has been opened.”
Tate stills. “What do you mean?”
“What I said, Tate. I think the vault has been opened. More than once.” She
shuts the book. “Let’s go.” Hopping down from the desk, she sticks out her hand
for Tate to take.
“Where are we going...I don't really feel up to...anything?” It's true. He
wants to go back to bed.
“To the door, I need to see something. Come on.”
Tate doesn't want to, but he takes Amata’s hand anyway. The door to his office
clicks locked behind them. Walking the halls they are unaccosted, though
technically they should both be in apprentice hours. No one is going to be
bothered enough to stop them from moving freely. Tate keeps his hand in
Amata’s, long after his palm grows sweaty.
As they pass the clinic, Monica Kendall rushes past them, her mouth open,
screaming in joy. The littlest Hannon runs after her, equally loud and
exuberant. Their voices ring off the walls. Someone will corner them, stop the
racket, eventually.
The vault entrance is quiet, without a guard. Why bother? The door, twenty-four
inches thick, maybe more, is all the sentry they need to keep them safe. Amata
lets go of Tate’s hand. Standing under the arch of the giant circle, the cogs
of the door frame her petite body, making her look less significant than she
is. The vault is not hers to guide yet, but one day soon, it will be.
Amata presses her well-manicured hand flat to the center of the door, where it
reads “101.” She covers up the “0” part way with her palm. The numeral is too
big for her to obscure completely.
Tate thinks about the other 100 vaults. And the number he isn't sure of on the
other side, 102, 103, 104, how far do the numbers stretch? How many
underground-children like them are there?
“I need to, I need…” She moves her hand from the center of the door, walking
around to the side. Her nails dig into the metal, trying to squeeze between the
door and the frame. Tate hears one of her nails break off. She hisses in pain,
shaking her hand when she's free again. To stem the bleeding, she grabs her
finger in her other hand.
Tate has a stim in his pocket, but Amata says she's okay. It was a stupid
mistake.
Next she goes to the panel. None of the lights are on. There are rows of
buttons and switches. Tate doesn't know what any of them do. Amata seems to
know.
“My father will know if I power it up.” She sticks her bleeding finger into her
mouth. Mumbling, “But see, here,” she taps a small, darkened display with her
off-hand. “Here I could bring up the dates the door was opened and shut. All of
them, for the last two-hundred years.”
That's a lot to invest in a little 2x4 inch display.
“Would your father care?” Tate asks.
Amata keeps stroking the panel. “I think it's the only thing he cares about.”
There's nothing more they can do today. Tate ends up sneaking back into the
clinic to get bandages for Amata’s finger. She waits patiently while he wraps
her in gauze, though he only half-knows what he is doing. Through the process,
her mind is somewhere else, between the tissue-thin pages of her manuals,
perhaps.
--
Tate returns to class at the end of the week to take his semester exams. With
the questions in front of him, his mind goes blank. He starts circling answers
at random, making patterns with his pen. The answers he chooses makes the shape
of a dick and balls. That'll do.
Butch tries to hiss at Tate to get his attention. So much for the three of them
being subtle about their friendship. When Tate doesn't turn to face Butch,
Butch whips a pen at Tate’s head. It falls harmlessly to the ground. Butch has
wrapped a strip of paper around the barrel of the pen. Grabbing it from the
floor, Tate looks at the message.
math: A, A, D, C, B, A, C, D, D
Answers. Fucking Butch DeLoria is either trying to help Tate cheat on his exam,
or is trying to fuck the shit out of him even worse. Well, couldn't be worse
since Tate’s answers are just random guesses anyway. But Butch’s answers could
also be deliberately wrong, while random guessing would get Tate some points.
There's one more line of text on the slip.
send bk lit for sci
That would mean actually trying. With resignation, Tate erases his carefully
constructed dick, replaces the math section with Butch’s answers, and starts
reading the assigned text for the literature section. He puts the words into
Amata’s voice in his head so he doesn't get bored with it.
--
To Tate's surprise, Amata tells Butch about her suspicion as well.
“Why though?” Butch questions, “why keep it a secret? Why not just let us
fucking go?”
Amata bites her bottom lip. “I haven't put it all together yet. There's just so
much here. I don't even know if my father has read it all.”
They're down on the reactor level, in the sort of bubble of privacy they've
come to rely on. Here they are safe, though never untouched. The vault is in
their veins. They can't sweat it out. Amata sits on the table, one of the
manuals open in her lap, another two stacked at her side. Tate carried them
down for her. He and Butch stand in front of her, waiting for answers she
doesn't yet have. Butch leans the gun against his shoulder.
“What do we even do if we know, like,” Butch chooses his words carefully. “Does
that mean we get to go outside? For real?” He sounds so hopeful. It takes Tate
aback. As claustrophobic as the vault is, Tate has never considered the not-
vault with any serious intention.
"Maybe," Amata traces her finger along the page to keep track of her place.
"But we'd need proof that it's safe, right? We don't only need to know the
vault has been opened, but that people came back."
"Do you think it's possible or not, doll?"
Tate hates it when Butch calls Amata ‘doll,’ ‘babe,’ any other little term of
endearment. He collects them like scraps of paper, to look back at after he has
been deemed irrelevant. As Butch becomes softer around Amata, kinder, Tate
realizes just how quickly his fragile house falls apart.
“Yeah, I do. I do think it's possible.” Her eyes flick to Tate, then back to
the manual. “See there are years here,” she points. Both Tate and Butch have to
lean over her lap to see, but the text is upside down. With an exasperated
sigh, she turns the book around so it faces them. Her nail keeps her place.
“It's a numerical code right? And I think it refers to provisions for when and
why the vault should be opened. But it needs a key. I need that key to know for
certain.”
“And your dad would have the key?” Tate asks.
“I'm not sure. I know there is a door under his desk. And a safe behind a
painting in his office. Another safe in his bedroom. So he may have the key.
But I don't think he knows about this. About these instructions. He's not…”
“He ain't smart enough,” Butch interjects.
Amata doesn't say no, but she doesn't say yes, either.
“So we get into the safes. Easy,” Tate says it like he knows how to get past
the locks. He doesn't. But like, how fucking hard could it be?
“I have another idea too,” Butch hands Tate the gun, but only so he can fish
his cigarette pack from his pocket. “You two work on the safes,” he blows smoke
away from both Tate and Amata, “I'll try something else.”
“Butch,” Amata warns.
“Don't worry, I got this.” He says it with such finality Amata doesn't question
him further. Though she does grab the gun before Butch has the chance to finish
his cigarette. Once she's on the range, Butch turns to Tate and smiles.
--
"I think Butch likes you." Tate's chin is planted on the very edge of his desk.
Amata, for once, uses the other chair instead of perching herself on the desk
itself. The desk is too cluttered with manuals. Where she keeps getting more,
Tate has no idea.
"I don't think that's it, Tate." She scrunches her nose. In her lap is a little
portable lockbox and half a dozen paperclips. Already broken clips are
scattered across the floor. Neither one of them want to admit to Butch that
they have never picked a lock before. Not with the way he breezes through
sealed doors into otherwise restricted areas with his keypass. So instead of
asking Butch, they pass the lockbox between them, busting paperclips on their
way to ultimate victory. They hope.
Tate grunts, "he keeps calling you 'doll,' and he's always touching you." He
doesn't mean to sound jealous. He doesn't! Amata deserves someone who wants
her. He used to be able to reject Butch out of hand because he was certain he'd
be terrible to her. Tate's not certain anymore that Butch would treat her
poorly. Not with the little, considerate things he does when he thinks she's
too distracted to notice. And if that's what Amata wants, Tate's sure she could
have Butch. And Tate wouldn't stand in the way. He promises.
Amata laughs, snapping another paperclip in two. "He's doing that to get a rise
out of you, Tate. He never does that when he and I are alone."
Tate hisses without realizing; Amata laughs at him again.
"See!" She exclaims. "You're practically boiling with rage."
"Amn't" Tate breaks the paperclip almost immediately. "Gimme another, that one
didn't count."
She doesn't fight him on that, passing the clip without fuss. "You're jealous.
Admit it."
"I'm not!" This time Tate admits defeat, handing the box back. "Why would I be
jealous? If you like him, I dunno, you should try. He's not as bad as he used
to be."
If by some fucking miracle, Amata gets the tumbler right this time. In triumph,
she smashes the box onto Tate's desk and jumps up out of the chair, hands
thrown above her head. They celebrate by splitting a warm beer Tate gets out of
his desk drawer.
"And about Butch," Amata comes outta nowhere, "maybe you should try."
Tate rolls his eyes. "He's sleeping with Christine Kendall, I'm pretty sure. He
likes girls."
"And the whole vault thinks we're sleeping together." She finishes the beer,
drinking more than her share. "You, of all people, Tate Zhang, should not put
faith in rumors."
--
Tate sets his pipboy alarm for three am. He's sound asleep when it goes off.
Groggy, he pulls on his dress slacks, not bothering with his cumbersome vault
suit. They agreed not to wear shoes, too loud against the floor, so Tate slips
out of his quarters in socked feet.
Tonight they're going to try the the safe in the Overseer's office. Amata at
least found out the door under the desk is operated from the terminal. She
doesn't want to risk pressing her keycard to it. It may work, it may not, in
either case her father is likely to know. Just like he knows how frequently she
and Tate go down to the reactor. When Tate asked about Butch, Amata shrugged,
saying her father has never mentioned it.
Tate meets Amata in front of the Overseer's office. The door is propped open
just a fraction.
"I set it so it wouldn't lock this afternoon," she grins at her own cleverness.
"I'll go in and try the safe," they both cross into the room. "Stay by the
door. Warn me if security is coming."
Tate nods.
They're silent other than Amata's precision work with the lock. She fails the
first attempt, cursing paperclips for all eternity. For real.
The Overseer's office is impressive as fuck, giant circular desk in the center
of the room, old-world paintings along the walls, rows of filing cabinets. Tate
has to admit, there's some semblance of pride that this is going to be Amata's
one day. And that it won't be so bad for him to belong to Amata either.
And maybe they'll get to go outside.
"Got it," Amata's voice is quiet, but she's practically trembling with
excitement.
She's still rifling through the contents of the safe when Tate hears footsteps.
"Shit, I'll take care of this, okay?"
"Tate?"
"It's fine, I know what I'm doing."
Amata turns her attention back to the safe. The faster she finishes, the less
time Tate has to stall security.
Stepping back into the hallway, Tate makes sure Amata's doorstop is still in
place before stepping away and leaning against the opposite wall.
It's Stevie Mack, his footsteps heavy. His eyes get big when he sees Tate.
"What are you doing out? It's after curfew for you."
Tate's not gonna answer that question.
"I was hoping it would be you." Tate wrings his hands. He's not nervous, but he
wants to look the part. "Listen, about before..."
It's been months since Stevie pulled him into the closet. But Tate is certain
Stevie remembers, even if he was a little drunk. Because Tate knows. He's five
or so years younger than Stevie, but the time doesn't matter, he feels it
already, the desperation.
Stevie raises one eyebrow. "What?"
"You ain't gonna tell anyone? Right?" He's just gotta leave out all the
details, let Stevie set his own terms. This way, when Tate doesn't pay up,
there are no threads of promises to hang Tate on.
If Amata chose Butch, would Tate choose this? Stevie Mack? He doesn't think so
because every fiber of his body would still want Butch, he knows that much.
Butch is this sublime object, always out of reach, standing on the precipice of
a great drop, thousands of feet deeper than where they live now.
But he might let Stevie fuck him anyway. If Amata and Butch...because then Tate
wouldn't have to protect his reputation for her sake. And would it really
matter, what face is attached to which cock? Tate swallows.
Stevie steps forward, his palm presses flat to Tate's chest, feeling at his
heavy breaths. "Zhang."
When he was real little, Tate asked his dad if the Armstrong sisters, Beatrice,
Mary Kendall, Gloria Mack, were his dad's sisters too? James laughed like the
question was ridiculous. Why would Tate think that? Because they are the ones
in the vault who look the most like Tate and his dad. But now, when Tate looks
at Stevie, his hair shorn short and light colored eyes, he doesn't see it. Kids
are supposed to look like their parents, right? How Tate looks like his dad?
Amata slips out behind Stevie's back. Once she's rounded the corner, Tate lets
out a scared, strangled sound that startles Stevie. When Stevie takes a step
back, Tate bolts, hoping Stevie will assume he's just a dumb kid who got scared
by his own illicit desire.
He breaks for his own room. Tomorrow he'll ask Amata about the safe and he
hopes she won't ask anything about Stevie Mack.
***** The difference between your worst nightmare and hopeless dream *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Amata doesn't find the key for the code in her manuals. Butch says he still
needs more time. Tate doesn't have anything to contribute to this little
project in either case.
Butch comes up behind Tate and boxes his ears while Amata shoots. They end up
wrestling on the ground, dust getting into their vault suits, turning the blue
to splotchy gray. No one ever comes down here to sweep. Tate doesn't try to
punch Butch, but does keep him pinned to the floor longer than strictly
necessary, his hands wrapped around Butch's wrists, their hips flush, bodies
crammed together. When Tate feels Butch's breath on his neck he calls Butch a
dickhead and climbs off.
--
Butch doesn't have a party for his eighteenth. Parties are for kids and he
ain't a kid.
130758 > 271257: You sure protest not being a kid a whole lot. Makes me think
you're a big baby.
130758 > 271257: Honestly.
There's no response. But Tate doesn't get mad. It's Butch's own fault if he
doesn't want Tate to wish him happy birthday. It's just past midnight on the
27th so he's pretty sure that Butch is still awake. Even if he isn't, the
pipboy light can be bright enough to wake the fucking dead when it flashes on.
Still nothing.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
And Tate starts to worry someone else will wish Butch happy birthday before he
can. But not Butch's mom because it's past midnight and she's probably passed
out in the living room. And. Nothing.
130758 > 271257: Happy birthday, asshole.
271257 > 130758: sorry was busy
271257 > 130758: thanks
130758 > 271257: Busy with what, fuckface?
There's a long pause.
271257 > 130758: dont make me come over there nosebleed
130758 > 271257: You don't have the balls.
Seven minutes later, Tate hears the lock to his bedroom door opening. Butch
slips in, jumping onto Tate's bed and holding him down by the forearms, Butch’s
hands are big enough they stretch almost all the way around.
Fuck, fuck. Tate is hard so fast it hurts. And he's only in his boxers with the
sheet over his lap and Butch’s solid weight and bright smile is fucking on top
of him like the greatest wet dream Tate’s ever had except the one where he was
in Butch's lap and they were pressed chest to chest and, fuck, fuck.
"Who has the balls now, Nosebleed?"
Butch smells like smoke, after shave, and a girl's floral perfume. Fuck.
"Who were you busy with?" Tate means it as a joke; on his tongue it's nothing
but accusatory.
Butch's face drops. "Christine."
"Well," Tate turns his head to one side so that he doesn't have to look into
Butch's eyes. "Don't let me keep you." At least his erection is flagging. But
he can't imagine how Butch wouldn't have noticed. Tate's desire is this
elephant stomping its big feet all around them all the fucking time. Breaking
everything to pieces.
"I'm hurt. After you threatened me, now you don't even wanna bust my face in?"
Butch sits back on his folded legs. "I'm wounded, deeply."
With mounting horror, Tate realizes he would take Butch like this too. With his
lips and cock straight from a girl's body and onto Tate's. He'd be Butch's
secret. Onto the list of impossible fantasies that fucking goes. Butch fucking
his wife, coming to Tate in secret after, whispering pretty lies about how Tate
is better, tighter, such a good fuck.
"Go, Butch. Get out before my dad catches you."
Butch listens this time, but he takes his sweet fucking time getting out. Just
before Butch goes, Tate has to know one thing.
"Was I first? To wish you happy birthday, I mean?"
"Yeah."
--
Amata waits for an opportunity to get into her father’s bedroom undetected. She
and Tate are curled up in her bed, on their sides, face to face, Tate’s back to
the door. He's too tired to be read to, and class is out for two weeks for
‘winter.’ A long time ago, it would snow this time of year. Not always in D.C.,
though, the place that's supposed to be over top of them. But it would get cold
and frozen water would fall from the sky, sometimes. There are photographs.
Tate's not sure if he would like snow or not. And the vault is always cold. So
he's not sure why they get two weeks off in the winter.
When they get back to class, it'll be their last semester. After that, Amata
will have more to do for the supervisory track. Tate will have even less to do
than he does already. Maybe he’ll get a sofa in his office, for
chaplaining...sure. Then he can sleep during the day while Amata follows her
father around.
The Overseer knocks on Amata’s bedroom door.
“Is Tate in there with you?” he calls from the other side.
“Yes, Mr. Almodovar,” Tate responds.
“Okay, well, I just need to step out to the office for a bit. Behave
yourselves.” Of course he doesn't mean that. And of course, they won't behave
themselves. Just, they’ll misbehave in a way the Overseer doesn't expect.
They wait until after the door to the hallway clicks closed to get out of bed.
Amata slides out the box where she keeps her screwdriver and paperclips. There
are other things in there. A journal, little plastic toys from Amata’s
childhood, a sketch of a woman. Tate doesn't ask about any of it. If Amata
wants him to know, she would have already told him about it.
Shoving the box back under her bed, Amata’s hands are shaking. “Okay, let's do
this.”
Tate is fairly sure Amata loves her father. That she thinks her dad is a good
man, doing his best. But he's not infallible. And she knows this too. For so
long he's been so set on keeping the vault door shut tight. And Tate thinks
Amata’s got it right. They need to look into this now, before they too get
settled, comfortable. Adults only ever want the easy way out. Him, and Amata,
and Butch, they need to act now, before they inflict these same sins on their
children.
Standing watch is sort of unnecessary, the only person who could catch them is
Amata’s father. Still, Tate works up a feasible story about why they would be
in his bedroom instead of Amata’s. None of the tales his concocts are
particularly flattering, but they’ll shield Amata from blame. ‘Just, honest,
looking for a little thrill, Mr. Almodovar, makes things...exciting. She kept
saying she didn't wanna, not in your bed.’
She's faster with this lock, getting better at lock picking in general, Tate
figures. Tate helps her by holding onto whatever she hands him so she can get
to the back of the safe. A box of mentats, a pouch filled with dozens of
rolled-up hundred dollar bills, two clips for a pistol. She pulls out a thick,
sturdy, hard bound book from the safe. Flipping through the book faster than
she could possibly read, Amata’s face lights up. “This is it, I think. Um,
here.” She tucks the book under one arm and starts taking stuff back from Tate,
just stuffing it in haphazardly. “See if you can find another book in the
living room about the same size. Hurry.”
Once Amata frees up his arms, Tate goes into the living room. Amata and her dad
have walls lined with books. He doubts her dad reads them. She might, though.
More likely they were just stuck in here before the bombs fell, and none of the
previous Overseers bothered to move them.
Tate runs his fingers along the bindings, looking for something similar to the
book Amata grabbed. He finds a hardcover, not quite as thick, but the same sort
of navy-colored cover. Close enough. If the Overseer scrutinizes it too much
he’ll know in any case.
Amata’s head is still stuck in the safe, trying to arrange the other items like
they were placed before. As if nothing were disturbed. Plucking the book from
Tate’s hands, she must approve of the match. She gets up on her toes to reach
towards the back, putting the decoy in.
“Okay, let's get out of here.”
Back in her room, Amata stows the pilfered book under her bed. They’ll check it
against the other one later, downstairs. Before her father can get back, they
crawl into bed together. Tate throws his arm around Amata’s waist and falls
asleep. He dreams of lemons, real ones. Wonders how heavy they would be in his
hand. How bright the color would be, looking at them in the flesh.
