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“  dude,  what are you doing?   get your ass back here!  ”    it’s a moment of protest—  as if to fan out the fire that’s beginning to be set.   there’s no room for error,  teamwork will make the dream work.   and yet,  eddie chooses to play hero right at this moment—  no longer choosing to run away but yet,  face his problems head on.   [it’s something steve can admire,  but note the stupidity of at this very moment.]   super mutants continue to surround the capitol building,  a war raging outside as talon company mercenaries unload,  robo-brains stumbling into the situation as well.   rubbles falls around them,  steve running to catch up as he yanks on the back of eddie’s jacket—  his way of saying no.    (the longer they’re out in the wasteland,  steve swears they grow more cocky—  more accustomed into believing they can’t die.   death’s inevitable,  though;  it’s better to not test it,  especially not right fucking now.)

was he telling her to shut up?  there’s no way he’s telling her to shut up.  bambi blinks at him absently, baffled at his audacity for only a split second before his actual intentions become clear.  stay here? her lips part briefly— maybe to tell him to stop trying to play the hero, or maybe to call him a fucking idiot— but before the words can leave her mouth, he’s already disappeared and she’s left biting her tongue.  splitting up is just a little counterintuitive to the whole buddy system thing, but sure.  bambi manages to listen to his instructions for almost a complete minute, every second suddenly feeling a thousand times slower.  the sounds of his footsteps get further and further away as she watches old dust fall from the ceiling.  there isn’t supposed to be anyone here.  there’s nothing to be worried about.  that is, of course, until she hears the gunshots.  they ring through the house like a chime of a clock and are punctuated only by the sound of empty casings falling to the floor.  expletives spill as she yanks a combat knife from her belt and sprints up the rickety old staircase.  it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that they are absolutely, positively, irrefutably fucked.  finally, she stumbles into the master bedroom, knuckles white around the handle of the knife and eyes wild with concern.  “ what the fuck was that?  are you okay? “ 

❝   Punch  and  run ?   Then  what’s  even  the  point  ?!   Better  hope  wherever  you’re  sneaking  into  is  downwind  cause  I  can  smell  whatever  product  you’re  using  from  half  a  mile  away .   ❞    

❝   The  stealth  is      of  course      optional,  but  so  is  my  mercy.   ❞  

“ how about you try to relax for…  i don’t know, thirty seconds or something? “  she’s making a face, lips pulled into a thin line as she brushes past him to step into what looks like the remnants of a dining room.  the floorboards creak in response and for a split second, she thinks she hears something walking around upstairs.  radroaches.  probably.  “ believe me, you weren’t exactly my first pick—  but eddie’s got guard duty until dusk and this is the only time that this place isn’t crawling with raiders. “  or at least… it should be.  in any case, big town isn’t exactly a bustling metropolis so bambi’s more or less scraped the bottom of the barrel for anyone who’s mildly competent with a weapon.  “ but if you have to know right at this second, i’m pretty sure this place is like … an outpost.  or something like that.  you know, like where slavers and raiders … meet to do business and stuff? “  her brows furrow slightly as she tries to explain her theory.  she’s never been overly articulate.  now that she’s spoken it out loud, she realizes how incredulous this is.  she gulps down the newly formed lump in her throat and shrugs with the same nonchalance as someone choosing what to eat for breakfast.  “ so, i was thinking … maybe we can find out when they’re planning their next visit to big town and for once, maybe we’d have the upper hand?  does that make sense? “  

“ ahhh good ol’ bread.   generally moldy bread won’t kill you,  the problem is vomiting causes dehydration sickness which can kill you.   so honestly,  dumping water on him wasn’t a bad idea.   did you know that moldy bread was a major breakthrough for medicine?   doesn’t mean you should eat it but the growing mold spore bacteria can help produce anti-biotics.   i used to help produce a basic distilled form of penicillin back in the vault with the leftovers. ”     her eyes drift down to her pip-boy,  the ugly green glow illuminating the map as they trailed through the caves;  dogmeat at her heels.     “ bread is actually quite easy to make when you know where to source it.   i mean,  i’ve had to figure out substituting packet yeast for using ground wheat and peach skins but i can teach you if you want—   god. i sound so stupid,  talking about fucking bread.   you don’t give a shit about bread.   i hate the wastelands.   i miss the vault but i hated it there.   the world is shit,  you want to make it better for the people you care about.   marley,  she another friend of yours?   tell me she isn’t going to kick my ass for kidnapping you on my quest to find a geck because i will lose. ”

