#viola.

Viola’s hair came out in clumps when Butch ran a wide-tooth comb through it. Her jaw dropped at the sight of each ratty strand tangled around the teeth.

 “What are we going to do?” She sputtered.

“We?” He used the pointed end of a rat tail comb to clean the hair, yanking away at the more stubborn pieces with his thumb and index finger. “This is between you and your hotshot robot here.”

Wadsworth quit his flitting about. “Excuse me? I was instructed to keep the treatment in her hair longer because her roots were strong, ‘like something grown out of a mutant’s scalp.’ Which is beyond me since I’ve never seen a mutant with hair.”

Still at work on the comb, Butch nudged his chin in Dogmeat’s direction.” You might as well go on and say something, mutt. That way you’ll be in on the fun”

There was a large chance that Dogmeat had absolutely no idea what he was talking about but he barked anyway—More likely at the attention than anything else.

“My hair emergency does not need your sarcasm right now.” She pulled at a loose hanging strand above her ear. It slid out with ease and she flailed it in front of her. “See?”

“Well quit pulling on it, Nosebleed.”

“It was going to fall out anyway.” She shot back.

“Let it then.”

"I don’t think you understand. Baldness and shedding hair is not the type of look the Lone Wanderer should be having.”

Butch snorted.  “And they call me vain.”

“Butch. You spend thirty minutes every morning in front of the bathroom mirror, making sure that thing on your head is slick with pomade and gelled to a certain angle.”

“It’s called the Tunnel Snake.”

“Whatever. Do you have a diagnosis for me or not?”

He stepped back from the living room couch she sat on. There was a narrowing of his eyes and a rubbing of his chin. Where did this serious Butch come from and how long had he existed? As far she knew this was that same moron that replaced her hand lotion with mayonnaise back when they were kids. 

Butch’s hand dropped from where it was and he ended up shoving it in his Tunnel snakes jacket pocket as his shoulders squared. Maybe in spite of herself her thoughts had written themselves all over her face and he read them straight.  

“Looks bad.” He said. After taking his place behind the couch again, he took the comb and parted her damaged hair to expose more of her scalp. He pressed gently. “No chemical burns though. The damage shouldn’t be permanent.”

“Aha! Good one Master.”  Wadsworth said at the horrible pun that would’ve slipped by had he not said anything.

She rubbed her temples. “I’m pretty sure there’s still a mess in the kitchen. Go clean it.”

Wadsworth left but not, of course, without muttering something about the perils of working under her and how little he is repaid for his service.

“How long did you leave that stuff in for?  An hour?” Butch asked.

Viola grew quiet.

“An hour? Are you kidding me?”

“I know as a stylist--”

“Barber.”

He always corrected her but this time he sounded like he was seconds close to seriously taking a pair of clippers to the rest of the hair on her head.  

Viola softened her tone. “Right, Barber. I know you probably salivate at a the challenge of a ‘thicker’ hair type but you haven’t had to comb it. “Ugh.” She shuddered “That comb.”

“Thick hair or not. Leaving the perm in for as long as you did was dumb. A professional could’ve told you that.”

“We’re broker than broke, so it’s not like I could’ve gone to Snowflake.”

“You do know we live together right?” He asked.

“I didn’t really have you on the top my list when I was looking at all my options. Maybe next time, Deloria.”

“Sure. Next time.”

His smile stiff, Butch rearranged the combs in his hair tool belt on the wobbly table across from the couch. Dogmeat swiveled his ears forward.  Inching closer, he watched Butch’s hands and then eventually fell into sniffing them. He nuzzled them. Butch dropped a comb. “Tell the pooch to get away from my tools.”  Dogmeat just looked at him with those warm, round eyes. He eased his hands back to where they were and gave him a soft pat on the head. “For now.”

She should have him told dogs appreciated scratches behind the ears not pats like the pre-war cartoons back in the vault made them think. But with things as they were that mode conversation would’ve veered off somewhere weird too.

“Dogmeat, want to listen to a song boy?” She turned the knob on her Pip-boy. Dogmeat’s ears perked up at the static of the changing radio stations. “Let’s see if we can find something good, huh boy?” She ended up on the Galaxy News Radio where Three Dog played Maybe by the Inkspots. It wasn’t Dogmeat’s favorite but it still got him on his hind legs,  pressing his front paws and his weight onto her. She grabbed both paws and whirled him around as if they were slow dancing. She sung and he howled along to the line, “Maybe you’ll think of me when you are all alone.”

Playtime was short lived. With a yawn, Dogmeat took his paws from her and leaped onto to his favorite pre-war style chair with the thread and stuffing ripped out.