--
“Butch got himself locked up,” Amata tosses her bag on the table with a thud.
Tate’s beaten her downstairs. He's been experimenting with how early he can cut
out of apprentice hours before he gets in trouble. Pretty soon he won't be
going at all. Then, in May, when class is over forever, he’ll figure out if he
has to show up to his job. Probably not. Probably.
“What?”
Butch has been pretty, well, good, as of late. And since Butch has managed to
not fuck with Tate, Tate hasn't fucked with Butch, and neither of them have
gotten cell-tossed to calm the fuck down before being shipped back to their
respective parent.
“He just starting...punching Andy? I don't get it,” Amata explains.
Tate doesn't get it either. Better not to ask questions. Amata probably doesn't
have answers in any case.
--
“Hey, Tate,” Butch drapes one arm over Tate’s shoulders, his wrist hanging out
over the edge. “I got something to show you.”
Tate’s fairly confused about what Butch wants now. Since turning eighteen,
Butch doesn’t have to hide his smoking in supply closets anymore. He can just
go to the rec level and smoke with the other ‘adults,’ though Tate wouldn’t
call him that. He's not convinced they'll ever be anything but boys.
“What the fuck, Butch?” The arm around him isn’t more physical contact than
Butch usually engages in. Not by a long shot. Butch is actually really grabby
with Tate now, but only when they’re down on the reactor level. Just Tate and
Butch and Amata and no one else. Normally he doesn’t like, touch Tate in front
of other people. At least not like this.
“I have to show you, come on.” No deterring Butch, Tate trots along behind. He
sticks his hands in the pockets of his suit, trying to look disinterested.
Butch winds them through the halls until they’re in front of a locked room.
Tate has never seen anyone go in or come out of this door. That’s not so
strange. There are lots of places like that in the vault. Sections that have
been sealed off when whatever is inside outlives its usefulness, or breaks, or
becomes dangerous. No one thinks much of them. But, of course, Butch does.
Sticking his keycard to the lock, Butch gets the door open. Tate is well past
questioning how Butch gets into places he shouldn’t be. But Butch, particularly
pleased with himself today, provides the answer. “I changed my security
permissions last time they tossed me in the cell. Close enough to the terminal
my pipboy could connect.”
So, that explains punching Andy. Butch got locked up on purpose.
Inside the closet is dark. The overheads don’t switch on and the emergencies
have been cut. Butch turns on his pipboy light, Tate following suit. The door
snaps shut behind Tate. Butch reaches around to seal the door again with his
card.
From what Tate can make of the room, it’s not in that much disarray. There’s a
single couch against one wall, covered in heavy cloth to keep the dust off.
What looks like a short refrigerator sits in the furthest corner. There are
terminals stacked on the floor in neat rows, five of them, then a sixth up on
the table. The one on the table has been dusted clean, keyboard and all, and
plugs into a strip on the floor. It’s some sort of alternate rec room. But it's
so tiny. No bigger than one of the larger utility closets.
“I’ve been going through all these terminals looking for shit. For, you know,
Amata’s thing.” Butch steps on the bar under the table, lighting it up. Huh, so
there is power to the room. The emergencies flicker on. “There's beer in the
fridge if you want it. Probably warm. I don't leave the power on all the time,
too risky.”
The monitor takes a minute to warm up. Meanwhile, Tate pops the caps off of two
beers. He doesn't know if he's supposed to sit down or what. The dust cover is
still on the sofa. So he just stands there awkwardly, a room temperature beer
in each hand.
“Oh wait,” Butch pulls the cover off the couch, sending dust particles into the
air. Tate coughs as he breathes them in.
Butch takes his beer and keeps fiddling with the terminal. On the desk there’s
a half-full ashtray. Butch has been here a bunch of times, apparently.
“Cool, okay.” Butch grabs both his beer and the ashtray from the table.
Flopping down next to Tate, he smiles. “This is gonna be wild, Nosebleed.
Really.” Butch can just barely reach the keyboard if he leans forward. Pressing
the space bar gets the screen moving. Butch leans back, watching for Tate’s
reaction.
It's a video. Okay, but like, okay. It's a video of a woman, with light hair
and light skin, cast in the greenish-monochrome of the terminal. Even though
the colors aren't vivid, the image is sharp. She's got huge breasts and tiny
shorts. Her lips curl, then her mouth opens, but there's no sound. The computer
doesn't have speakers.
They watch in perpetual silence as she starts stripping, her shirt first,
breasts spilling out of her too-small bra. Then her shorts next. She smiles,
turns around to show her ass. It's soft, kinda flat.
Tate wonders in an abstract way if she's pretty. He thinks Amata is pretty.
He’s got some idea why Butch puts his cock in Christine Kendall. But he doesn't
know about this woman. She bends over, grabbing her ankles.
Next to him, Tate can hear the buzz of Butch pulling down his vault suit
zipper.
This is literally Tate’s worst nightmare.
What the fuck. What the fuck is he supposed to do?
But, mercifully, Butch stops short of pulling out his cock. He just rips his
arms out of the sleeves of his suit. Mumbling something about the room being
hot. Tate didn't notice until just now. He thought it was cold but now he's
second guessing himself because even though he's got less than zero interest in
watching this girl shove a….is that a twirling baton? Into her vagina, he has a
fuck of a lot of interest in Butch’s bare arms, that and the obvious bulge in
Butch’s suit. But there sure as fuck is no tactical way to be like ‘so,
fuckface, why don't I put my head in your lap?’
Instead, Tate stares straight ahead, watching this maybe pretty woman, ride
some fake penis with her tits bouncing and her mouth silently screaming.
Fuck. He's so fucked.
“You don't like it?” Butch observes.
Tate lies, but it's unconvincing. “No, I mean, yes, um, it's fine.” He's
sweating through his suit.
“We could try another video? Next time? There are a bunch.” Butch leans
forward, hitting space and pausing the video.
In a panic, Tate doesn't think his answer through. “Yeah, next time, a
different one. Maybe.”
--
“Amata,” Tate doesn't even know how to phrase this question.
She already knows something is up. “What, Tate?”
Suddenly, telling Amata everything feels like a very bad idea. Like maybe she
won't understand. Or it's breaking some sort of, he doesn't know, guy-trust
with Butch. This is Butch trying to like, fucking bond with him or some shit
over tits and vaginas and Tate doesn't know what to do with this information.
“You look pretty today.”
Amata narrows her eyes. “Fine then, don't tell me.” Turning on her heels, she
marches to her father’s office.
Tate wipes his hand down the front of his face. Lamenting yet another secret he
must keep.
Chapter End Notes
     Well, we're finally getting somewhere...aren't we, in this perpetual
     game of 'just kiss already' we've skipped several steps, first and
     foremost, the kissing...
     Anyway, comments and kudos very much appreciated! Hope you're having
     fun with FO4 if you're playing!
***** Visions, haunted screens, other synonyms *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
With the time it takes to break the code in Amata’s manuals, she doesn't have
time to read to Tate. She doesn't have time to shoot. She spreads out across
the long table on the reactor level flipping open two, three, four books at a
time. Butch shoots a little, but mostly he helps. Tate doesn't shoot at all. He
only helps.
“Eighteen, six, three, twenty-four,” Amata reads off numbers like they already
mean something to her. Tate jots them down in blue pen on the pad of paper
Amata sticks into his hands. When she's finished reading numbers, she takes the
paper from Tate and compares them against words in another book. She snatches
the pen from Tate’s hand next, so she can make her own marks.
Butch works his way through his third cigarette. “I'm gonna look again
tonight.”
“I'm sure you are, Butch,” Amata’s tone is terse.
“On the term-?” before Tate can finish his question, Butch’s fist tightens at
his side. Tate is getting better and better at reading the mounting signs of
aggression in others. Doesn't help him with himself, but it's a start. “In the
locked rooms?”
“Yeah, nothing like swapping my keycard with security’s, eh?”
Butch wants to hide what he can do with computers, with robots, with his own
fucking pipboy. It doesn't make any sense to Tate. Butch could be assigned a
way better job than what he's got now, if they knew. Butch isn't an idiot. He's
not. He's smart in a way Tate’s not, able to manipulate machines and numbers.
Those test answers Butch gave him for the final? They were all correct when
Tate got his exam back. When Butch got his exam back, they were marked wrong.
He'd put down wrong answers on purpose.
“I think I'm going to be able to do this without whatever criminal activity
you're engaging in, Butch,” Amata keeps her nose between the pages.
Draping his arm around Tate’s shoulders, Butch makes a last appeal. “Maybe I
ain't got nothing cause you're monopolizing Nosebleed. He says he doesn't do
anything, but he’s your lucky charm, doll.”
She tries to hide it, but Amata smiles. Butch’s fingers tug at the thick fabric
of Tate’s suit, right where the zipper meets blue.
“I'll take the kid out tonight.”
“Oh fuck off, Butch,” Tate pulls himself away.
--
In the weeks since Butch jumped into his bed, pinned him down, smiled, and told
Tate he was the first to wish him happy birthday, Tate’s fantasies have started
from that point.
Butch still smells like Christine Kendall, floral scent stinging Tate’s
nostrils like thorns. But that's part of the dream too. There's dried saliva on
Butch’s lips, an edge of lipstick he didn't wipe clean. It's on Butch’s collar
too.
But he whispers in Tate’s ear, “She wasn't enough.”
Butch would grab Tate’s hair in his fist, wrenching his head to one side and
exposing his throat. Not to kiss, only to make vulnerable. But they would kiss,
right? Somehow Tate finds that the more shameful part of the fantasy. Still
clothed, wrapped around one another, Butch’s mouth open and wet against his
own. Sharing breath as Tate tries to open Butch’s suit. Under the fabric, a
woman’s scratches, thin red lines tracking where Butch was before, just before
coming to Tate’s bed.
“She wasn't enough.”
Tate would rakes his short-cut nails over her marks. No, better, he’d flip
Butch over, hit him until he bruised, dark and purple so the red can't show.
Tate would wreck him then ask to be wrecked in return, order Butch to fuck him,
like Butch fucks Christine. Spread his legs around Butch’s hips. Sink Butch’s
cock inside him. Wait for Butch’s hands around his throat. Because Butch
wouldn't come easily, would he? It would be a fight the whole way down. Scars
of their tension blooming in vivid welts across their bodies, not ceasing where
one’s skin ended and the next began, an unbroken canvas of violence and lust.
If Tate doesn't meet Butch in the hallway, he's sure to try and break into
Tate’s bedroom again and he's not sure his heart (or his cock) could take the
fucking stress of that.
He finishes, coming in his hand. Wiping away the cum, he wonders if his father
thinks he finishes in Amata. If that's why there haven't been as many tissues
in his waste bin as of late. Really, it's just he's not as hopped up.
Butch might be able to smell it on him, the sweat and cum and desperation. But
Butch is the fucker who almost whipped his dick out in the little closet-lounge
while watching that girl shove a baton in her vagina. Tate still can't get used
to that idea. He fucking hopes that's not what they're up to tonight.
Tate slips out of his room. If James hears, he says nothing. Butch isn't
waiting, so Tate walks down the hall towards the DeLoria’s suite. He's only a
few steps out when Butch slips through the door. His eyes are rimmed red, his
suit unzipped.
Butch pulls his arms through the sleeves of his vault suit. “Let's go,
Nosebleed,” he wipes at his own nose.
There are half a dozen questions Tate could ask. None of them seem appropriate.
“Are you gonna be a problem?”
Butch plays with his switchblade. “You're always a problem, Tate.”
He can't argue with that.
To Tate’s great relief, they don't head towards that weird room. Instead they
head towards the rec level. It's not so late that everyone would be asleep. And
Butch can be out as late as he wants. But Tate is technically breaking curfew.
Were he at Amata’s side, he'd get away with it. But with Butch, Tate is more
likely to be carted back to his dad.
“Where are we going?” Tate shoves his hands into the pockets of his suit.
They're filled with Amata’s gum wrappers, two stims, and a screw that fell out
of his desk earlier. Tate couldn't find where it is supposed to fit back in.
“Need a smoke.”
Tate rolls his eyes. “We can't go to the lounge, I'm not eighteen yet.”
“I didn't say we were going to the lounge, did I?” Butch makes a turn, keying
through another door Tate hasn't noticed before. Just sort of blends into the
wall, though he must have passed it hundreds, thousands of times. Butch holds
the door open for Tate.
“Doesn't the Overseer or security or something see all your card activity?”
Tate and Amata have been exceedingly careful to avoid using her card to get
into suspicious rooms, though her permissions get broader with each passing
week. Tate is pretty sure his are still narrowly defined. Though he other day
he realized his card works on the Almodovar's suite.
Butch smiles, “gimme some credit. I fixed that long ago. Like the first thing I
did.”
“Why?” This has been bothering Tate for so long. “Why if you know all this
science shit, this computer shit, why don't you like, let Brotch know? Or
anyone? You could work in robotics, or, I don't know. Shit. Something other
than cutting people’s hair.”
The hall is a short one, with two doors. One left, one right. Butch doesn't
reach for either lock.
“What's the point, Nosebleed? So I have some ‘prestigious’ job? Like you and
your girl? Contribute to fucking society? Is that even what you want for
yourselves? Everything down here is shit. I'd rather contribute to this fucking
vault as little as humanly possible. So, nah, I don't wanna do anything but cut
people’s hair.”
That shuts Tate up. He doesn't bother explaining that he's not contributing
either. Or that helping Amata decode her manuals is their greatest
contribution. Maybe the only one they’ll ever make. But it is the function of
the young to question the taken-for-grantedness embedded in the old.
Tate wonders if that's why Werther is wonderful, and Faust is shit. Debauchery
isn't a bargain. It's a sacrifice. You have to give yourself over to it
completely. Goethe knew that at twenty-four, but he forgot it later.
“Pick a door, Tate.” Butch holds his keypass up for Tate to see.
Tate doesn't think about his decision. He doesn't grab the keycard, but wraps
Butch’s wrist in his hand instead, pulling Butch’s hand, card and all, to the
lock of the left door. Butch doesn't act like that is at all weird.
“Let's see what we’ve won.”
The door slides open. There are a couple of sealed, wooden crates and a series
of shelves lined with sundry other objects. Tate doesn't see any terminals,
which is ostensibly Butch’s goal in searching these rooms. But Butch starts
trying to pry open the crate with a screwdriver from his pocket. That's not
gonna be enough leverage. When Tate points out the obvious, Butch scowls and
asks if he brought his crowbar?
Tate looks over the shelves instead. There are some loose items: boxes of bobby
pins, wonderglue, some weird electronics components. And a fucking crowbar.
Tate snatches it up and stands behind Butch, who is still engrossed in trying
to open the crate with his pitiful little screwdriver. Tate taps Butch on the
back of the head with the crowbar. Not enough hurt.
“Watch the hair, Nosebleed,” Butch twists his head around, barely avoiding
smacking himself with the crowbar. “Oh.” He grabs it from Tate, “thanks.”
Not wanting to point out that he’s the stronger of the two of them, Tate stuffs
his hands back into his pockets. Besides, prying something open depends on
leverage so the difference in strength doesn't mean much. Butch gets the crate
open. The wood snaps under pressure when the nails get ripped out. Inside
there's a bunch of white styrofoam packing peanuts that start flying as Butch
digs through the crate. Tate takes the crowbar and starts on the next one.
“Well,” Butch comes up from the crate, stark white foam clinging in his black
hair from static, “I wasn't wrong. There are monitors in this box.”
Tate has the second crate open, but he figures Butch knows better than him what
they're searching for. So he pulls off the lid and waits for Butch to go diving
into the box. Butch stands, leaving the crate of monitors behind.
Reaching up, Tate pulls the peanuts out of Butch’s hair.
It seems like the thing to do.
He half expects Butch to be mad.
“Thanks.” Butch leans over the second crate.
They're quiet while Butch checks out the contents of the crate. Tate shoves the
scrap of foam from Butch’s hair into his pocket.
“Awesome. Fucking awesome.” Butch pulls a terminal out of the box. Setting it
onto the floor, his smile couldn't be broader. “Grab one of the monitors. And
see if there is an extension cable or something.” Butch gets back into the
crate.
By the time Tate has the monitor out, Butch pulls two more terminals.
“This might take awhile.” Butch sits on the floor, plugging in the first
terminal to a power strip and the monitor into the terminal. He fishes around
in his pocket. “Here, use my card to get into the other room. Let me know
what’s there.”
Tate grunts, taking the card from Butch’s fingers. Right, he should make
himself useful, not stare at the hunch of Butch’s shoulders as the workstation
comes to life. Waiting around doing nothing gets them nowhere.
The other room is filled with smaller boxes, not crates. Tate can just knock
the lids off of them. Each box is filled with a dozen or so identical toys. One
with blonde haired dolls, one with brown. A box of toy cars. They've seen
pictures of cars in their history books. Little teddy bears, then the bigger
box in the room has bigger bears. It's all sort of eerie, being surrounded by
so many glass eyes. There doesn't appear to be any sort of tech.
271257 > 130758: i got shit to show you
Tate doesn't respond via pipboy. Leaving the boxes uncovered, he returns to the
other room.
“What’s up?”
Butch sits cross-legged on the floor, a keyboard in his lap and a mouse sitting
on his thigh. He's got his cigarette in one hand, letting ash drop onto the
floor. The monitor flickers through a series of images on its own. Trees, snow,
rain, stars, birds, horses, dogs. Tate knows them all from photographs in
stained, peeling textbooks. Or blurry images on the standard, green-cast
monitors. But this display is different. All the pictures are in vivid color.
Stark, stunning. Tate has to catch his breath.
“Look,” Butch’s voice wavers. “This, this is outside.”
On the screen is the image of a cat with orange fur, its tail held up high and
back arched.
“It doesn't look like that,” Tate corrects. “It's not beautiful like that
anymore. The communists ruined the world.” That's what their history books tell
them.
Butch isn't hearing it. “What if it's still beautiful, Tate?”
Tate shrugs. Because really, what then?
--
Amata sees the pictures for herself the next night. Her brown eyes get wide and
wet. Butch taps his ash off into a cup, rather than onto the floor. Tate wraps
his arms around Amata’s waist from behind and rests his head on her shoulder to
watch the pictures cycle around a second time. The images don't tell them
anything about whether or not the vault has been opened.
“Oh,” Amata gasps, even though it's just the same fifty photographs over and
over again. “I want to see. I want to see it for real.” Her shoulders shudder.
Chapter End Notes
     Comments and kudos always very much appreciated. Even if it's still
     the constant cries of "just kiss already!" I swear, I swear they do
     kiss eventually.
***** Striking against the horizon as it falls down to meet the sea *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Realizing that vault life is just a series of scenes, static, flood-lit stages
on which Tate is meant to perform, he stops bringing his books to class.
There's only about a month left of school before their mock graduation, so
maybe Tate’s minor rebellion is not so courageous. But it brings him some small
comfort to show up to Brotch’s class without his costume on. Without having to
pretend he's learning anything. Tate still has to wear the scratchy vault suit,
though, because he doesn't have any other clothes.
Skipping class entirely would be more rebellious, but the thought doesn't even
occur to Tate until he catches Butch smoking outside the classroom door. While
Butch can smoke all he wants now that he's eighteen, it's only supposed to be
in designated areas. Watching him makes Tate feel very small. Not in comparison
to Butch, but when Tate stacks himself up against the sublime of the surface
he's only seen in photographs.