it strikes a cord with her,  i’m doing this for my people.   everything she did to help vault 101 & then got rejected.   hopefully it goes better for steve.     “ no,  i uh…   i can get that.   i tried to help my people but…   whatever,  what’s your main issues down here anyways?   food,  electricity?   medical care?   i’m no engineer but i have some friends who might be able to help— and back in the vault,  i was training to be a doctor.   you got any sick kids,  throw ’em my way.   god,  i mean that’s my whole big stupid point of this.   i want to help.   everyone.   i’m going to purify this stupid waterfilled wasteland if it kills me. ”

“ yeah.   i guess we are.   the fact that this isn’t even the dumbest conversation i’ve ever had is the worst part.   i once argued with butch for three days about what a mammal was.   don’t even remember how the argument started.   …   we used to eat a lot beans in the vault too.   but we had this shitty hydroponics plant so they were off the stalk and they tasted awful cause whoever was in charge of hydroponics never cleaned the mold out properly. ”     it’s like having a mini-version of butch with her.   what was the point in leaving him in rivet if she was just going to pick up another one along the way?   stupid wastelands,  stupid butch,  stupid jesse—  stupid steve.    “ anyone with a—  no.   no they fucking wouldn’t.   you know what i am?   easy pickings.   the only reason people in megaton helped me is because i helped them.   disabled their stupid bomb and for what!   fucking children of atom getting on my ass.   and it’s called a pip-boy   (  a drawn out sigh,  )   i can uh,  i can try find you one if you want?   vault 87 might have some and if that dustin is half as smart as he sounds,  i’m sure he can wire it up for you. ”

“  once,  back at little lamplight,  we found a pile of this old spongey stuff?   someone called it bread—  it was all moldy,  no one knew how long it’d even been there,  and i refused to eat it;  absolutely refused,  but one of the other kids did.   he puked his guts out for days;  we were all convinced he was going to die.   he didn’t,  but we were all scared shitless;  running around,  trying to help him out...   my friends were dicks about it.   they woke him up in the middle of the night and tossed water on him,  saying it’d cure him or some shit...  i don’t know—  we were young.  stupid shit,  you know?   shit you look back on and just wonder,  what the hell was i doing?  ”    there’s nights he questions whether he should even be alive after his childhood—  king of little lamplight,  heart of nothing;  most days,  he considers it a dodged bullet,  but it doesn’t make the nights any easier to sleep through.    

as she listens to him,  her head bobs in agreement.    “that’s good— smart,  even.   enough information to draw someone in,  but not enough to tell them exactly we’re at without conversing first…”    she trails off,  planting herself in the chair directly in front of the radio.   she exhales a deep breath,  her lips pressing themselves together for a moment;  an expression of here goes nothing spreads across her face as she presses the red button—  this has to be the button,  right?    she repeats the statement point blank,  arguing with steve over with button broadcasts the message and which button is the on/off button,  but they manage.    “now we wait.   someone has to hear it,  right?    we’re losing people left and right here…  i’m scared—  i should’ve taken the shot the last time i saw them.   i saw them right outside the fucking clinic and i was just so scared.    i’ve only shot at the big bugs,  though and those move so much slower…  i was scared.   now they have red,  shorty…  i should’ve just taken the shot.”

“ everyone in the wastelands knows what a fruit is!   oh my fucking god this is so stupi—  i’m going to find a mutfruit tree when this is all over and make you eat every single one of them.   give you an actual education on fruit. ”     and maybe it’s hypocritical,  she’s still a baby to the wastelands.   a fresh little vault dweller,  all sunburnt and new to the world.   stupid little vault dweller—  half-hauling her ass over a rock and half-dragging the dead leg behind,  lips twisted in a pout.   no more equipped to handle the world then him— well,  apart from maybe the guns and knives and the baseball grenades.     “ just you wait.   all the poor nutrition and lack of sunlight down here will rot you just like me.   your future,  right here.   unable to properly solidify joints and now bam,  you’ll turn twenty two and instantly turn bald.   oh yeah,  let me just use my brain to just fucking levitate over this rock—  perfect!   you’ve cured me!   i can’t believe i lumbered around for all these years with my leg when all i had to do was use my brain!   and i fucking earned this ego!   you probably don’t even know what a germ is! ”