The dance ended with her back turned to Butch. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t get you to do my hair. That one there would have been under your feet the whole time.”

She felt him stare. “Yeah, I guess so.” He said.  Though finished the sentence seemed empty.

Heat crept up her neck. Viola went for the front door. “Stuffy in here.” She murmured. A breeze seeped in through the small crack she made by placing a worn wood plank between the door and it’s frame.  The slight chill tickled parts of her scalp. “I’m going to have to get use to that. I’ll need to wear a hat out later.”

Butch asked, “What do you plan on doing when you head out?”

She leaned against the wall near the door and folded her arms. "Same old wasteland stuff that I’m always up to. Poking my nose in random people’s business. Sniffing out extra caps.”

She paused and moved her arms so she was hugging herself.

“Maybe looking into some new info on Project Purity.” She finally offered. Butch usually gave her space to do whatever but she had to feed him the vaguest of information because anything a tier above a bar fight was action he wanted in on.

With his eyes low, he grumbled about going upstairs quickly. When he came back down he had something that made clinking sounds in his hand.  “Take this with you. You can stop by Snowflake’s this time.”

Her eyes widened. She shook her hand a little to hear the clinking again. “You had caps like this this whole time?”

“Sure did.”

“You never mentioned them.”

“What? You think I can’t make my own dough out here?  I’m a barber.  Not to mention a wanderer like you.” He snapped.

There it was.

“I didn’t say that.”

He hesitated before he gave in, “You didn’t.”

All of a sudden it appeared that he found the small hall to the mini kitchen a lot more interesting than their mess of conversation. That area was the usual safe haven for his booze and no doubt he had a taste for some at the moment.  

“You...you,” Frustrated, he plopped onto the couch, slumped down into cushions and drummed his fingers on an arm rest. “You usually disappear without telling me much so I get up to some things while your gone. Because the Butch-man ain’t about waiting around for nobody, you know? Most of them are errands. Running back and forth from Megaton to Rivet City. A lot of my top paying clients from my first gig are actually from Rivet city anyway, so it made a load of sense to just factor the errands in.”

“You do all that on your own?”

Butch stopped his drumming to glower.

“Yeah, and I know how to use the big boy potty too,” He shook his head “From how you were talking two months ago I thought you would be more goody-goody about these types of things”

 That day when Butch sprained his ankle and they talked about everything they ever wanted came rushing back.

“I meant everything I said then.”

“Considering that I’m some kind of glorified house sitter in that mind of yours, I’d say you got an odd way of showing it. Is this some nerd thing I’m not getting?”

“I need to give my actions time to catch up with my words a little. "She admitted

“You sure are taking it awful slow.”

He had a point. She couldn’t go on telling him one thing and then doing another, all while taking forever.

She sat on the other side of the couch. “Before you. Before even Dogmeat. I was out here on my own. Nothing can really prepare you for the Wasteland. I thought I would never adjust but I did what I had to. I got use to long walks on my own, the constant looking over my shoulder and not having much of anyone to really talk to but Moira. After a while, that panicky feeling I had the first time I opened the vault door pushed itself into the back of my mind. I had survived on my own well enough. Then everything came back.”

She spoke under her breath, “Oh boy did everything come back.”

“When I found my dad I felt like I was back at home. The dull colors, the beeping machinery, the antiseptic smells, the soft medical cots—I remembered all of it.  I even remembered him telling me to pinch my nose and tilt my head back to stop a nose bleed you and your buddies caused. Then he was gone. Then Amata sent her distress signal. Then I was literally back at home and you know what happened with that—that was gone too. And now here you are, a fresh vault dweller, doing your best impression of Humpty Dumpty every chance you get.“

A meek, “Oh”, was all he managed.

She hoped she didn’t sound as bitter as she felt.

“I’m sorry. I know you didn’t leave the vault just to hop into another one. “

“You’re right. I left that place behind for a reason. Besides, I can’t run a gang from inside this dump.” He said.

The beginnings of another argument was on the tip of her tongue but she did her best to bite it back.

“You also can’t run a gang if you’re laying out in a ditch somewhere with rad poisoning.”

“Can’t run a gang without any members either.” He retorted, meeting her muted annoyance.

In normal instances she would’ve treated the threat of being kicked out of the oh so tough Tunnel Snake Gang like a Radroach charging at her: a non-problem easily taken care of. It never bothered her before. Why did it now?

“But,” He slapped a hand on her shoulder “Lucky for me, one of my best recruits is a dynamo.”

His typical moronic naivete made her break into wan grin.

She rubbed her fingers up and down her neck. He hair catastrophe hadn’t been dealt with yet. “And what if your dynamo recruit decided to become another one of your customers? How would you fix this?”