Butch is still a cliff, though, waiting for Tate to dive off the edge.
Tate doesn't say anything to Butch. They still don't speak very much in public.
Butch’s terms. Makes Tate feel like his secret, though the same could be said
of Amata. Tate considers other secrets worth sharing. But it's all still his
active imagination, his terrible fixation.
As Tate crosses Butch’s path, Butch shoves Tate so hard he nearly loses his
footing. About to ask ‘what the fuck?’ Tate is cut off when Butch decks him in
the face. He should have been fast enough to dodge. But the surprise of Butch
just smashing his fist into his jaw catches Tate unaware. They don't do this in
public anymore.
Tate doesn't hesitate the third time. Butch raises his fist, screaming curses,
his eyes half-closed, cigarette somewhere on the floor. This ain't a fair fight
anymore because even though Tate is pissed as fuck, Butch is even further gone.
Butch hasn't been casually smoking against the wall. He's been marinating in
some anger Tate knows nothing about.
Or maybe Tate does know.
Before Butch can hit him again, Tate grabs his arm mid-throw. Tate wrenches
Butch’s arm around to his back and knees him as hard as he can in the small of
his back. It's not the best move, because it leaves Tate off balance. He only
gets away with it because Butch isn't thinking straight; Tate only tries it
because he's not thinking straight.
Together they crash into the opposite wall. Butch’s face smashes into the wall,
breaking the impact before it can fully resonate through Tate. Tate feels the
hit in his ribs, though. With that kind of force, Butch’s ribs must have
broken.
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Tate screeches.
“I fucking HATE YOU!” Butch’s words slur. His mouth is filling with blood. When
he spits onto the floor, Butch’s saliva is thin, watery, and pink. “I hate you
so much, Zhang!”
Butch twists in Tate’s grip, head butting him full force once he's turned
around. Butch screams and screams, pain wracking his body. Tate stays silent,
stunned by the violence he has grown accustomed to in himself, but has never
seen from Butch. Not in such an abstract, primal iteration. Butch calls him,
“Zhang,” not “Tate,” not “Nosebleed.” Tate barely recognizes that name as his
own.
Blood streams into Tate’s eyes. He tries to blink it away. Butch’s headbutt
split the skin on Tate’s forehead.
Recovering, Tate throws them both to the floor. Butch torques his body sharply
enough that Tate lands with his back to the floor. His head hits metal, but
it's the bounce back up and the second hit that puts stars in his eyes. How is
this happening? Tate has always been a better fighter.
On top of Tate, Butch smells like smoke and the blood on his teeth. He doesn't
try to cover it anymore.
Tate pulls his legs towards his chest, kicking out to dislodge Butch from on
top. Reversing their positions, Tate straddles Butch at the waist, wraps his
hands around Butch’s throat. He presses his thumbs deep into Butch’s windpipe,
listening to him gurgle. Butch's hands wrap about Tate’s wrists, trying to pull
them away. But Tate is too gone now, too fierce and lost. He doesn't stop.
Two sets of hands try to pull Tate off. They can't make him budge. Someone,
female, screams for him to stop. It's not Amata. Tate doesn't know who it is.
Butch’s eyes don't look right anymore. They don't look awake.
Tate blacks out.
--
When he wakes to yellow-white light and antiseptic, Tate knows he's in the
clinic. Not confinement.
“Dad?” His voice isn't loud.
His father doesn't respond.
“Butch?” Tate doesn't turn his head, too afraid to see a corpse on the cot next
to him.
There are pieces missing. Scraps of memory that Tate can't quite stitch back
together. Some of the fibers unravel in his hands. He hasn't the strength to
mend them again. Tate wants to sleep for days.
“Butch?”
This time, his father answers, “Security has him.”
Tate pushes himself up until he's sitting, rather than laying down. He has a
bandage around his forehead where it split. A tube runs from the needle in his
arm to the IV bag. He doesn't know how long he was out. But he's here and Butch
isn't. Butch was more fucked up than him, wasn't he?
The sheet draped over Tate’s body does little for warmth. He's freezing, hairs
on his arms standing up.
Or did Butch wake up? Fuck Tate up real bad after he blacked out? What happened
in that time? He can't...he can't remember.
“Is he okay?” Tate realizes how sentimental he sounds too late.
“Don't worry about him, son. Your classmates saw everything. How he started
it.” James smiles softly, coming over to the bedside and pushing Tate’s hair
out of his eyes like he's still a child and not almost eighteen.
Tate bats his dad’s hand away. “But you, like treated him, right? I think...I
think I broke his ribs. And his face. And fuck, fuck,” Tate covers his face
with this hands. His hands shake of their own accord. “I need to tell him I'm
sorry.”
“Tate, you should lie back down.” This time James doesn't try to comfort Tate,
his voice is nothing but assertive.
Pulling the sheets from over his legs, Tate swings himself out of bed, his bare
feet hitting the tile. He's oblivious to the fact he's only in a pair of
boxers. It's not that he's delusional, exactly. He knows that his concern for
Butch will appear odd to his father, who still thinks the two of them hate each
other. And he knows that Butch started it, took the first swing. But he can't
shake this feeling something is very, very wrong. This isn't like when Butch
beat on the Mr. Handy so he could get celled on purpose. Fuck, Tate would have
killed him.
“Lie back down, Tate.”
When Tate looks into his hands, they're filled with blond hairs he's torn out.
Dry mouthed, he mumbles, “okay, okay,” and sits back down on the edge of the
bed. When he stood, he felt suddenly dizzy. Even now, he feels like he might
melt to the floor, a thick goop spreading out until it infects everything.
Tate sits, but he doesn't lie back down. James sighs and leaves him be. His
only concern is that Tate stays put. That he not chase “the DeLoria boy.” James
doesn't care to understand, only to treat. The less treatment, the better he is
at being a father; the more, the better he is at being a doctor. Something like
that. Tate doesn't give a fuck. He just needs to know why Butch hates him so.
Looking at his pipboy, Tate sees that only hours have passed, not days. That
makes his stomach constrict even more. There is no way Butch is well enough,
even pumped full of stims and med-x, to be out of the clinic.
130758 > 271257: Why do you hate me?
…
…
…
His father comes in, telling Tate he needs a stim. Tate doesn't know where.
While he feels drowsy, floating, he doesn't feel pain anywhere. Not anymore.
After the stim, shot into his pectoral muscle, he falls into a troubled sleep.
The green glow of his pipboy wakes him up.
271257 > 130758: the vault isnt big enough for us both
Tate doesn't know how to interpret Butch’s response. But somehow he feels that
the statement is true.
--
“Forget about Butch,” Amata bites her bottom lip. Ever-present highlighted
manuals sit in her lap. She's broken the code, worked out the instructions for
opening the vault. She shares her findings with Tate only in bits and pieces.
Maybe she doesn't think he's smart enough to understand. She may be right. “We
can do this without him,” she huffs.
They graduate in a week. There won't be a party, anything like that. But each
one of them will get a clap on the back, the adults will shake their hands.
Welcome to being productive members of vault society. Tate is sure Amata will
look lovely. She’ll say all the right things.
Her highlighter dries up mid-swipe. She tosses it across the room, landing
perfectly into the trash bin. The plastic is loud against the metal can.
“So this says under what conditions the vault is to be opened. But it's all
about...deformities in children. Certain things to look for. To know if the
vault must accept people from the outside.”
Tate stands in front of her, waiting for her to look up. He's only trying to be
helpful. “Do you see any signs?” Tate swallows. He doesn't want Amata to find
‘deformities’ in him. All of the kids look a little different from each other.
So he's not sure what a deformity is, or what it isn't. He's almost eighteen
and still a bit shorter than the other boys. Not a lot, but definitely shorter.
Susie Mack is as tall as him.
“Oh,” Amata looks up, her brown eyes wide, “no Tate. Not in you.” She reaches
out with one hand to squeeze his arm. “Not in any of us. What I mean, the
things they describe, they're...obvious. We would know.”
“So you don't think the vault has been opened?” Tate's not sure if he's angry
or relieved. Was this all for nothing, or does it make him feel more secure
that the outside will stay outside? Or did he think, despite his best efforts
to not-think, that there is a world outside that isn't the endless show in
which he never wanted to be an actor?
Amata squeezes his arm again. “Either that or they killed the babies.”
Tate knows immediately where this is going. “You need my dad’s records.”
Amata nods. “Please, Tate. You just need to look for children who don't exist.”
The rest of the hour Amata spends shooting. Tate does sit-ups and tries to
think of how to find the password to his dad’s computer. He's not Butch, and
now Butch is out of the picture. There have been no more furtive messages to
Tate’s pipboy. Butch is still in the cell. Paul and Wally threaten Tate daily
with repercussions, but Tate’s not afraid. They're too chicken-shit to try
anything. And if they have a lick of sense between them, they'd know the two of
them can't fight as well as one of Butch and one of Butch got destroyed. Tate
destroyed him. Ribs, jaw, internal bleeding.
That's when Tate will try to get into his dad’s files, while he's off giving
Butch the stims he still needs. James has to go to security to administer them.
The password to his terminal has to be written somewhere. Tate will find it.
For Amata.
--
Butch gets out of confinement tomorrow. At least, that's what Wally threatens.
So it's gotta be today that Tate gets into his dad’s machine.
They're letting Butch out so he can graduate with the rest of them. At least,
that's the logic of it. Truth is, it's too much trouble to keep anyone locked
up. And to punish Butch, really punish him, would throw Tate’s role in the
fight into question as well. The Overseer just wants to smooth everything over.
But no one can. The glass is already too broken, shards ground to dust. Butch
will never forgive Tate. Fuck, Tate already aches for forgiveness, because he
wants to feel Butch tug at his hair, he wants Butch to smile at Amata.
Tate waits until he sees James pass the open door of the chaplin’s office. Each
day, Tate has timed how long it takes James to make it to security and back. He
has a twelve minute window. He doesn't hide his walk over to the clinic.
Doesn't have to. But once inside, Tate is careful about the drawers and
shelves, making sure he doesn't make too much of a racket.
James wouldn't hide his password out in the open. Now, Tate’s not sure his dad
would have to write down his password at all, it would be something he, and
only he, could remember. While he shuffles through drawers, flips through books
perched on the shelves, Tate tries to think of possibilities. He comes up with
nothing in his hands, so it's gotta be somewhere in Tate’s brain. Four minutes.
The terminal is already on, but locked. Password options race across the screen
in green text. Butch would know how to do this. But Butch is locked up. Butch
rightfully hates him. Butch is as out of the picture as possible.
Tate closes his eyes and clicks. Because there's nothing in his stupid head to
help him except that his mother’s name was Catherine. And before her name was
‘Zhang’ it was ‘White.’ And he's never heard a soul in the vault so much as
mention her in passing. And there are no other Zhang's in the vault but him and
his dad. There are no Whites at all. Wilkins and Wolfe but no White.
The terminal beeps. Tate doesn't know what he pressed, but he's in. Quickly as
he can manage he navigates to birth records. His hands are shaking, three
minutes. He scans the names for people he doesn't recognize. An extra Mack
child, or if Brotch had a kid before his wife died quite suddenly. But nothing.
There are no extra people.
He skips to the very end. For White or Zhang or some combination of the two.
There’s nothing.
Back to the top of the list. An entry for Almadovar, F. 21.08.2258. Tate clicks
on the entry. Brown eyes. Six pounds, twelve ounces. Delivered by Dr. F.
Armstrong, not Dr. J. Zhang. He backs out of the entry. Fuck. Fuck. DeLoria, M.
27.12.2257. Blue eyes. Seven pounds, eight ounces. Delivered by Dr. F.
Armstrong.
One minute.
Where is he? Where is Zhang, M. 13.07.2258? Brown eyes. Where is Tate?
He can hear his father's footsteps approaching. Rather than run, he exits out
of the terminal, leaving it at the password screen. Tate slumps down in his
father’s chair, gripping on to the edge of the table, formulating his story so
that he's ready. All he wants to do is scream at James. He came looking for
broken babies, and found out that he doesn't exist.
“Tate?” James doesn't sound particularly surprised. Dropping his medical kit
onto the desk, he doesn't even tell Tate to leave. “Are you alright?”
“I was just lonely is all. Amata is busy today. And no one comes to see me.”
James’ face softens. “I don't have much in the way of work today, either.” He
looks around the clinic. “Let's just take the rest of the day off.”
Shucking his lab coat, James leaves it behind in the clinic. Dumbfounded,
silent, Tate leads the way back to their shared suite. His father puts his hand
on Tate’s shoulder as they walk. But they don't talk.
They spend the rest of the afternoon reading magazines they've read dozens of
times before. Tate points out articles his dad already knows by heart. Things
about vacationing in Hawaii and the newly built fortifications in Alaska.
Absentmindedly, Tate says he wishes he could see the ocean for real. Something
great, deep, and terrifying. Like, all the sea creatures were scary before.
Giant squid and great white whales. They must have survived. Nothing, nothing
could kill the sea.
James slips up, “it's true; it's beautiful.”
Chapter End Notes
     Comments and kudos always super appreciated. Also I'm running a
     fanfic/follower giveaway on my tumblr
***** This is Hell, but it Sure is Worth It *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
“There aren't any extra children, I mean, there aren't records of people I
didn't recognize.” Tate hesitates, not knowing how much he should share with
Amata, how she will react.
Her face falls. She tucks a strand of hair that has come loose from her
ponytail back behind her ear. She's used heat to make it straight instead of
curly. Even though they're alone on the reactor level, they keep their voices
low. Neither has bothered to get the gun today. Tate pushes up his sleeves.
“There had to be something? Why are you so nervous?” But she's nervous too,
wringing her hands, then putting her fingers on the tab of her zipper.
“I-” he's not sure how to explain. How does one define an absence, rather than
a presence? “I looked at some of the records, my dad wasn't delivering babies
around the time we were born. Someone named F. Armstrong was.”
“Well, that's not so odd. Felicia was Stanley’s wife, wasn't she? She must have
been the vault doctor before your father...when she died, your father took
over, is all.” But there is a waver in her voice. Tate can hear it.
“There aren't…” He's still not sure. “There isn't an entry for me, Amata.”
“Tate, what do you mean?”
“There's no record of my birth, so, like, what if the other damaged children
just didn't have records? But they, they changed their mind about me?”
Wordlessly, Amata throws her arms around Tate’s shoulders, she holds him close,
kissing the side of his face. “Tate, Tate, you're not broken, don't say that
about yourself, you're not.”
He wants to believe her. He does. It is almost too easy to do so. Because
Tate’s quick and he's strong. He's got all his fingers and toes. His eyes and
ears and nose are all in the right place. So yeah, he's not broken on the
outside. But even Amata can't see inside of him. How he's not put together
quite right. And fuck, fuck, he's going to drag Amata down with him. Like he
tries to drag Butch.
Tate runs his fingers along Amata’s arms.
There are these spiraling thoughts in his head of non-existence. A flesh and
blood child with no record in the computer. But that's just lines of text.
Code, Butch would call it. Fuck, Butch might be able to fake a record for him,
or make one disappear. There would be comfort in that, blaming his deletion on
Butch. But Tate doesn't believe that for a second.
--
Graduation is a simple thing. They gather in the rec room, students seated in
folding chairs and their parents on the other side. Old adults watching the
newly minted ones. Everyone is a vault citizen at ten, when they get their
pipboy. Tate's wrist itches everyday from the bioseal. He wonders about that
strip of flesh underneath that he'll never see again. Whether it turns rusty
and hard. They're vault citizens at ten, but graduation is a remnant from the
surface. They've seen ads in the magazines.
The students sit in a line at the front of the room, alphabetical by last name.
Amata is first; Tate is last. In the alphabet there's a big gap between "M" and
"Z" but there's no one between Wally and Tate.
Leaning over, Wally points out that Tate is staring down the line. Tate slips
away from the back of his chair, legs straight and his toes sticking up.
"Amata looks pretty," Tate mumbles. Really, Wally is right. Tate's trying to
look at Butch. Hasn't seen him since they fought.
Grunting, Wally isn't fooled. He can't fight Tate, but Butch can. "You'll be
seeing plenty soon."
Tate shrugs.
They don't pay attention to what the Overseer says. Something about the future,
the children, and himself. Tate plays with the gum wrappers in his pocket,
trying to convince himself that he's real. When did he last see Amata chew gum?
Yet his pockets are always cluttered.
Amata talks next, because she's got the best marks. Except Butch's could be
better than hers in science and math, only he puts down the wrong answers on
purpose.
Tate wants to scream what a sham this all is. Butch is pretending to be stupid.
Amata is pretending to be a nice girl. Tate's pretending to be a person.
In his head, that sets off an avalanche. Student by student they would stand,
confess for the true subject behind the marionette performance. Then they
wouldn't have to cry over colored photos of a world that died long ago.
Instead of standing and shouting, Tate twitches. Wally's tapped him on the
shoulder, it's his turn to get his diploma. Sliding to his feet, Tate stands.
He has to walk across the row of other students to reach the Overseer. From the
corner of his eye, he can see Butch’s long fingers rubbing against the legs of
his vault suit. Just itching for something, maybe decking Tate in the face,
right here in front of everyone.
Maybe this would be the time Tate kisses him instead. Because the vault will
never be big enough for the two of them.
Overseer Almodovar hands Tate his worthless scrap of paper. Between his
fingers, the sheet feels incredibly thick. The Overseer extends his hand to
shake Tate's. On autopilot, Tate takes the hand, squeezes it back. Clapping
Tate on the shoulder brings the proceedings to an end. The other residents
don't even wait for Tate to take his seat again. The whole thing is over.
His father tells him congratulations. Amata breathes so heavily, her chest
rising and falling, it must be with relief. Butch is already gone.
There's another party, a surprise no one expected, in the endless stream of
vault celebrations. There won't be alcohol because not all of the graduates are
eighteen yet and there will be parents so in the end no one goes at all. The
diner sits empty, Andy cutting the cake for guests who don't arrive.
Tate and Amata spend the evening in her room, taking turns reading from Faust.
They still haven't finished it. Tate keeps forgetting what has already
happened.
“You’ll be okay, Tate,” Amata plays with his hair. She's changed out of her
vault suit and into her nightclothes. Tate knows neither of their fathers will
come looking for them tonight. He keeps his arm around her waist. Her socked
feet press against his bare shins. Didn't bring anything to change into, so he
lays in her bed in his singlet and boxers.
He speaks from memory, “One might as well say, The fool, to die of a fever! why
did he not wait till his strength was restored, till his blood became calm? all
would then have gone well, and he would have been alive now.”
Amata keeps on spinning his bleached hair between her fingers. His roots have
gotten long. “You’ll sweat your fever out, eventually. Everyone does.”
“Have you?”
“Everyone does, eventually.”
The two of them will always speak in garbled code. But it's not at all like the
one at Tate’s wrist, coming through in rapid bursts from Butch, then falling
silent for long stretches. Tate supposes that is over now. His pipboy won't
light of its own accord.
Tate kisses Amata’s forehead, waiting for her to fall asleep. When he's
certain, he rolls onto his back, tapping at his pipboy dial.
130758 > 271257: I hate you.
Butch is probably with Christine. Or Susie, or anyone, really. He could take
his pick. And Butch isn't curled around his girl chastely, clothed, on the
fuzzy edges of sleep. Sometimes, when Tate thinks about Butch fucking women, it
makes him aroused. Now, with Amata pressed to his side, her hair spilling
across his arm, it makes him sick to his stomach.
Tate doesn't mean to, the thought just slips in. Of Butch fucking Amata while
he watches. Fuck. He has to stop.
271257 > 130758: stop.
--
271257 > 130758: come to the room
271257 > 130758: you know the one
It's the week before Tate’s eighteenth birthday. He hasn't heard from Butch in
five weeks. Saw him in the hall, though. His face and neck now unmarked from
Tate’s assault. The stims did their job just fine.
Tate rolls over in bed. He had been groggy, but not really sleeping. Just sort
of in between. He rubs at his eyes with closed fists, trying to focus better on
the pipboy screen. He can't fucking believe it.
130758 > 271257: What the fuck?
271257 > 130758: just come nosebleed
The nickname makes Tate’s stomach twist. He's realized now that the insult is
to keep some measure of affection out. Like, ‘Nosebleed’ is something Butch and
Butch alone can hold onto. Not the phantom Tate who is sometimes so tired,
sometimes can't sleep, and sometimes nearly kills the fuckface he's wanted to
put his hands all over since he was ten.
Not bothering to reply, Tate grabs his shoes instead. Pants, he needs pants. By
the emergency lighting and his pipboy he finds yesterday’s vault suit. He
sticks his legs through the pants but doesn't bother with the arms, letting
them hang loose. Pressing his ear to the door, he listens for his father.
Reasonably assured that he can make it out, Tate slides open the door.
He doesn't remember exactly, exactly which door. Trying to retrace his steps
from months before, Tate passes the rec room, rounds the corner. The right door
is left slightly ajar. Tate slips inside.
Butch hasn't bothered to turn on the overheads, but the terminal is on. “Close
the door.”
Mercifully, while the computer is turned on, Butch isn't watching anything. The
door clicks closed behind Tate.
“Here,” Butch holds out a beer for Tate to take. “Sit down.”
Tate holds the beer but doesn't drink it. He stares straight ahead but doesn't
see anything, his vision going blurry. Next to him, Butch smells like smoke,
always does. And mint, he's brushed his teeth. Tate wants to scream at Butch to
just hit him already. He fucking deserves it, right in the jaw.
“I found a new vid. Thought you would like it.” Butch’s voice is oddly
monotone. Like he's reading the lines poorly from a script.
“Yeah,” Tate means, ‘no.’ “Let's watch it.” ‘I'd rather be dead.’
“Got speakers too. Gotta keep them low, though.” So, apparently, they're not
here to talk, to figure out what it is between them that makes the vault so
small, so dangerous. Butch clicks around on screen to pull up the right vid.
Tate watches the way Butch’s weight shifts at his hips as he fiddles with the
terminal.
The sound from the speakers is tinny, terrible. But there are a few notes of
inoffensive music. Two voices. One is the woman. This one is smaller, more
petite. Tate still doesn't know if she's pretty, but she's less exaggerated,
with a trim waist under her oversized shirt. She smiles at the camera, pulls
her shirt over her head.
“Thought this one would suit you better, maybe.” Butch doesn't look anywhere
but straight ahead. He palms his cock through his suit, but he's not totally
hard yet. Tate realizes he's supposed to be watching the screen, not Butch. He
tries to sink into the couch cushions. They don't have enough give to let him
disappear.
Someone, male, from behind the camera, sticks his fat fingers into the girl’s
mouth. She smiles around them, bats her massive eyelashes. Bites down, licks.
Tate has got to make something of this situation. Butch’s breathing next to him
like a marching band.
The man from behind the camera comes in front. He’s tall and broad, with hairy
legs and a big, exposed cock. His face isn't all that, but his body is, even if
he's got more fat on his stomach than strictly necessary. Tate sort of likes
it. And he likes how easily he picks up the woman, tossing her on the bed and
wrenching her legs apart. The man on screen says he's gonna fuck her good,
until she screams his name.
Tate's never gonna admit he likes this vid more. Like it would be fucking
admitting defeat in the wake of Butch’s perception. Finding a middle ground
even though Tate hasn't told Butch directly. Could Butch tell on his own?
With his eyes shut, Tate feels out the word in his mind, because he's still not
ready to tell Butch with his tongue. Queer.
The woman on screen moans, says she's a good slut. She wants to get fucked. The
man says she'd better bounce on his cock. Tate opens his eyes.
Next to him Butch moves. Tate can hear the zipper of Butch’s vault suit. He
doesn't look. He watches the cock plunge in and out of the woman. They're
framed now so he can't see their faces. Just her tits bouncing with exertion
and his dick in her cunt.
“You like that don't you?”
Even through the distortion of the speakers, Tate likes the voice. Likes
Butch’s groan better. And fuck, fuck he’s hard. But he doesn't know. He doesn't
know how far this is going to go. What the fuck Butch thinks is going on. Is
this normal? Does he do this with Wally and Freddie and Paul? Maybe the four of
them sit on this cramped couch together, touching their cocks and watching
women who died in the blast get fucked.
This is fucked.
Before he can start thinking crazy things, like Butch kneeling between his
legs, sucking down his cock, Tate reaches into the waistband of his suit.
Before he can think of himself on his hands and knees, Butch fucking him from
behind while the other boys call him disgusting names, because they always
knew, even before Butch did. He's gotta get off before he does more than think,
before he actually reaches out to touch.
Tate wraps his hand around his cock. As long as he only looks straight ahead,
there’s no issue. Butch is doing the same next to him. Tate can hear the sound
of skin on skin as Butch touches himself. They're not going to talk about this.
Tate ends up looking at nothing, but trying to divide his ears between, “Yes,
I'm your dirty little whore, fuck me,” and the way Butch’s breath hitches when
he gets close.
“Fuck,” that's Butch, not the vid. Tate stops moving altogether while Butch
comes. The whole scene is too visceral, too close, even if he's not looking. If
Tate comes from the sound of Butch falling apart, he's pretty sure his life is
fucked forever. But now it's too late because he knows the needy, deep sort of
grunt Butch can't suppress. There aren't any words there, mingled in between
the pleasured noises, shifting to those of relief. At least, Tate can't fit the
syllables into any words that he knows. He wants the vid to shut the fuck up.
Tate strokes himself again, three times in quick succession, and comes in his
cupped hand at the end. He wants to die. Because when he shifts his head, Butch
is looking. Then he looks away, leaning over the armrest of the couch and
pulling out a box of tissues. Butch dumps the box between their bodies but
still doesn't talk. Doesn't acknowledge what is going on.
Wiping his fingers, Tate figures he's got to say something.
“Yeah. I suppose this vid is better.”
Butch leans forward to turn it off.
--
Only children have birthday parties, so when Tate turns eighteen it's over
beers on the reactor level with Amata. He shoots a little, but he's still shit.
Amata doesn't even bother with correcting his errors anymore. Something new
that he's doing wrong will just crop up.
They've given up, for the time being, on trying to figure out the door. If it's
ever been opened. If mangled children were never entered into the computer,
their best chance at knowing of the conditions were fulfilled is gone. Dried
up. There's still the panel at the entrance. But Amata is certain her father
would know the second she powers up the station.
Tate almost suggests that Butch could do it, figure out how to get the panel
and display on without ever alerting the Overseer. But Amata doesn't even know
that Butch and Tate are talking.
Well, more accurately, Butch and Tate aren't talking. Butch sends him messages
in the middle of the night, on that first night and two more times this week,
to come to the room. They watch videos of men fucking women and touch
themselves. Sometimes Butch asks Tate, “that was good, right?” As he's zipping
up his suit.
Yeah, Butch, it was good.
“I got you a present,” Amata says in between precisely placed shots. Her
birthday is still a month off. Tate has been trying to figure out what to get
her. He wants to give her a gun. Like a 10mm. Something stronger than the BB
gun that's still light enough for her to hold easily. But while he knows the
vault is full of guns, he's not sure yet how to swipe one from security. Maybe,
if he asks, Butch will help him.
“What is it?” It's probably a book. Tate hopes it's not Goethe. Faust was
terrible and Tate’s glad it's over.
Amata puts down the gun on the table and rifles through her pack instead,
pulling out a small, dark box. Not a book, then. Fitting the box into Tate’s
palm, she goes back to shooting before he can even open the gift. Inside is an
old world quarter. He's not sure the gift makes sense. There's a dead man on
one side and a eagle on the other. Eagles were some sort of symbol of “the
United States,” that place that used to be upstairs. It might still be, for all
they know.
He turns the coin over and over in his fingers, still trying to understand.
There's something precious there, but he can't make sense of it.
Amata supplies the answer to the question he hasn't asked. “I found it. It's
new.”
And that's enough of their short-hand for Tate to understand. Currency never
put into circulation, locked down here with their ancestors for a future that
never came to pass. One where they went back upstairs and rejoined the world
where every day could be different. That promise that was never fulfilled. But
that's why the coin came to live in the vault, because one day, they were
supposed to join the surface. This coin that maybe never saw the sun, trapped
instead in a box as it traveled to the vault, like their ancestors did. Tate
and Amata, Butch, everyone. They're like this coin but they're not. They're
sealed up, they're new.
Tate puts the quarter back into the box. He doesn't want to touch it too much,
scratch it up. When they're finished shooting, he locks the new coin in with
the old, busted up gun. The gun needs repairs, so Tate will need to swipe the
parts from somewhere. That's easier than lifting a whole gun, because Stanley
isn't the most organized guy.
Tate tries kissing Amata on the lips, instead of the cheek, the forehead, the
bridge of her nose. It's the first time he's done so since she turned
seventeen. But back then everyone was watching them. It was for the
performance, and they both knew that. This time, he tries to really kiss her.
Like how he thinks about kissing Butch. Open-mouthed and wet. But it doesn't
fit Amata. It's not fair to her. She parts her lips, she does, and kisses back,
though they both know better.
When Tate pulls back he mumbles that he's sorry. He shouldn't have forced
himself on her. Amata’s cheeks are flushed, her lips moist. She licks them.
“Don't do this, Tate, not on my account.” But she likes it. Tate knows she
does. And he feels like fucking trash because of it.
Tate can't meet her eyes, not now. “Go on up, to dinner. I'll be there in a
sec.”
Amata doesn't fight him, grabbing her pack before heading back upstairs. Tate
waits until he hears the door click closed to scream into his hand. Again and
again until he is hoarse. When he's finished, he wipes the tears of exertion
away from his eyes. There's no mirror downstairs, but he already knows that
they're red. When he wipes at his nose, his hand comes away bloody. Fuck.
Tate sits with his back to the wall. He can make this life work, he knows he
can. It's just the details of it have got to get sorted.
When he finally makes it to dinner, Amata is nearly finished eating. Freddie is
sitting next to her, alternating between bites of his mashed potatoes and
talking to Amata about his assignment as Jukebox repairman. But the jukeboxes
are shit, with all the same songs. No fixing that. Tate questions why Freddie
is there. But his conversation with Amata is innocuous enough. Freddie explains
himself, “this is where people come when they don't like their friends.”
Tate can't even argue with that.
Across the diner, Butch looks back at their table. But Tate’s got no idea who
Butch is actually looking at.
Chapter End Notes
     WELCOME TO HELL WELCOME TO HELL.
     Comments and kudos much appreciated.
     tumblr
***** Demise *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
There’s no preamble to it now. Butch sometimes sends a message:
271257 > 130758: come
And Tate, as if in a dream, listens.
But then Tate tries it the other way around. Instead of waiting for Butch to
send a message, he pulls on a fresh vault suit instead of yesterday’s, sticking
his arms into the sleeves and zipping all the way up until the tab almost
touches his chin. Tate takes the time to lace up his boots properly, tie them
off in neat bows. He tucks his pant legs inside the boots.
On his way to the room Tate keeps his hands in his pockets so he can wick away
the sweat. Too late he realizes that his keycard probably won’t work on the
door. Butch has always left the door open for him, a fraction of an inch, but
it’s there. Otherwise, he doesn’t know how to get in. But Tate’s resolve is
there. Standing in front of the closet door, he presses his key to the pad. It
rings back INACCESSIBLE. Fuck.
Wiping his hands against his pant legs, Tate devises another plan. Fuck, he
wanted to be sitting, sprawled out on the couch, waiting for Butch to come to
him. For one fucking time, he wanted to dictate, even if they still couldn’t
quite talk.
Instead of leaving, Tate sends out a message.
130758 > 271257: Come.
And, so, Tate waits. He listens for footsteps coming down the hall, running
dozens of scenarios, what he would say to each and every vault resident that he
could have encountered. What he would say to Officer Gomez or the Overseer or
his dad or Stevie Mack. Fuck. Stevie Mack. Shit. He’s so caught up in possible
deceits that he could weave that he forgets entirely that he’s eighteen and
there’s no curfew anymore. So while being out this late is strange, it’s no
longer forbidden.
The footsteps come. Tate waits to see who they belong to. He lets out ten
breaths worth of air when it’s Butch. Leaning against the wall Tate hopes he
looks like this is what he intended all along.
And it sort of is, because Butch looks frazzled and rumpled, his shirt wrinkled
and his hair soft and unstyled. Because Butch’s eyes are light, they show his
drowsiness.
“What do you want, Nosebleed?” but Butch clearly knows because he’s already
keying the door open for them. Between yawns, his hand brushes against Tate’s
side to direct him into the room.
He came. Tate called and Butch came. This changes everything.
They still don’t talk, but they don’t open beers either. Tate sits on the
couch, unzipping to his navel and then stopping. Butch waits for the terminal
to turn on.
“Which one do you want?”
Tate at least stops short of saying, ‘you.’ “Doesn’t matter.”
Butch shrugs and turns back around, scrolling through the folder. By what
criteria he selects the vid, Tate doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. He’s not going to
watch it, really, he’ll listen, though. He’ll listen and put the wretched words
into other voices. Maybe, once the fucking starts, he’ll look at the guy’s cock
so he doesn’t look at Butch’s.
Plopping down next to Tate, Butch sits closer than he normally does. Close
enough that Tate can feel Butch’s arm graze against Tate’s when he unzips his
jeans.
Tate has no idea what’s going on in the vid other than the chant of “take it,
take it.” But even that falls away when Butch’s arm stops moving and he pants
out “fuck.” Tate’s still not out of his suit but his cock is hard and he wants.
He wants.
“Tate?” Butch sounds concerned instead of angry. Like maybe this time they’ll
talk. When Tate doesn’t reply, Butch just settles back against the cushion,
still waiting on Tate to touch himself, or something.
He finishes unzipping his suit, grabs his cock and strokes. Butch watches him.
Tate doesn’t have to watch Butch to know that he’s looking. Like this, with his
feet planted apart on the metal floor and a soft-haired, cloudy-eyed Butch
watching him, Tate comes easily. He doesn’t have to make up a scenario that
will never come to pass. He doesn’t have to make himself into another person.
As messed up as Tate is, as broken, forgetting his lines and where the
boundaries of the stage exist, having Butch watch him is sort of beautiful.
They still don’t talk. Butch leaves the box of tissues in between them, putting
in more space than there was before. When Tate can finally look at Butch, he’s
not looking back anymore. Butch’s ears are red, though.
Butch stops the video. They sit together in the too-bright wash of the
emergency lighting. What emergency, though? And why must it always be so
bright? Tate wants to fall into an endless darkness where he and Butch can’t
see what they’re doing. Because maybe then they’ll stop being shit to each
other. Maybe then they can be kind. Maybe not, though. Because maybe, in the
dark, they would just lose sight of one another, never find their way back
home.
--
When Beatrice Armstrong comes to the chaplain's door, Tate’s got nothing to
say. He still has no idea what the fuck he’s doing at his job, though he spends
about six hours a day now pretending like he’s got a function. Like he isn’t an
extra body in the vault. He can’t shake the idea now that he doesn’t belong. He
wasn’t accounted for.
“Oh! I didn’t realize this was your office,” Beatrice exclaims. She runs her
fingers along the door frame. Tate’s door is just like all the others.
“Yeah?” Tate really doesn’t have more to contribute than that. Doesn’t want to
ask her if she needs help because, fuck, what would he even do if she said yes?
But she must be looking for something, or someone. Otherwise she wouldn’t be
here, right? “Are you looking for someone?”
“No, I don’t suppose I am,” her voice is incessantly cheerful. Beatrice never
married, though her sisters did. Tate wonders about that. But her next sentence
betrays any line of thought that Tate may have traced to its conclusion. “Have
you seen Edwin?”
“No,” Tate turns back to his terminal, scrolling through the same files again.
At least he can look busy. He’s got a question though. For her. “Your mom was
vault doctor?”
Beatrice’s face lights up, “oh, yes! Until your father arrived. She was very
clever. And wonderful with patients.”
Tate laughs because his father is terrible with patients. Like he’s always
trying too hard to be perfect, and forgets to be kind. Tate doesn’t know how to
be nice either, so, there’s that.
“There he is!” She must have caught sight of Mr. Brotch, because she leaves
without saying goodbye.
Going back to his screen, Tate wonders if Mrs. Armstrong was there when his
mother died. There are no photos of her, at least as far as Tate’s seen. She's
a name, CATHERINE, that he could pin to the wall, scrutinize. Maybe she could
tell Tate something about himself, something he can't see when he looks at his
father, seeing only the same features of his face reflected back.
Tate gives up on the monitor, scratching doodles into paper with his pen. They
all look terrible. He tries writing poetry next, because he thinks he could do
better than Faust. But maybe that's unfair because he knows that Faust was
written in German and then translated into English, so it must have lost
something. The same could be said of Werther, but either it was sublime the
first time around, or the English turn of phrase adds something.
I know this girl/she is beautiful, bright, and alive/I hope one day she'll
scream/that she's fallen in love/with a boy who isn't me.
--
“There's no choice,” Amata paces the floor of her room. Her bed is unmade, her
hair a mess around her shoulders, having come loose from her ponytail some time
ago. Tate puts his hands on each of her shoulders to try and steady her.
“I’ll do it,” Tate asserts. “We’ll use my keycard. You won't touch anything.”
Amata hisses back, “No, Tate,” she wretches free from Tate’s grip. “We will get
caught. I don't doubt that for a second. But my father will be lenient with
me.”
“How lenient?” Tate starts to get angry with her. This back and forth of
wanting to defy her father, then turning tail and running away. He knows he can
do this, he can take the fall too. Not so much to protect her, but because she
won't go through with it at the last second. And he won't waver. “You know him,
Amata, you know being his daughter will only carry you so far.”
“And what's the alternative? That you do it? That’ll ruin everything.”
They shouldn't even be talking here, in her room, where her father surely
monitors them. Recently, Tate has started to get nervous. Like somehow the
Overseer has caught on that Tate isn't actually having sex with his daughter.
That might be as grievous an offense as opening the vault door.
“What will it ruin, Amata?” Tate tries to be soft. Because this is Amata, his
best friend, who asks so little of him in return for the great volume she gives
back.
She balls her hands into fists. Maybe for once in her life, she's actually
going to hit Tate, after years of watching Tate hit shit. “Our life, Tate.”
“And it's better if you do it? That you risk yourself?”
“We can't do nothing.” She sounds like a petulant child. It doesn't suit her.
Of course they can do nothing. Nothing is the status quo. The vault has had
two-hundred years of nothing. There may be two hundred more.
Tate pulls Amata close, pressing the side of his face into her hair. Maybe she
wants him to kiss her again, but Tate promised himself he wouldn't. Kissing her
is an act of manipulation, not of his love for her, as vast as it is.
“I'll do it, trust me.”
Amata relaxes in Tate’s arms, though he's not sure it's warranted.
--
Tate doesn't wait for the middle of the night, though he does depart for the
entrance in the evening, just after dinner. Through years of experience, he's
realized the vault is not as densely populated as he thought as a child, when
it felt like there was no room to breathe. Now Tate knows hallways are often
empty, that he can walk for long stretches while seeing no one at all. That
doesn't mean his mission is safe, exactly, only that he may go for a walk
undisturbed.
As he walks, he replays Amata’s instructions in his mind. The red button to
turn the console on, the toggle buttons to scroll through the display, not to
flip the giant lever, under any circumstances. She offered to draw him a
diagram, but Tate is fairly sure he's got this. Red button, toggle switches,
read the dates, don't touch the lever.
The door isn't guarded because there's no need. They're locked in by ideology,
not by steel. At first, Tate stares at the massive round door in awe. The
definition of sublime. The vastness of what lays beyond the door nearly brings
Tate to tears. An expanse he may never see directly, only through photographs
may he know its contours.
Standing in front of the console, Tate looks for all three things he needs
before touching any of them. Red button, toggle switch, display. He puts his
fingers at the edge of the panel, millimeters away from the buttons. Now is the
time. Tate already used his keycard to get this far, there's no question now of
who would have activated the door. He won't be able to feign innocence. There's
a record. There's always a record.
With his hand already on the button, Tate hears footsteps approaching. He
snatches his hand away, stepping back from the console. Fuck, fuck, he's
shaking and he can't stop. Think of an excuse, think of an excuse.
“Zhang?” Stevie lowers his gun when Tate runs towards him. Shock, maybe,
because Stevie would be just as likely to shoot.
Tate throws his arms around Stevie’s shoulders, pressing his face to the
security officer’s chest. That's got Stevie off balance enough that Tate can
figure out the next step. Fuck. Stevie’s hand, the one that's not holding the
10mm, threads through the back of Tate’s hair. Shit.
“Zhang?” Softer this time, melancholy. And Tate knows full well it's easy to
treat Stevie like shit because he doesn't give a fuck about Stevie Mack. He
doesn't. Stevie is just another poor sucker like Tate. If anything, Tate only
really wonders who it is Stevie wanted in the first place. What little baby
belongs to the man he couldn't have, the man sleeping thirty feet away tucked
into bed with his wife, who Stevie can never touch. So he tries to touch Tate
instead.
Could Tate kiss him? What would that mean? Nothing, in the long run. Stevie has
a cock, sure, and he's not the ugliest guy in the vault. And Tate can feel
through Stevie’s fingers, the way they graze the back of Tate’s neck, that he
wants Tate. Kissing Stevie could give them access, to security records, to that
10mm Stevie’s still holding in his other hand. It would mean Tate could stop
meeting Butch in cramped closets where they don't touch each other.
But Tate remembers that Butch watches.
He can't do it, because Butch comes when Tate calls; Butch watches Tate as he
comes messily in his hand.
Tate lets out a strangled gasp, clutching Stevie’s shirt, then runs from the
vault entrance. Once he's rounded the corner, Tate lets his face drop neutral
again. He feels like shit for using the same conceit twice. Eventually, it'll
stop working.
He tells Amata that he got caught before he could turn on the door, but that's
okay. He’ll try again. Amata purses her lips and says they should give it a few
weeks, at least. Security will know something is up if Tate keeps wandering to
the vault entrance. No one does that without reason.
Amata aims the gun, firing three shots in quick succession. The hour is too
late to be shooting, but she does so anyway. Her curls bounce when the gun
fires, even though there's virtually no recoil. Not much time until her
birthday and Tate still hasn't figured out how to get her that 10mm. It would
be a real surprise though. He can already imagine her face.
“Maybe I should go,” she lowers the gun. “Since you've already tried.”
“I can do this, Amata. I promise.” He takes the gun from her, trying a couple
of shots. At least this time, he hits the paper around the target.
--
In the end, Tate doesn’t manage to swipe the gun. He gets into security okay,
knowing no one is currently in the containment cell because it’s only been a
couple of hours since he last passed Butch in the halls. Watching the coming
and going of the officers, he plots his open window of time for sneaking in,
grabbing the gun, and getting out. The whole process leads to his hands shaking
and sweat running down his neck. Fighting is one thing, he always gets caught
fighting. Always gets away with it too. But this stealing shit? This is kind of
new. At the same time, it’s sort of exciting. Maybe only because it’s new.
Tate slips through the door, it’s not set to lock which is great, really
fucking convenient, actually. But then there’s the problem that it doesn’t
matter how many times he’s been dragged to security, his dad was always there
to yank him back out quickly. Tate’s never had time to appraise the lockers and
shelves and knapsacks that are all over the place. He doesn’t know where
anything is.
Checking one of the lockers, it’s shut with a combination he doesn’t know. Even
if he’d brought bobby pins, the amount of time he’s got doesn’t leave room for
error. He could smash the lock in, but that would be noisy and security would
be suspicious when they got back. Trying a drawer next, it’s just filled with
printouts, packs of gum, and a toy car with a wheel broken off. Just as to not
leave empty handed, he takes the gum, petty thing.
In the next drawer Tate finds two clips for the 10mm, but no gun. He’s running
out of fucking time so he takes the clips, shoving them into the pockets of his
vault suit. They stick out funny, so he unzips his suit to stick them inside
instead.
He gets out without being caught, shuffling down the hall like nothing at all
weird has happened. Only when Tate is back in his office, door closed even
though he’s in the habit of leaving it open, does he breathe easier. He takes
the clips from inside his suit and tosses them in his desk drawer. No one cares
enough to go through his shit. At least not between this afternoon and
tomorrow. Still, he wishes he had gotten hold of the gun, rather than just
ammunition. But maybe there’s a metaphor in there too. Tate just can’t put his
finger on it.
--
Amata, to her credit, doesn’t act like getting two 10mm clips is a weird gift
at all. Then again, Amata gave him a quarter for a nation that doesn’t exist
anymore. Or does it? Maybe the bombs never really fell. How would they even
fucking know?
“Thank you, Tate.” She doesn’t exaggerate her soft smile. It’s not exactly
enthusiastic either, but that means it’s sincere.
Her father goes through her things with some regularity, so she keeps the clips
in the reactor level locker next to the BB gun. It bothers Tate to look at the
empty space and for there not to be a pistol there.
“I wanted to get you a gun.”
“That would have been nice too. But you would have gotten caught.”
Tate plays with the wrappers in his pockets. “Could’ve gotten caught getting
those clips though, didn’t.”
Amata shrugs. She doesn’t bring up the vault door, that Tate still hasn’t
gotten back to. Another week and he might be able to try again. This time,
he’ll be more decisive, not waste so much time thinking over the thing. He’ll
just act. Get it done before he has to put his hands on Stevie Mack’s skin
again.
Chapter End Notes
     Comments/kudos very much appreciated!
***** The Immovable Object *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
130758 > 271257: Come.
271257 > 130758: come
Before, Tate’s stomach was settled, but watching the two messages come in side
by side makes it flip, then try to escape through his esophagus. Choke up black
bile. That element of control he thought he had wrestled from the specter of
Butch, finally, slips away. Not because Butch refuses him, but because he
thinks the same thing. Or thinks about the same thing at the same time and
fuck. FUCK.
At least Tate is already dressed, his hair patted down flat, but not brushed,
roots showing again, his vault suit zipped all the way up to the collar. This
is the first time since he caught Butch looking at him they're gonna go to the
room. Since Butch caught Tate looking at Butch looking at Tate. Makes him want
to puke.
Tate slips out the front door and walks the halls. He’s gotten used to being
eighteen now. While his father can ask where he’s going to at such an hour,
Amata is eighteen too, so Tate can use her name. Or decide he doesn’t need a
fucking excuse. Oh, but he feels like he needs an excuse. Because what he’s
really doing is going to sit in a cramped room that smells like smoke and
listen to the cycle of his friend’s breathing as he gets himself off a hair's
breath away. And Butch is gonna do the same.
But Tate never makes it to the room. A door opens and Butch reaches out,
dragging Tate inside and smashing his back against the shelves. The hard metal
edges dig into Tate’s back. His head barely misses hitting against one of the
bars. Boxes over their heads shake, but nothing falls. Tate knows it’s Butch,
even though he hasn’t yet got a good look at him, because he smells like smoke,
and aftershave, even though he doesn’t have to hide anymore.
Butch makes the mistake of not pinning Tate’s arms, so when Tate lunges
forward, he can get wrapped around Butch’s waist, shackling Butch’s arms to his
side. Butch’s weight crumples the cardboard box behind him, but there’s not
enough space in the narrow closet for either of them to get much momentum. Tate
doesn’t know why they’re fighting this time.
Lifting up his foot, Butch smashes back down on Tate’s boot. The impact stings,
but only a little. Butch twists next, so his back is to Tate’s chest, and lifts
his legs off the ground, sticking them against the wall and using leverage to
push Tate back into the shelves again.
This time, Tate releases. The fucking edges of the fucking shelves are so
fucking sharp.
When Butch turns back around, Tate punches him in the face, twice. Once by his
eye and once towards his nose. But it’s not full strength because Tate’s
already starting to get kind of hard and he wants this to drag. He doesn’t want
to win so quick that it all ends. Butch grabs his nose, muttering, rather than
screaming, “Fuck.”
Tate pushes at Butch’s shoulders, getting him against the wall. Butch’s eyes
are wide and bright. Emergency lighting lightens the blue. What emergency?
Butch doesn’t look angry anymore, blood dripping from his nose and the delicate
skin around his eye already filling with liquid too. Tate’s got two stims
today. Like he knew, even though they haven’t fought in awhile.
They’re not even really fighting now. But Butch is breathing heavy and so is
Tate, their chests crashing against each other like waves on a jagged,
insurmountable cliff on every inhale. Tate doesn’t know which of them is the
sea, which one the immovable object.
Sublime.
Tate wishes that he wouldn’t hesitate, but he does. That hesitation alone isn’t
enough to stop him from pressing his lips to Butch’s. Tasting lightly of blood,
of sweat, of smoke. Tate opens his mouth, drawing out their one-sided kiss,
every heartbeat of it. Because if Butch were to turn, to hit Tate so hard he
couldn’t see straight for weeks, Tate would let him. He’d let Butch destroy him
in return for knowing what this feels like.
It feels warm, strangled, consuming.
Butch opens his mouth too. He kisses back, his arms wrapping around Tate’s
waist and pulling him in instead of punching back. Instead of shredding the
tenuous shift in their intimacy.
Tate thinks he’s going to pass out. He keeps his hands on Butch’s shoulders,
not knowing where else to put them.
Heavy with the weight of...fuck...everything, the moment bursts apart, but not
like Tate expected, not at all. Butch pulls away, but not so very far, or long.
Only long enough to move his hands from Tate’s waist and into the front of his
vault suit. Butch grabs Tate flipping them around and throwing the blond
against the wall instead. Then he’s right back to binding their bodies
together. Tate can’t think straight. He bites Butch’s lip, not hard, but again
and again until Butch hisses in reply. Chewing him up. Butch’s hands are
pulling at his hair but Tate wants them to be everywhere else too. On his skin,
on his cock, in his ass, and his mouth. He wants to drown all at once and pull
Butch under the surface of the water too.
Tate hardens in his suit and pulls Butch forward by his hips until he’s sure
Butch is hard too. He is, fuck, he is. This isn’t a joke. For years Tate has
been waiting for the trapdoor of Butch’s cruelty to open beneath his feet. To
send him spiraling into this endless void of whispers and mocking. But Tate was
wrong, the ground beneath his feet is solid. Butch is solid.
They grind together, Tate’s back against the wall and Butch over top of him.
Fuck those three inches of difference in their heights. The metal warms as Tate
squirms. He spreads his feet apart, hoping Butch will move closer. It’s
awkward, finding how their bodies are supposed to fit, but they do. Speaking
seems a sin, but Tate will commit it.
“Butch, fuck, Butch,” he barely registers the voice as his, lower than the way
he normally speaks. Butch’s teeth are at his neck.
“Tate. You didn’t say,” Butch grinds out the words between white teeth.
Tate doesn’t know what it was he was supposed to say. ‘Butch, I’m queer.’
‘Butch, I want you.’ ‘Butch, I’m starting to think you like me back.’ ‘Butch, I
think you’re straight but we should fuck anyway.’
The only thing Tate manages now is the name, “Butch.”
Tate’s hands are shaking because there’s too much adrenaline in his blood. From
the fight first and the kisses now. So many of them, the way they separate and
pull back together, Tate can’t count them all. But he puts his fingers on the
tab of Butch’s vault suit. Why did he have to wear the suit? Fuck. Tate pulls
the zipper down, just a couple of inches. When Butch bucks back into him, Tate
finishes the job, dropping the zipper all the way past Butch’s navel.
“If you have objections to me touching your cock, now would be the time to
voice them, Butch,” Tate tries to put on an act, like his heart isn’t screaming
in his chest. Like the ventricles haven’t grown mouths for the sole reason of
making noise. But he can feel Butch’s thudding too, even though he’s trying to
play things off too.
“What a fucking time to ask, Nosebleed.”
Tate snakes his hand into the front of Butch’s suit, down into his boxers. He
wants to look, see what his hand is doing, but he’s kind of afraid he’ll lose
his nerve if he does. His fingers brush against the hair at the root of Butch’s
cock, neatly trimmed, the bastard, feeling out the length of his cock and
stroking once he’s got ahold of it. With the vault suit mostly still on, Tate
can barely maneuver. But even though they don’t move a whole lot, Butch must
like it because he keeps dropping curses against Tate’s mouth, letting them
fall to the floor under their boots. Tate swallows up as many as he can before
they get crushed.
He already knows what Butch’s cock looks like. Both soft and hard. And how his
own nails are clean and cut short, but his knuckles are kind of mangled from
hitting shit. But still, when Tate manages to look at his hand inside Butch’s
suit, then outside as he finally pulls Butch’s cock free, he knows even in the
deepest fever of his fantasies, he could never have composed a picture so
perfect. Because this isn't just a photograph. It breathes.
Butch nearly pulls out a fistful of Tate’s hair when he comes, fast and messy
on the front of Tate’s suit and some of it gets on Butch’s exposed singlet too
when he pushes into Tate’s hips with his own. Trying to wrestle with Tate’s
zipper, Butch fails. Instead he just sort of grabs at Tate’s erection through
the fabric. They’re both so desperate that it works. Barely any friction at all
and Tate feels like he’s dying, coming inside his clothes. His legs get soft.
The wall behind him keeps him from falling.
For a second Tate thinks he’s going to get fucked in this supply closet,
covered already in Butch’s cum on his stomach and his saliva on his face.
Everything is so messy.
But Butch pulls back. He looks overwhelmed. Tate doesn’t have the words to
comfort him because this is Tate’s comfort. That Butch wants him. Even if it’s
only for eight minutes in a fucking supply closet. Even if this is the end.
“Just,” Butch tries to compose himself. “We can’t tell anyone, anyone. Okay?”
Mutely, Tate nods. He’s got no one to tell but Amata. But he wouldn’t. He’ll
have to, eventually. If they...fuck. Tate feels like this changes everything.
Like, he can’t be happy being Amata’s pretend husband, because now he knows
what his name tastes like coming from Butch’s lips.
Chapter End Notes
     :)
***** The tighter circles of authentic intimacy in the wake *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
When Tate mentions to Butch they're still trying to figure out if the vault has
been opened, he volunteers his services.
“We’ll use my card.”
They're in Tate’s office. Butch doesn't have any appointments for the day.
Neither of them have mentioned the incident from the other night. That they
kissed, that they touched. But Tate’s bones are itching under his skin. Either
Butch is waiting for him or he’s waiting on Butch, Tate isn't sure.
Tate hasn't even bothered turning on his terminal today. He's been writing out
ideas on scrap paper. Before Butch came in, he hid his poems in the desk
drawer.
If glaciers survived/the end of the last world/I'm not sure I'd want to know/
rather would have the option/to drown on his beach
“Really, though,” Tate can't etch into the desktop with his pen, the metal of
the desk is stronger than the pen nib. He's broken four pens this way. “How can
you move without them knowing. Like, I get you can open all the doors, but
there are records.”
Butch corrects, “I can't open all of ‘em. And it's like, easy.” Butch sits
forward in his chair. “So, there's a list of doors I'm supposed to be opening,
right? And a list of doors I can open, which is longer. When I actually use my
card there's like, this script that compares the two tables. When it finds a
door on the ‘can open’ list that isn't on the ‘should open’ it just, like,
deletes the record I ever did it.”
“So security does know?”
Butch shakes his head, “someone would have to be paying real close attention to
the records at the exact moment I hit the door. Even then, they probably
wouldn't catch it.”
Tate still doesn't understand, but that doesn't really matter. Butch hasn't
mentioned if Tate should tell Amata that Butch is back on board yet, so he
resolves not to. Even so, getting to use Butch’s Magic card, instead of his
very traceable one, sounds like a good deal.
They don't eat dinner together. Butch slides into a cramped booth that holds
him, Wally, Paul, Susie, and Christine. Freddie isn't at dinner. He's been sick
for weeks. The Macks and Paul sit on one side of the table, Butch and Christine
on the other. Tate tries to get more interested in his mashed carrots. They're
so salty though. Like they weren't washed after being drained.
“Don't even look at him, Tate. You don't still feel bad about hitting him, do
you?” Amata is asking him to both forget and remember in the same sentence.
Tate remembers he wasn't the only one wronged by Butch. Or, maybe more
accurately, Butch isn't the only person Tate wronged.
“I don't care.” Of course he does.
Tate lets Amata finish his potatoes if he can have half of her hot dog. It
seems like a fair enough trade. James doesn't come to dinner at all. Amata’s
father never does. He takes his meals alone.
Under the table, Tate squeezes Amata’s boot between both of his until she
growls at him. In response he can only smile, hoping to disarm her flash of
anger.
“I'm going to the door.” Dangerous to say more than that. Amata doesn't even
fight him, because here they can't talk openly.
Butch leaves seven or eight minutes before Tate and Amata do. Amata leaves Tate
to go speak to her father. Doesn't matter about what. But he's her best alibi.
Maybe she’ll go to her room and then lie and say Tate snuck in later. That Tate
was with her the whole night. The easy deception they've been perpetuating for
years tastes worse and worse in Tate’s mouth.
By the first locked door, Butch smokes. Even though he can smoke, he's not
supposed to here. Only the the rec room or in the suite he shares with his mom.
Paul is the only one who has moved out of his parents quarters so far. The rest
of them just hang on.
Butch stomps his cigarette out under his boot.
“That's evidence,” Tate argues.
“This ain't so serious, Nosebleed.” Butch opens the door, letting Tate through
first.
The second door is a keycard and a switch. Everyone’s card works, but only
Butch’s moves without a trace. They stand in silence, side by side as they
hydraulics work.
Red button, toggle switch, display.
Tate slips through the door first. No waiting this time. He's got the layout of
the door panel memorized. Hitting the red button, he's still gotta wait for the
screen to flicker on.
“Shit, Tate, I wanted to try something.”
“We don't have time.” Tate sticks his hands in his pockets so Butch can't see
them shake.
The display comes on, 15.09.76. Current date. Okay, he presses the toggle
switch. Butch stands behind him, looking over his shoulder at the display.
30.01.59.
Tate doesn't realize he's stopped moving until Butch reaches around him to hit
the toggle switch again. 02.01.58. And again. 03.02.41. There are more.
“Tate. We need to go.” Butch’s voice trembles.
There are footsteps coming through the door and this time if it's fucking
Stevie Mack again Tate might throw Butch at him instead of himself because he
doesn't know what the fuck to do anymore. But it's not Stevie, it's Officer
Gomez with terse lips and a suspicious glare. “Boys?”
Tate talks first, trying to formulate his plan word by word. “Officer Gomez?
What's going on?”
“Fuck, Tate, what the fuck,” Butch whispers.
“What are you doing here?” Officer Gomez asks.
Tate considers hitting the red button again to power down the panel. “We heard
noises in here. The door was turned on?” He glances from the panel over to the
sealed door. “I was trying to figure out how to turn it back off.”
It's a shitty, shitty lie.
“Tate,” Gomez starts, “you don't have to cover for Butch.”
Tate inhales sharply, “no, I mean, we both.”
Butch is still standing behind him. He puts his hand in the small of Tate’s
back. The soft gesture is unmistakable. ‘It's okay.’
“You're going to need to come with me, DeLoria. You too Tate. Press the red
button and let's get out of here.”
Walking out first, Butch’s hand slides around Tate’s back to his hip until the
contact breaks. Gomez can't see it with the panel in the way. Only when Butch
is halfway out the door does Tate finally press the button, powering down the
door. He trots after Butch. Gomez seals the inside door behind them.
Taking hold of Butch’s arm at the bicep, Gomez tells Tate to go back to his
father. He's done enough for the day. Butch tries to wrench his arm out of
Gomez’ grip but doesn't correct any of the officer’s assumptions. They walk the
opposite direction down the hall to security, leaving Tate behind.
--
Butch spends just twenty-four hours in confinement. Tate feels like shit the
whole time because he was the one at the panel. He was the one who turned it
on. But this time, Butch isn't mad at him. At least, Tate doesn't think so.
Tate thinks about the dates. 30.01.59, 02.01.58, 03.02.41. How many more before
those three? If the door keeps opening, why does no one speak of it? Tomorrow,
he’ll be able to tell Amata. There wasn't time to slip away today. Her father
kept her busy except for meals.
271257 > 130758: im out
271257 > 130758: meet in like 10 minutes?
Butch has never given warning before. It has always been ‘come,’ as in, ‘now.’
This time, Tate has the opportunity to ready himself, not just to run,
desperate and needy, to see Butch. Pulling on his vault suit only takes a
minute. He doesn’t know what to do with the rest of the time. He runs a comb
through his hair, lets his hands shake. Doesn’t know what else. So he watches
two more minutes tick down, then leaves.
He keeps his hands in his pockets, half expecting Butch to jump out of nowhere
and smack him in the face. But that doesn’t happen. Nothing else weird happens.
The door isn’t open. Butch isn’t there. Tate waits another couple minutes until
he hears footsteps. Turning, he catches sight of Butch. There’s water droplets
in his still-damp hair. He’s freshly showered. So that’s what the ten minutes
was about.
Butch keys open the door, lets Tate in first. He makes sure the door doesn’t
slam. But once it’s closed Butch’s hands are in Tate’s hair, sliding down to
his neck, his back, pushing them both towards the couch. Suddenly, the
emergencies are far too bright. They tumble down together. Tate isn’t about to
ask questions. Nope.
There’s something precious about the way Butch closes his eyes to kiss. Hiding
his light eyes under dark lashes. He tastes like toothpaste. They still haven’t
figured it out, how they’re supposed to fit together, especially on the narrow
couch. They’re too much leg to get it right. And too much clothing and
fruitless tugging at zippers and hair.
“I wanna,” Butch doesn’t finish, just brings both of his hands to Tate’s zipper
this time. He’s on top and slotted with one leg between both of Tate’s. Might
be trying to support his own weight but he’s doing a shitty job of succeeding.
The pressure of his body is heavy against Tate’s chest. “Just like, I think a
lot about…” He fades out again.
Butch opens Tate’s vault suit to the waist. Focusing on the task, he doesn’t
kiss anymore. Tate misses the wet heat and mint of Butch’s mouth. But his look
of concentration is sort of hot too.
“Okay, so.” Butch is still pretty inarticulate. But Tate’s not one to judge,
because he hasn’t been talking, his head too cloudy with desire.
Grabbing Tate’s legs, Butch moves them around again, until Tate’s boots are
planted flat on the floor. Only dimly does Tate realize what’s happening.
“Butch?”
“Don’t talk, okay? Don’t say anything.”
Tate shuts his mouth. Doesn’t know how long that’ll last, because Butch kicks
Tate’s boots further apart so he can kneel on the floor between Tate’s legs.
This has to be a fucking dream. Butch breathes real heavy while he pulls Tate’s
cock out from his suit. Holds it in his hand and looks at it, like it’s
something to be conquered. Leaning forward, he swipes his tongue against the
head of Tate’s cock. And now Tate is convinced he’s dying, because even dreams
aren’t this good.
One of Butch’s hands digs into the flesh of Tate’s thigh, like he’s gonna fall
if they don’t hold on to each other. The other hand stays, warm and dry, around
Tate’s shaft while Butch ventures to take more into his mouth. Only gets about
halfway down before sucking, trying out different things with his tongue. Good,
good, all of them are good as far as Tate is concerned. Butch told him not to
talk, but he can’t help but stick his hands into Butch’s hair, still damp.
Butch smells like the lemon soap they all use, and the aftershave only Butch
uses.
Tate can’t do it, he can’t stay quiet. Not with the way his senses narrow to
his cock in Butch’s mouth. Not with the way he loses control of the rest of
himself.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” It’s not eloquent.
Butch growls around Tate’s dick. With youth and inexperience and all those
stacked excuses, even the vibration in Butch’s throat feels good. Only a couple
of bobs of Butch’s head, and the sight of his dark hair between Tate’s legs,
and Tate starts coming, half-shrieking when it starts, melting against the
couch by the time it ends. He’s warm and happy and distant. Butch kind of
coughs on the cum, tears at the corners of his eyes when he looks up from his
place on the floor.
“Shit,” Butch says.
“Yeah,” Tate replies. “Um, did you want to like, switch?” Butch’s arousal is
super apparent through the fabric of his suit and that’s sort of a head trip
itself, knowing that Butch wants to suck him off. That Butch swallows his
bitter cum and is still fucking hard.
“I guess, yeah.” But instead of stopping at unzipping his suit, Butch stands up
and and kicks off his boots. As if in a trance, Tate does too, loosening the
laces while he’s still sitting down and then standing. They strip out of their
vault suits without talking. Until they’re just in socks and boxers. They keep
moving faster and faster, Tate’s not gonna mind when the crash inevitably
comes. When they rip each other apart again, because, just as inevitably,
they’ll put each other back together too.
The dark head of Butch’s cock pokes through his boxers and sort of
instinctively he tries to cover it. But that’s fucking stupid because Tate’s
going to put it in his mouth. Right? He’s still sort of thinking about what it
would feel like in his ass, smoother and bigger than his fingers. Bigger than
fat highlighter he found in his desk drawer that one time...he hadn’t liked
that and went back to fingers. But Butch’s cock, Tate’s pretty sure he’d like
that.
Butch sits back down, spreading his legs and just waiting. Not forcing Tate to
act one way or another.
Tate kneels in front of Butch, running his hands along Butch’s thighs, under
his boxers to the groin. Butch moans as Tate brushes against the juncture
between hip and thigh. He hasn't even gotten to Butch’s cock yet. But Butch’s
skin is so warm, sensitive too.
Pulling his hands from under Butch’s shorts, Tate grabs at the elastic instead,
sliding down the fabric and pulling Butch’s cock out. Doesn't bother taking off
Butch’s boxers all the way. They're gray checked, and something about that is
really fucking painful. Like it's so mundane but also kind of huge.
Tate takes a deep breath and pretends to know what he's doing. He's sort of
glad he came first because his head is clearer now. Some of the desperation has
edged off. That doesn't mean he quite knows what to do. But Butch did, which
probably means someone has been doing it for Butch. And Tate wants to do better
than her.
Opening his mouth, Tate starts with the first couple of inches. He tries to
keep his teeth covered with his lips so they won't drag. Butch is kind of
salty, precum, right. Just at the tip. Tate tries to take more and when Butch
hisses and says Tate’s name he gets a little bolder. Tries too much and chokes
around it, Butch whining “Fuck.”
And they sound so grown up. They are.
Tate keeps his hand still and just bobs his head in Butch’s lap, coarse hair
tickling against his nose. Butch roughly grabs onto Tate’s bleached hair. Fuck,
fuck he likes that. Wants to tell Butch how much he likes it but his mouth is
full of cock.
Surprisingly, Butch is quiet as he comes, a rush into Tate’s open mouth. He
tries to swallow quick enough he doesn't choke. He fails, spitting up some of
it into the floor. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Tate turns back
to Butch, who’s looking down at him.
“Fuck,” Butch grabs onto his own hair, panting heavy, “holy shit.”
Tate gets up from the floor, intending to sit next to Butch on the couch, but
Butch drags him back down into his lap. Straddling Butch, Tate’s not sure what
to do next, so he just kisses and kisses until he forgets to worry about what
Butch is thinking. Because Butch’s arms hold him in place. Like they're going
to vanish from each other’s hands.
But this is the vault. People die, but they do not simply vanish, right? Tate’s
gotta remember, he never existed in the first place. But this, but Butch, this
is real.
“You taste so good,” Tate laughs, his lips still bumping into Butch’s. He's not
willing to pull that far back.
“Brushed my teeth,” Butch mumbles.
They both laugh, because they know that's not it. Tate should feel weirdly
exposed, being this close to naked, on top of Butch. Fuck, he can still taste
him between his teeth. But while they're both keyed up they're not really hard,
lazily running their hands all over each other. Butch keeps slipping his hands
up the legs of Tate’s boxers, running his fingers across hips and groin, but
not around to Tate’s ass. Tate doesn't want to ask. He scratches from Butch’s
shoulder, over to his pectoral. It's enough to leave red lines on Butch’s skin,
but not to break it. Nails too short for that.
“The fuck, Nosebleed.” Doesn't sound angry, really just sort of, adrift. Maybe
they both are. Because now that they're clinging to each other, the rest of the
world feels like a vast ocean.
“Had to make sure this is real.”
“Normally you pinch yourself for that. Not fucking claw the shit out of me.”
Tate shrugs. Maybe.
Chapter End Notes
     Comments and kudos very much appreciated!
***** Forward Momentum that Keeps You From Careening off the Edge *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
For the first time in months, Butch joins Tate and Amata downstairs. He's
zipped up in his vault suit all the way to the collar, his hair is perfectly in
place, and smells of Christine’s perfume.
This is fine.
“He needed my help,” Butch grins at Amata, gesturing at Tate.
“Fuck off, I did not,” Tate rolls his eyes.
Amata watches them both with suspicion. Are they standing too close together?
If anything, there is more space between them than there used to be. At least,
before Tate nearly killed Butch. Sometimes when he closes his eyes, Tate can
still see it, how the light went out of Butch’s eyes, if only for a
millisecond.
“What did you find?” She brings them back to the topic at hand.
“The door has been opened,” Tate says, “at least three times, maybe more.”
Butch checks his pipboy, “January 30th, ‘59. January 2nd, ‘58. February 3rd,
‘41.”
“Why those dates?” Amata asks. She can't be expecting a real answer.
Tate's mouth is dry, “The first two, they're around the time we were born…”
Butch intercedes, “the date on the display only shows the last two digits of
the year. So we don't know if the last time was 2259 or 2159.”
“No, no I think Tate is right. It's gotta be 2259, 2258,” Amata says.
“There's a big gap, right...between uh,” Tate tries to think of any connection.
“Susie Mack and Monica Kendall, right? Like, years without any new kids.”
Amata bites the very tip of her manicured nail. “Susie was born in September of
‘58.”
“That other date, January of ‘58. I was born the December before, Wally was in
November,” Butch adds.
“And all the rest of us were born in between, you, me, Freddie, Paul…”
“And Christine,” Amata finishes.
“That's a lot of kids close together,” Butch adds. Yeah, a lot of kids. And
before Wally, there's a bunch of empty years before Stevie and a couple of
other kids. All of the births are bunched together like that. Amata was onto
something, before, with the missing children. They just hadn't fit the puzzle
together quite right.
Amata starts pacing the floor. “I need to think. What does this mean? Why would
everyone, everyone lie? All the adults must know. And there has to be a reason
we don't, right? What are they hiding?”
Tate grabs hold of Amata’s arm, keeping her from chewing her nail clean off.
She's got red polish on her teeth now, chipped away into her mouth from the
chewing. “What do you need from us, Amata?”
She sighs, “nothing right now. I'll tell you if something comes up. But, right
now, I've got to think.”
“Your old man’s terminal,” Butch doesn't give her the space to think. He
doesn't give Tate enough space either, because even under the aftershave and
Christine, Tate can still smell him. “That's the source, right? It's so
simple.”
“No!” Amata snaps. “No, we’ll all get caught, there's no way.”
Butch keeps quiet. So does Tate. They both know Butch can get away with it. But
Amata doesn't know. And for some reason, Butch thinks it important to keep a
bunch of secrets. Like that he's a fucking computer genius, that he smokes in
disallowed spaces, and that in the middle of the night, he puts Tate’s cock in
his mouth.
Even though Butch mumbles “Never mind,” Tate knows he still plans on hacking
the terminal.
--
Tate’s job for Amata is to wait. Tate’s job for Butch is to try and figure out
the Overseer’s movements throughout the day. Easier said than done, because
even though no one comes to the chaplain’s office, Tate’s still supposed to be
there. His desk has defeated many paper clips, and still not a scratch on it.
It's ten am and Tate takes out his notebook. He's crossed out more lines than
he's kept. Most of them sound garbage.
He’ll break me apart against the rocks/I've heard they are like concrete/
unyielding and cold until you press your palms/against the surface that can
only wear/never shatter
Tate wishes he had pictures in his mind that weren't just polymer and metal.
Wishes that he knew living things. That he knew stars. They don't have any
pictures of stars. Only words on the page that talk about glowing orbs in the
sky, more distant than the sun, but like the sun. Just like it. But Tate
doesn't know shit about the sun either.
The Overseer walks past Tate’s office. He doesn't look in or say hello. In the
months that have passed since both Tate and Amata have turned eighteen, the
Overseer has been cooler towards Tate, less indulgent. Maybe he thinks Tate’s
eyes are wandering. Well, strictly speaking, they are.
Tate starts the timer on his pipboy, waiting to see how long the Overseer will
be out of his office. He scratches the time onto the sheet of paper in front of
him. 13:03. Above that he has written, 12:59, 13:02, 13:15. These are the times
the Overseer leaves to pick up lunch in the diner. But he doesn't eat there,
bringing the meal back to his office. Generally between eight and twelve
minutes total. Tate might be able to open the window a little more, ask
Alphonse a question or two, so Butch has enough time to get out.
Because Tate’s gotta wait to track the Overseer, he's been missing lunch
entirely. His stomach growls. Hopefully a week’s worth of data is enough.
The Overseer isn't back yet when Butch slips into Tate’s office, shutting the
door behind him.
“How am I supposed to know when he comes back if the door is closed?” Tate
huffs, slouching down in his chair.
Butch pulls a sandwich wrapped in a cloth napkin from his bag. He drops it on
the desk in front of him before reaching for a second. That one he hands to
Tate.
“Eight to twelve minutes right around 13:00. I don't know if we’re gonna get
more precise than that, Nosebleed.” He sits across from Tate, taking a bite of
his sandwich. Chewing and talking, Butch continues, “You'll have to message me
when he leaves, and then I'll just book it to his office.”
Tate starts pulling off the crust from the white bread. He eats the crust
first. “You don't want me to come with you?”
“Nah, Nosebleed, I need you to message me again when he's heading back.”
Tate tells Butch his plan to talk to the Overseer, buy him more time. As he
explains, Butch nods. He seems to think it's a good idea, though they don't
know how much extra time that'll make. Butch still needs to be prepared to get
in and out in seven minutes.
“Can you do it that fast?”
Butch smiles, “It’ll be easy.”
They finish their dry sandwiches. Tate’s still sort of hungry and unsatisfied,
but bits of salty jerky on bread is better than nothing. Butch brushes the
crumbs off of his vault suit. When Butch stands to go, he sort of leans over
Tate’s desk before stopping himself, pulling back and saying, “Later,
Nosebleed.”
It doesn't occur to Tate until sometime later that Butch was trying to kiss him
goodbye.
--
They lose their nerve a couple of times, and it's not until December that they
find it again. A couple of days before Butch turns nineteen, he says he's
ready. He knows he can manage the hack fast enough.
Tate’s legs bounce under his desk from excessive energy. Listening for
footsteps, he doesn't bother to scribble anything down. When he writes poetry
now, he leaves more words on the page than he crosses out. He doesn't know if
it's because he's getting better or because he doesn't care as much when the
words are wrong. They're kind of pretty when they're broken, when the meter
doesn't work.
The message is already typed out on his pipboy. Just needs the right second to
hit send. Butch already brought him a sandwich earlier, wrapped in one of those
cloth napkins. Tate’s eaten the crust already.
Tate hears the right footsteps.
130758 > 271257: Now.
Tate doesn't get a response; he isn't expecting one. Butch needs every second
he can wrestle to try and get into the terminal in the Overseer’s office. Out
of habit, Tate starts his timer, though the time doesn't matter, only the thud
of footsteps on metal floors.
Six minutes later, boots cross in front of Tate’s open door.
130758 > 271257: TIME
“Mr. Almodovar?” Tate stands up from his desk, hopping over it to get to his
door. “Do you have a second?”
The Overseer grunts, “Not now, Tate. Can it wait?”
Tate grabs onto the doorframe, leaning forward toward the Overseer, still in
the hall. He has an idea, but he's not sure if he can bring himself to use it.
“Just, uh, yeah, I guess. Was about Amata.”
Alphonse’s face softens a little at the mention of his daughter. The guy might
be a shitbag, but he does love Amata. Maybe just doesn't know how to show it.
Tate and him have that in common, maybe. Because Tate’s always fucking up too.
“Tomorrow, alright?” The Overseer says.
“Yeah,” Tate swallows, “tomorrow.” He’ll spend all of tomorrow with his door
closed or something. Hopefully the Overseer will forget to come talk.
Tate goes back to his desk. But he's too nervous. Butch hasn't sent nothing.
Sending more messages doesn't seem like the answer either. By now, Butch is
either caught or back in the barbershop. Tate’s gotta know.
Listening to his feet against the floor, rather than the blood in his ears,
Tate makes his way to the shop. The door is shut, he's gotta knock.
“Sec,” he hears Butch call. Shit, it hadn't even occurred to him that Butch
would be in there with someone.
“I can come back?” Tate offers.
The door slides open, Butch smiles on the other side. “Don't you fucking dare,
Nosebleed.” Grabbing at the front of Tate’s suit, Butch pulls him inside,
shutting the door behind.
Tate doesn't want to get beaten to the punch, so he grabs Butch’s waist with
both hands, squeezing and kneading while Butch smiles, trying to chase down
Tate’s lips. As a tease, a bit of fight still there in the tips of their
fingers, Tate pulls his neck back so Butch misses Tate’s lips, only so he can
lunge forward again.
They crash around the little room, bumping into countertops and shelves.
Nothing falls, because it ain't that rough, just enough that they don't forget
who they are. Tate snakes his hands up Butch’s body, tangling his hands in the
back of his hair. It's sort of stiff with pomade and Butch curses, “You're such
a shit.”
“I know,” Tate starts at Butch’s zipper. This is probably too risky, too close
to their public lives, to mess around here. Like they're going to scrape and
scrape at the veneer until the real them just breaks straight through. Too much
friction and pressure. Tate can feel Butch hard against his thigh. It just
never stops. A waterfall of excess Tate’s never going to be able to plug back
up now that he's got Butch.
They try to be careful, because Butch barks something about a client in fifteen
minutes. Tate reckons he’ll be done in five because Butch keeps shoving his
tongue down Tate’s throat while stroking his cock. They're careful to not get
cum on their suits. The sink in the shop means they can wash their hands after.
Butch’s hands are shaking when he zips Tate’s suit back up to the neck. It's
such a sweet gesture, Tate feels like he's gotta deflect.
“What did you find?” Tate asks.
Butch stops moving, one hand still on Tate’s hip. “Yeah, um, 2241. Buncha
people died. But open. It was opened.”
Tate's scared to ask about the other dates. “We shouldn't talk here, I guess.”
Pulling away, Tate’s gotta get out of the way before Pepper Gomez’ appointment.
Doesn't even take the time to tease Butch that he's really a hairdresser now,
cutting women’s hair too.
This time it's Tate who thinks about kissing Butch goodbye, but they still
don't do it. There's always tomorrow.
--
Amata is angry at first, at what Butch and Tate have done. Butch is all smiles,
hands in his pockets rattling off how clever they were to get into the files.
Even after all his explaining, Amata is still furious.
“You're both such idiots!” She forgets to be quiet. The reactor level is kind
of a sanctuary, but nowhere in the vault offers absolute privacy. “He may not
know now, but he is going to know.”
“Don't worry, doll,” Butch soothes. Tate still hates that endearment, “he ain't
gonna know.”
“I should have never trusted you,” she turns to face Tate, “you either!” She
shoves him. Tate isn't ready for it, but he still doesn't really budge, just
absorbing her anger. If it makes her feel better, she's welcome to it.
“But now we know for certain, right?” Tate offers by way of apology. Cause he's
not really sorry. Nah. This is what they needed.
“What now? We can't prove it. The evidence is in his files, but not in our
hands. Fuck.” The curse is soft.
Butch curses too, but Tate still thinks they came out ahead.
--
They still shoot. Well, Amata shoots, Tate doesn't. Sometimes Butch joins them.
He doesn't smell like Christine’s perfume anymore. Tate would know if he did.
Butch meets Tate in previously locked closets, on the fringes of their
claustrophobic civilization. The endless stretch of days. But it's not endless
in a bad way anymore. Because even though they don't kiss each other goodbye,
they sure as hell kiss hello, when they’re alone. They don't turn on the vids
anymore, even when they're in that strange room Tate still can't make sense of.
He's thankful it exists though, because they can sit on the couch, Butch can
grab Tate everywhere.
Licking, grinding, sucking, repeat. Butch gets down on his knees in another
closet, the one closest to Tate’s office. He pulls out Tate’s cock and does
better this time. It's always better. Even though this isn't new anymore.
Tate’s lost track. He can taste his cum on Butch’s tongue. There are scratch
marks on his abdomen, all the way to his pubic hair. No one ever sees.
There were these things called butterflies/past tense, I think/can't know for
sure/But we’ve preserved them in language/and trapped them in our chests./I can
feel them hiding in there/I should charge them for the convenience.
They don't talk about what they’re doing, how they feel. But they laugh a lot,
and smile. So Tate doesn't worry too much. He's not going to wreck this. Not
when it feels so fucking good.
Amata doesn't talk about the outside. Tate doesn't bring it up. Once, just
once, Butch tries to.
Parroting back, with dead eyes, Amata says she's sure everything above ground
is dead, diseased. Not for a second does Tate think Amata believes her own
words because she cried over photographs. She wants to see, and it's killing
her they can't.
“My father knows,” she says one day. Her arms have gotten thin.
At dinner, Tate doesn't eat any of her food. She doesn't eat any of it either,
tossing away her rations. Makes Tate fucking mad as hell, but he would never
raise a hand to Amata, so instead, he shoves Butch into an INACCESSIBLE door
where everyone can see them fight. There's a lot of shoving and grabbing. No
punching this time. Tate wants Butch to swing first, so he goads and goads.
“You've gotten weak,” Tate growls.
“I'll show you what I got, Nosebleed,” he winds up to strike.
Tate ducks under the punch, grappling at Butch's waist and knocking them both
over. His erection digs into Butch’s thigh, now they've gotta stay on top of
each other or the gathered crowd will notice. Wally’s yelling that Butch should
kick his ass. Grunting, Butch tries to wrench Tate's arms away from his
shoulders, but he's too weak.
“What the fuck!”
Spitting in Butch's face, Tate climbs off.
“Fucking gross!” But Butch can't mean it, because he swallows more than that
all the time.
Security is already waiting for them. This time, they only take Tate. Officer
Wolfe curses, “Damn kids,” and hauls Tate away. Tate doesn't fight him. Maybe
he does need to cool off. The taste of copper fills his mouth when he licks his
lips.
Tate only spends a couple of hours in the security confinement cell to ‘cool
down’ before his father comes to get him. He spends the time with his eyes
closed, crumpled up on the bench, his head resting against the wall behind him.
Tate tries to think about nothing at all, because if he throws himself against
the walls, they’ll try to keep him longer. Or his father will try to talk to
him, anyone will try to help him. And he doesn't want help. He just wants his
mind to slow down. Talking only makes it faster.
“What did he do this time, Tate?” His father asks.
Tate responds, “nothing,” because there is no explanation. Other than he can't
hit Amata, but he can hit Butch. Even if they also kiss. And he can't kiss
Amata either. So he's just tangled up in yeses and nos.
--
Tate keeps his hips between Butch’s thighs. They've both already come. Jerked
each other off, this time, in the weird little room with the terminal they
don't turn on anymore. Don't need the pretext of pre-War babes shoving things
inside their cunts. There's no pretext at all. Except maybe Tate thinks Butch
only likes this because he's proven to be easier than Christine, or more
available or something. But Christine was sucking Butch’s cock before this
right? Tate’s never asked directly, but he can assume. From how Butch kind of,
sort of, knew what to do.
Butch keeps playing with Tate’s hair, running it through his fingers, pulling,
looking at the ends, smelling it. Tate just rests his head against Butch’s
chest and lets him. He could fall asleep like this. If they don't get up soon,
he will. The ventilation has stopped running. It does at three am on the dot
every time they're in here. Starts back up at five. Not that they've ever spent
a full two hours together. That would be too long, they'd be missed, maybe. But
they've seen either end of the cycle.
Butch moves one hand out of Tate’s hair, to the small of his back, rucking up
Tate’s singlet and touching against where the muscle dips in, then back out.
His fingers are warm, too gentle. If Tate had the energy, he tells himself,
he'd rip out Butch’s fingernails for that. But not really.
Even though this is real, it's still sort of a fantasy. Because Tate and Butch
can't build a life together. They can't get assigned their own suite, kiss in
the hallways, share a bed. They can't make promises about the future.
Declarations. But maybe Tate can figure out another way. One where the fantasy
doesn't die, but runs along side their public life. Where the backstage of
their lives is vivid and beautiful, while the performance withers.
--
“My father knows,” this time when Amata says it, her voice is assertive. “He
knows what you and Butch did.”
They're in the hallway, not her bedroom, not the reactor level. They're in the
front stage of their lives, not the interstitial spaces. Anyone can hear, only
no one bothers to listen.
Tate doesn't respond, because there is nothing to say. What are the possible
consequences? Would the Overseer kill them for what they know? Some sort of
accident, maybe. Lock them in one of those rooms. INACCESSIBLE. Maybe that's
what they were for all along. If he and Butch ever raid another room, Tate will
be sure to look for scratch marks on the insides of doors, bones piled into
corners.
“He’ll ignore it,” Amata’s fingers are still twined with Tate’s. She hasn't let
go completely. “Everyone will ignore it. That's how we’ve gotten so far.”
Tate grunts at her side. Yeah, they’ll bury their fucking heads in the sand.
That is how they've gotten this far, how their ancestors ended up in this
predicament in the first place. Making underground-children for an underground
world. They were supposed to be the saviors of humanity. Really they just
cannibalize themselves. And Tate doesn't have the hubris to think he could
change that.
Chapter End Notes
     Thank you all for reading, comments and kudos very much appreciated.
     There will be 20 chapters total.
***** The inevitable crash; Flying too close *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
130758 > 271257: Come to my room.
Tate stares at the line of text in green letters on his pipboy screen. He's
written it before, maybe a half a dozen times. But he's never sent the message.
Sitting up in his bed, dressed for sleep with his legs folded, Tate considers
what this would mean, to have Butch come to his room. He looks away from the
pipboy to pull the covers around his lap. He's not cold though. Sweat runs down
his spine. Excitement.
The thing is, Tate’s wanted this for a long time, though he's never told Butch.
Even after they suck or touch, sometimes, Tate goes back to his bed, locks the
door, slicks his fingers, sticks them inside himself, pretends it's Butch. But
he's never figured out how to bring it up, or if it's something Butch would
want or they'd have to talk about it. Tate never thought any of this would
happen so he doesn't have a plan on how to be like, ‘hey, Butch, why don't you
try sticking your cock in my ass.’ It's weird, terrifying, amazing enough that
they kiss.
But Tate wants this, even if for Butch it's just pretend. If all this time
Butch pretends that Tate is a woman and not himself. But, like, that can't be
it because Butch keeps putting his mouth on Tate’s dick and if Tate being a guy
bothered him he wouldn't do that. But even if, even if Butch is pretending,
that's okay, Tate still wants to know what it feels like to have Butch’s cock
inside him instead of his own fingers.
130758 > 271257: Come to my room.
Tate hits the button to send.
It's just after midnight, but James has been spending longer and longer nights
in the clinic. Tate doesn't know why and he doesn't ask. He's seen his dad
talking to Jonas too. Sometimes Jonas smiles at Tate kind of sad, like he
pities Tate. Tate wonders what his father has told his assistant. Fuck.
271257 > 130758: k
Butch doesn't even ask why, he just says that he’ll come. No questions. Tate
lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Probably doesn't need to tell
Butch that his father isn't there because Butch is smart enough in any case.
He's never invited Butch to his room before. But it feels...right? Like, Tate
doesn't want Butch to fuck him for the first time in that strange room or some
fucking closet in between work shifts. Honestly, Tate doesn't mind the hurried
pace otherwise. Likes that it's still nails and teeth, as much like fighting as
before. Likes the quiet moments too, he supposes. But something doesn't feel
quite right about asking Butch to fuck him like that, at least...not this first
time.
Before Butch can arrive, Tate double checks his dresser drawer. There's a
bottle of lube in there he stole from the clinic weeks ago because the old
bottle ran out, he's been using it so much. But it just makes everything
easier. His mind starts racing, wondering if he should have stretched himself
out with his fingers before asking Butch to come over. He'd showered...and sort
of gotten hard under the water but didn't finish. Touched himself, though,
pretending it was Butch's hands.
The keycard is in the outside door. Nerves all on end, Tate can hear it.
Butch comes through Tate’s door next, softly shutting it behind him. His hair
is done and his vault suit on, must've not been ready for bed, then. Tate feels
weirdly naked in his boxers and thin shirt, barefoot too, even though Butch has
obviously seen him in less. Though they've never really been like, both naked-
naked at the same time or anything. Just, there's never time.
“What?” Butch asks, his eyes bright, even though the lights are dim. Tate knows
his are only ever dark. He hopes Butch still sees something that he likes.
“You know what.” Tate gets up on his knees on the side of the bed, pulling
Butch down by the front of his suit until they're kissing. Nipping at Butch’s
bottom lip, he says, “it's okay, my dad won't be back for hours.”
Butch nods, “okay, okay.”
“Um, take off your suit, okay?”
“Yeah.” Butch's hands are steadier than his voice. Gotta take off his boots
too. He leaves it all in a pile on the floor.
Tate pulls the sheet off his lap, tossing it to one side. “Get in, I guess.”
The bed is sort of too narrow for two people, but they fit if they go chest to
chest, groin to groin. Would fit better if they were one on top of the other,
but Tate’s not gonna push it yet. He grabs at the hem of Butch’s shirt,
skirting his fingers around from his back to his hip to his stomach, then
everything in reverse. Butch gets hard a little slower, maybe because he's
nervous about the change in location. Maybe just nervous in general. So Tate
tries to be brave, coaxing open Butch’s mouth with his tongue and teeth, trying
to suck out all the air from his lungs. Butch kisses back, lips parted, sharing
breath. Makes Tate dizzy, that he can lead and Butch will follow on his own
accord.
Emboldened, Tate starts pulling at Butch’s shirt, until they wrestle him out of
it. He puts his palms flat against Butch’s chest. Nipping down the line of hair
in the center. Asshole. Tate touches Butch’s nipples too, ghosting his thumbs
over them until they turn hard. He stares, transfixed.
“You too, yeah?” Butch breaks the relative silence. His hands grip Tate’s
shirt.
“Oh, yeah, right.” Tate shifts his weight around until they're both naked from
the waist up. They're not rushing like normal. But they're not really languid
either, too keyed up for that, always. Just sort of cautious, like they know
they're gonna fall off the cliff.
Butch touches Tate too, their arms and fingers crossing paths as they try to
map routes on each other’s skin. It's clumsy, but neither mind. They’ll get
better, Tate’s sure of at least that. Butch’s skin is warm, flushed, turning
pinker the more they touch. Tate likes that, a lot, how Butch’s ears get red.
He bites at a lobe, it's sort of thick and springy, he has to stop himself from
laughing.
“You're weird,” Butch comments; he's smiling.
“I know. I guess.” Tate scrapes one finger along Butch’s jaw, closing the
distance and kissing again.
Tate rolls so he's on top of Butch, getting Butch to lay on his back, his head
on the pillow. He straddles Butch’s still-covered hips, but their erections
still bounce against each other as they move. Digging his fingers into Butch’s
chest, Tate grinds down on top of him. Maybe he's still hoping Butch will say
something first. But maybe the thought has never crossed Butch’s mind.
Reaching behind him, Tate grabs the sheet off the bed and tosses it so it falls
over them. Pulling it around, Tate hides their heads under the sheet, creating
a space inside a space, one that never existed before. It's almost dark, but
not quite. Smells like the detergent the laundry has used their whole lives.
“Butch?”
Butch strokes his hands across Tate’s abdomen, just above the elastic of his
boxers. “Yeah, Tate?”
“I want to try something, something we haven't done before, okay? That's why I
wanted you to come here. Not some fucking closet, okay?”
“Whatever you want, Tate.”
Tate’s flooded with so much warmth in his veins he almost says something he
knows he’ll regret. Because Butch can't possibly know, he can't. Butch rubs one
palm against Tate’s hip.
“What do you want to do?”
Tate swallows his fear. “I want you to fuck me.”
And like all the times before, Butch doesn't scream or fight, or hit Tate real
hard. His hand on Tate’s hip does get tighter though, like he's gonna crush it.
“Fuck, Tate,” Butch screws his eyes shut, then opens them. They look at each
other for a long while under the sanctuary of the sheet, their own little fort.
“Okay, yeah, you'll have to...how?”
So they are going to have to talk through it, at least a little. Tate wishes
maybe he had some beer first or something, anything to make the edges a little
blurry because, fuck, explaining to Butch how to stick his dick into him is
fucking embarrassing as fuck.
“Like you would a girl? But like, shit. In my ass, okay? Like,” Tate knows he's
gotta start making sense eventually.
“I haven't, before, Tate. Fuck. I haven't, with a girl. I mean.”
Oh. What?
“But, Christine?” Tate's not sure if he should be horrified or relieved. If
that's true, Butch didn't do it with Christine, or Susie, or anyone else, what
does that mean about them? That those girls’ hands weren't on Butch like Tate’s
have been. That they didn't suck Butch or fuck him. That him and Butch could be
the same, maybe.
“I kissed her, I mean...I liked kissing her. I guess I like girls too. But, um,
I would think about you too. Like, all the time. Fuck. Let's not talk about
this, okay? Like, we’ll just figure this out. If it's what you want.”
“Do you want to?”
“Fuck, Nosebleed, stop asking dumbass questions and explain to me how this is
supposed to work,” Butch grits his teeth.
Tate’s gotta get the lube from the dresser drawer, which means sticking his
head out from under the sheet. He grabs it, then hides again. Dropping the
bottle onto Butch’s lap, he starts rattling off the explanation. “Like, okay so
girls are supposed to be wet or whatever, right? Um, but guys, or I guess, fuck
okay, so we gotta like, use this. We put it in me, right? So it like, slides
easier. And we should put it on your cock too.”
“You've done this?” Butch looks progressively more worried.
“Not with like, another person!” The pitch of Tate’s voice keeps rising, he's
gotta keep it together. “But sometimes...with my fingers, yeah.”
“Okay, okay. So um, do you want me to put my fingers in you, like, first?”
Tate lets out a strangled gasp because that's about the best thing he's heard
from anyone's mouth ever. The idea that Butch is gonna stick his fingers into
him, then his cock. Could be more forceful, more demanding. Like those guys in
the vids who tell the women to ‘take it, take my cock,’ but this is pretty
fucking good too because even though it's a little unsure, the words are
rendered in Butch’s voice.
“Yes. Do that. Um, here, you get on top of me instead.” Tate really wishes the
bed were bigger. But they get situated, Tate spreading his legs around Butch’s.
He nearly drops one foot off the side of the bed altogether, but decides
against it. Butch presses one hand flat to Tate’s chest, feeling how his lungs
inhale and exhale. Like he's trying to learn the pattern of it.
Tate opens up the bottle, “Gimmie your hand.”
Butch still has to support his weight with one hand, but he offers his left.
That's good, don't have to worry about the pipboy getting in the way or
anything. Tate helps rub the lube over Butch’s hand. Too much, probably.
“So, okay, okay,” Tate’s gotta move around some more so he can get his boxers
off. He's flexible enough that he can drag his legs around Butch and toss them
to the side. He keeps the sheet over their hips, but it slides off of Butch’s
shoulders. By now, Butch’s hand should be warm again. “Just start with one
finger, alright? And work your way from there.” Tate’s never tried more than
three, but Butch’s hands are bigger.
“Okay,” Butch brushes against him, not quite the right spot. He's not looking,
but tries to feel Tate out. There's hesitation, sure, but there always has
been. Butch sinks his finger in, more smoothly than either of them expect.
Tate’s mouth falls open. Oh. It's not much of anything, having Butch inside him
to the knuckle, but it's kind of everything too, because they're going to do
this. “Move your finger, like, in and out,” Tate instructs.
Butch keeps quiet, “Like this?” Sounds like he's afraid to hurt Tate. But
they've hurt each other plenty, with fists and teeth and separation, loneliness
even when they share the same recycled air.
“Yeah, Butch, yeah.”
Butch leans over so he can kiss him. Slow and steady, the tide comes in.
Neither of them move too fast. Seems a shame to waste it. Blood pounds in
Tate’s ears. He can hear Butch too, how his breath hitches before he moves
again.
“Tate?”
That's not Butch.
The overhead lights come on, all at once and too bright. Tate’s too afraid to
be angry. Butch’s eyes are wild. Neither of them can find the courage to look.
It's Tate’s father. The door is already open. Butch pulls his hand away. Shit.
Fuck. FUCK.
“Tate?” James repeats himself. He doesn't sound angry, just as shocked as the
two of them.
“Fuck.” Tate doesn't know what else to do. “Get the fuck out!”
Butch must finally come to his senses because as soon as James closes the door,
he's up and out of bed, grabbing his suit from the floor. He forgets his boots
and shirt. He forgets Tate too, just trying, desperately, to get his suit on.
He only half succeeds. Tate is on the verge of sobbing, but he's not gonna
because that's fucking weak. He just watches as Butch bolts out the door. He
still forgets his shoes.
Chapter End Notes
     I can't believe how close we are to the end...THANK YOU to everyone
     who has been supporting this fic and commenting and leaving kudos, it
     really means a lot to me.
***** Our Demise at the End of the Line *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
271257 > 130758: you aint mad r u
130758 > 271257: No.
271257 > 130758: did he say anything
130758 > 271257: Wants to see me in the clinic tomorrow.
271257 > 130758: shit
It's been three days since James caught Butch and Tate in bed together. Life
proceeds as normal. Amata picks at her nails and doesn't eat enough, terrified
of her father. Tate leans back in his office chair and waits for his dad to
barge in and scream. Tate only sees Butch in passing. They haven't risked
anything else. Things are sure to settle down, eventually. But right now
they're all on edge. Tate wishes he could kiss Butch though, to make sure
everything is really okay. Feel Butch’s hands in his hair, on his back, cursing
about how neither one of them knows what the fuck they're doing, only that
they'll have to figure it out together.
271257 > 130758: i miss you
130758 > 271257: I miss you too.
Too sentimental.
--
Tate shuffles down the hall to the clinic. His dad told him, rather than
asking, that he has an appointment today. This has gotta be about Butch, about
what James walked in on a few days back. Only James is too chicken-shit to talk
to Tate directly. Like he doesn't know what's going on with Tate, ever. That's
what makes Tate so fucking angry. His own father believes not what he sees, but
what he wants to see, rather than who Tate is.
James is at his desk, engrossed in whatever is on his terminal. Tate doesn't
knock, just flops down onto the chair across from him, limbs draped over the
armrests. He expects to be scolded for being late, but the reprimand doesn't
come.
“Ready for your check up, Tate?” James deflects. Tate knows full well this
ain't got anything to do with his health. He's healthy, he's fine.
That's a lie, he's broken and mangled but fuck he feels more alive than he has
in a long time, even with the creeping fear of being found out, Butch running
from his bedroom, forgetting his boots. Tate still has them, tucked under his
bed.
“I guess,” Tate shrugs, brushing his hair away from his eyes, “only been seven
months, though.” He gives his father an opening to tell the truth, to be angry
or frustrated or whatever he needs to be. Then Tate can get angry in return and
maybe they can finally know each other instead of chasing specters of intimacy.
“Why don't we get you on the table, hm?” He's so fucking clinical. But Tate
listens, hopping up onto the examination table and rolling up his left sleeve.
Tate stares at the wall ahead of him, the criss cross of wires and pipes. His
dad checks his heart, his blood pressure, takes two vials of blood. Everything
looks so fucking normal abstracted like this. Like Tate can just be reduced to
numbers and blood behind glass.
His dad doesn't talk to him again until, “Let's get your height and weight.”
Mutely, Tate stands on the scale. 172 pounds. He doesn't look when his father
takes his height. “Still 5’9”?” Tate asks. His father's face tightens, and he
nods. That's a lie, and they both know it. But they keep perpetuating it
between them, have been for about a year now. Tate keeps hoping one day it
won't be a lie anymore.
There's a battery of questions his dad asks every patient, every time. Tate's
heard them hundreds of times, backwards and forwards, from the days in his
adolescence when his dad wanted to keep him close. Does Tate think about
hurting himself? Hurting others? Is he sad? Or hopeless? Doesn't matter what
Tate feels, he answers ‘no, no, no.’ Because just one yes, one time, would be
worse.
The questions come faster and faster. Tate grips the side of the exam table
until his knuckles turn white. He wants to smash his fists into his dad’s face,
show him how much he thinks about hurting himself, hurting others. But he bites
back the anger. Tries to swallow it. Sour on his tongue, burning down his
throat.
Have you been sexually active in he he last 12 months?" There it finally is,
the real question. Tate's almost relieved.
"Is that what this is about, dad?" He turns his face away, looking off to the
side, past the big glass window, out into the empty hall. Tapping his fingers
against the underside of the table, he waits for his father’s answer.
“I'm asking you as your doctor, not as your father." Bullshit. It's only
because James sucks as a father that he's trying to pull this shit as Tate’s
doctor. But Tate ain't so sure he's that great at being a doctor either. Never
could figure out what is wrong with Tate.
"But you know the answer.” Tate looks around the room, out into the hall, tries
to look into the back of his own skull, anywhere but at James. The anger is
sort of gone, replaced by a trembling nervousness.
"With women?" James asks. Of all the fucking things. Like, he fucking saw. He
saw who Tate is, and he wants to look the other direction.
"Naw, dad, you know. You've always known, just didn't want to believe it." He
finally looks at his father, hoping for some molecule of understanding. He
finds none. Just eyes that look like his, dark and hooded, looking back at him.
Scares him to think about, even now, that he might be his father’s mirror.
Because they're both so alien, here in the vault. They don't fit.
Why does Tate have no birth record?
"No I don't.” James says. “With men?"
"Yeah. I guess, sort of." Tate wants to say more. That he doesn't know what
counts or doesn't. That they didn't get so far, that was the first time. Other
than mouths and hands. And sometimes he feels so full he might burst. But Amata
is always scared, and Butch doesn't want to talk about how they feel. And Tate
doesn't really want to talk either, but he also can't keep it all inside. But
his father cuts him off.
“We should talk about how you can protect yourself.”
Tate sits in a daze through the lecture, about diseases no one in the vault has
ever had, as far as he knows. And about pregnancy, even though Tate knows well
enough he can't get pregnant from Butch’s cock in his ass. And that he should
wear this condom thing on his dick before intercourse. But like, he doesn't
think about putting his cock in anyone all that often, though maybe he'd like
to do it to Butch too, maybe. Butch’d probably look good like that. And his
father circles back around to illness, like that's the most important thing.
But Tate doesn't have a second to say that Butch hasn't fucked anyone else.
Hell, neither of them have fucked anyone because James fucking walked in on
them.
When the lecture is over, the condom feels like lead in Tate’s fist. He flips
it over: expiry date sometime in 2079. The fuck? No sooner is he out the clinic
door before he tosses that shit into the garbage. Everything is lost between
James and Tate in transmission. Too much static, too much willful ignorance.
Chapter End Notes
     Sorry this chapter is so short! It's just how the scenes broke out
     because I'd like to keep the final sequence as a single chapter.
     Thank you to everyone who has commented and kudoed and just ahhh
     thank you!
***** The fool and the flower bed *****
“Tate, Tate!” Amata’s voice cuts through his dreamless restlessness. “Tate, you
have to wake up!”
Tate rolls over on his side trying to brush the drowsiness from his eyes. It's
still early, and he's disoriented, unused to be woken by anything other than
his pipboy alarm. Amata sounds like she's calling him from a distant dream,
rather than the foot of his bed.
Pushing himself onto his elbows, Tate tries to focus on Amata’s frantic
expression. A bead of sweat runs down the side of her face. Either that or
she's crying. What is Amata crying about?
“Amata? What's wrong?” Tate starts getting out of bed, pulling a fresh suit
from his dresser.
“My father,” she corrects, “your father. He opened the vault door! He's gone.
Oh, Tate, my dad is sending security to get you. They killed Jonas already. I
don't know what he's thinking. I'm afraid for you, Tate, you need to run!”
Tate doesn't finish pulling his suit on, just tying the arms off at his waist.
Gone. His father is gone. Like that, puff of smoke. It's sort of what he's
always wanted, but not like this. Now Tate can hear the alarms over the sound
of Amata’s rushing breath. The vault has gone on lockdown.
“Radroaches got in when your father left. And, and, Tate you just have to get
out.” Amata’s voice speeds up.
On her hip she carries a 10mm. Tate doesn't know where she got it, maybe swiped
it from her father. When she touches the handle, her hand shakes.
The door to Tate’s room starts opening again. He lunges towards the baseball
bat in his closet. The weapon will extend his reach, so he doesn't have to get
so close to hit someone. But fuck, fuck security all have guns and Tate
doesn't. There's the BB gun downstairs but it would barely hurt a fly.
Tate doesn't hesitate, when he knows the person coming through the door isn't
Butch, too tall, he takes a swing at the officer’s head. He crumples to the
floor, blocking the door frame and keeping it from closing back. It's Officer
Kendall. Shit. Shit. Tate doesn't think he killed him, but he swung pretty
hard. The officer bleeds from the side of his head.
“Don't go to the main entrance.” Amata starts stuffing stimpaks into Tate’s
pockets, and a wad of thousand dollar bills. She must have been in her father’s
safe. “Circle around to my dad’s office. The door under his desk, it leads to a
tunnel, it'll take you out to the door.” Coming up on her toes, Amata kisses
Tate on the lips, sweet and chaste. It's in case this is goodbye. Amata thinks
this might be goodbye. “I'm so sorry, Tate, for all the things I told you, and
all the things I didn't. I'm just sorry.”
She steps over Kendall’s body on her way out. Tate doesn't know where she's
going with that 10mm, but he's terrified by both her resolve and her apology.
Gripping the baseball bat in both hands, Tate knows he's got no choice but to
follow Amata’s directions. If the Overseer killed Jonas, he must think that
James was involved in some sort of conspiracy. Fuck, was he? Tate doesn't know.
Fuck, he and Amata and Butch were involved in a conspiracy! If one that led
nowhere. Now security is after him too and he's not gonna go down easy. Tate
doesn't really believe he's gonna leave the vault either, but Amata wants him
to find that tunnel.
In the halls, radroaches, fat and bulbous, skitter down the hallways, gross.
Tate's seen them before, sure, but never in such numbers, never moving in
clustered packs. One of them turns its attention to him and he screams like a
fucking loser before bashing it with his bat. It crunches and splatters with
the blow, green gunk clinging to the front of Tate’s pants. Fuck. He turns to
take off down the hall.
“Tate!” Butch, oh thank fuck, it's Butch. His eyes are wide as he grabs onto
Tate’s arms. “Tate, they're in with my ma, you gotta help me! The radroaches.”
Tate swallows hard, “okay, okay let's go help her.”
They run to the DeLoria’s suite together, Butch’s hand gripping Tate’s arm the
whole time. So tight it's gonna leave distinct fingerprints on Tate’s skin.
Butch keeps breathing heavy, whining “ma, ma, I'm sorry.”
Inside the living room, Ellen screams. She's half-delirious, but that's normal.
Everyone knows how much she drinks, how she's not all the way there. But Butch
doesn't like talking about it, and Tate's not gonna ask. Just, like, fuck.
Being with each other gave them a blank slate to ignore everything else. But
faced with the stench of hard liquor and Ellen’s wails, Tate can't ignore her
right now. This scab of Butch’s.
Tate starts swinging at the roaches, knocking them away and against the wall,
where they burst open on impact. Ellen claws at herself, but she's
uncoordinated. Tate is afraid he's gonna hit her next. So he drops the bat and
grabs the roach on her chest with his hands. He tears it apart before it has
the chance to latch onto him. The green goo stains his knuckles, it's thick and
terrible and makes Tate want to retch. But that's the last one.
Butch rushes to his mom. She's stopped screaming, but her eyes are glassy.
Pressing a hand to her chest, he listens for a heartbeat. “She's alive. Fuck.
Tate, she’s alive.”
Tate's sure that they're both gonna cry because over the loudspeakers they
hear, “Authorization given to shoot resident Tate Zhang on sight.”
“Tate?” Butch leaves her mother in her chair. She's passed out, but she’ll be
okay. “Fuck, Tate.” Butch takes Tate’s face between his hands. “What is going
on?”
Not knowing for sure himself, Tate just shakes his head. The guts on his hands
are starting to dry. Not caring, he fists his hands in Butch’s shirt, allows
himself to sob just once before steeling himself again. He's gotta get to that
door. And he can't bring down Butch with him. Not this time. Butch has taken
the fall for him too often already.
He wants to tell Butch about this thing that's been making his lungs expand,
been making his heart pound and his veins constrict. Tate's more certain of
this thing than he's ever been of anything. The world around them is falling
apart, but still, Tate is certain.
Butch pulls off his jacket, draping it around Tate’s shoulders. It's heavy and
warm and the leather smells like smoke. Fuck. Fuck. Like Butch is holding him,
yeah, but like he's saying something too.
Their lips meet halfway, and for the first time, Tate and Butch kiss each other
goodbye. Though they don't know it. They don't know the duration of their
forced separation, and all the things bound to happen in between, until the
rotations of their lives swing their bodies back together. They just don't
know.
Tate parts his lips though he can hear security boots in the hallway. They're
looking for him, but the door stays closed. Won't for long, though. And as
chaotic as the vault is, they'll just as soon shoot Butch as him.
Tate wants to say ‘I love you,’ when they pull away, because he's never been so
certain. He loves Butch in a way that is terrifying and vast. But he doesn't
say it. He chokes the sweet words down as if they were bitter.
“Don't die, dickhead.” Tate smashes his fist in the side of Butch’s skull.
Butch’s limbs go loose and he crumples to the floor in a heap. Tate waits until
he's sure Butch has passed out. It's the best way to keep him safe, to make
sure Butch doesn't follow, get himself hurt in the process. Security will leave
him alone this way.
When the boots go one way, Tate runs the other. Past the clinic, he can hear
gunfire. Even the sound of his heart thudding increases the panic percolating
inside him. He ducks into the clinic to try and catch his breath, but he can't,
because Jonas’ body is there, part of his face blown off. Tate covers his mouth
so he makes no noise. Once he's sure he’ll be quiet, he checks Jonas’ pockets,
for a knife or gun or anything fucking useful. He just pulls out a note and a
pill bottle. In uniform type on the label is his name. “Tate Zhang.” He doesn't
read the note. He doesn't take the pills. Tate heads for the atrium.
The Holdens run past him, then the Holdens are dead, riddled with bullets. Tate
has to stop himself from screaming. The atrium smells like blood. His hands
shake. Why? Why are they killing everyone? Why are they killing anyone who
isn't him or his dad? He doesn't even fucking know why they want to kill him
and his dad, but that's one step ahead of where Tate can currently think.
He hides behind a pillar, trying to catch his breath. Tate can't catch
anything, though. Right now he's prey, and he knows it. He's gotta cross the
atrium to make it to the next hallway. He bites back his fear best he can,
dashing for the door that's propped open. Amata said to use the Overseer’s
tunnel, not go straight for the door.
Security Chief Hannon is in the hall. He raises his gun when he sees Tate,
firing off two rounds. Throwing himself against the wall, Tate narrowly avoids
being shot. He has to be fast enough, shifting his weight and dashing towards
Hannon. Leaving the baseball bat behind, Tate knocks Hannon to the ground. He
smashes his fists into Hannon’s face, over and over until he stops moving,
From behind glass, someone screams. Looking up, Tate sees Gloria Mack, her face
horrified. She saw everything. Next to her, her husband shouts that he knew, he
always fucking knew that this would be a disaster. The Overseer should have
never let that outsider with the baby in. Should have never let Tate in. He's a
cancer.
Tate can't process what Allen Mack’s accusation means. There isn't the time.
Once off the floor, Tate keeps running.
He can hear the Overseer speaking, stern and condescending. Amata is sobbing.
Fuck. Tate's scared, but he looks through the glass.
Amata sits on a chair, her father in front of her and Stevie Mack to one side.
Her father asks again. “Where is Tate?”
“I don't know!” She shrieks. Covering her face in her hands she repeats, “I
don't know, I don't know.”
“I'll get it out of her,” Stevie threatens. He takes a half step towards her
and Tate is ready to bust through the glass. He’ll fucking kill Stevie with his
bare hands. He’ll rip out his windpipe and make thread from his sinew. He’ll
mangle and maim Stevie until nothing is left, until he's obliterated, if he
fucking lays a hand on Amata.
But Amata is quick, and a good shot. She has the pistol from her hip. Neither
her father nor Stevie were expecting that. Firing off two rounds, Amata shouts
louder than Stevie, who dies fast and clean. Barely a whimper. Tate doesn't
want to look, but he feels like he should. Tears stream down Amata’s face.
Her father has switched from rage to comfort, crouching in front of her and
pulling her close to her chest. She mutters she's sorry, she's so sorry. Tate
doesn't know what to believe. Turning away from the window, Tate vomits onto
the floor. Shit, they'll hear him. But Amata’s lament must be loud enough.
Wiping his mouth, Tate knows he's got to continue.
Not so much further now to the Overseer’s office. He doesn't know how he's
supposed to get the Overseer’s terminal open. The door is already ajar to the
office, so Tate runs straight for the terminal. It's password locked. He tries,
unsuccessfully, three times to unlock the computer before the automated
security locks him out. When the screen flashes “ACCESS DENIED” he punches
through the monitor.
“Tate!” Amata rushes in. She has a keypass in her hand. Without another word,
she presses the key to the panel under her father’s desk. The floor under their
feet starts moving, opening to a pathway below.
“Where is your dad?” he asks.
“Looking for you.”
“You killed Stevie Mack.” He's not sure why that is so important. Maybe because
today, within minutes of each other, he and Amata have both become murderers.
Ironically, Butch is the only one without blood on his hands. Fuck.
Once the stairs click into place, Amata and Tate run down to the door. It
opens, without needing the keypass again, into a disused tunnel. Tate loses
track of the direction. His only grounding is Amata’s labored breathing at his
side. Another door dumps them into the vault entrance. How did they even end up
here? How did Amata know they'd end up here?
Amata hits the red button, waiting for the door to power back up, then throws
the latch. Seconds tick by as the door rolls open, the ‘101’ spinning away.
Security has found them, they're coming through the door.
“Go! Tate, GO!”
“But Amata.” His feet won't move.
“I'll be fine!” Shots ricochet off the vault door. Security sure has shitty
aim.
Tate runs through the sliver of space revealed by the rolling door. Almost as
soon as it's open, it starts turning back the other way. Amata is locking
herself and security in; she's locking Tate out. He runs down the dirt tunnel,
tripping over a pile of bones. He's out of sobs and screams and even tears for
the long dead. Not even enough for the fresh kills.
The door on the other end isn't big or metal or opposing, it's a screen door,
wood edged. Tate has seen so little wood in his life. He pushes at the door and
it swings open.
The world outside is bright. So fucking bright Tate thinks he's dying in the
light. That it'll burn out his eyeballs. And fuck, he thought the vault was too
bright.
Once his eyes adjust, Tate looks out over the plain below the hill. Stretching
for miles and miles, dirt, ruins, death. Tate was right. The world is dead. It
doesn't look like the photographs.
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! He wants to go home. He wants to run back the tunnel to the
vault. So he does, nearly breaking the shoddy screen off its hinges and
barreling back down the tunnel to the vault door. He throws himself against the
metal, screaming. It doesn't matter what will happen to him on the other side.
It has to be better than this. He screams until his voice is hoarse. He claws
until his fingers are bloody.
No one hears him. Or if they do, they do nothing. Tate puts his back against
the door in the semi-darkness of the tunnel. Through the screen up ahead, he
watches the world outside get dark again. Right, the sun sets. Like the night
cycle in the vault where the lights get lower.
Tate takes his raw scraped fingers to his pipboy dial.
130758 > 271257: Butch, help.
130758 > 271257: Come, please, I'm outside.
130758 > 271257: Butch, I love you.
All the messages come back: undeliverable.
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