Two Eyes [Closed] [M]

        Eye fluttering open, Rusty didn’t exactly move right away. “I’m awake.” He murmured quietly. He jumped slightly as he felt her hand give the bed of a thump. It was short while before he sat up and looked around. It was clear from his eye that he’d actually been awake a while. He didn’t look tired at all, or groggy for that matter. In fact, he hadn’t slept much after the nightmare. Every now and then he’d wake up just in case of another nightmare. He didn’t want to risk waking up Shea not that he knew he already had. Instead, he just watched the darkness. Every now and then he’d close his eyes for half an hour or so. By the time he felt Shea get up, he was already wide awake.

        Rusty looked over at her, as she got dressed, “Of course… Just gimme a minute or two.” He told, pulling the blankets off him. Rusty stretched somewhat as he got up. Immediately pain began to seep up his leg from his ankle. Tentatively he began walking and gave something of a shrug. It wasn’t so bad now… Though he might’ve needed another Med-X shot at some point. Still it didn’t hurt as much to walk around, and he wasn’t limping as much. He quickly vanished into the bathroom.

        Before too long, Rusty stepped out and got dressed as quickly as he could. “Caravan huh, should be interesting.” He told as he bent over to tie his shoe laces. He secretly wondered about Shea being around people other than him for a while. She didn’t seem like a big people person as it was, let alone multiple people. It was going to be interesting at least.


        Quite some time later, Rusty was walking next to Shea, his eyes scanning the area around them. All he could hear was the movement of the power armoured guys. Even he felt threatened by the hulking suits. There was also another factor. Whilst he was sure those guys would survive a raider assault, both he and Shea were easy pickings. He didn’t envy the other caravaners who worked alongside these Brotherhood guys.

        Rusty eyed the Protectron with mistrust as they walked. Technology as a whole tended to give him a feeling of dread. He didn’t even know where it came from. He’d never been attacked by a robot, so far as he understood. Now that he thought about it, he’d never come across a robot beyond those that hung around others. He guessed that was it. The mistrust was spawned from the unknown. Robots had no emotions, they just acted without hesitation. Rusty shuddered as he thought about it. He’d heard rumours a while back about androids in an area of the wasteland to the north somewhere. Robots that looked like humans. He had had nightmares about that for days afterwards.

        As the built up ruins fell away, Rusty became a whole lot more curious. He practically ignored the caravan as he walked. Everything was new. The style of buildings changed. “Huh… This is pretty cool.” He muttered, giving everything a look. As the space opened up, everything became a whole lot clearer. A billow of dust flew over them, and shielded his eye with the back of his hand. Still it was over quickly, which was thankful. Sometimes when that happened in the city, the dust clung to the air in a sort of dust mist. Now freed the dust blew past them and dissipated immediately. Rusty watched Shea as she ate her mirelurk cake. He gave her a bit of a smirk. “They’re good… though I make better ones.” He chuckled. “I’ll have to show ya sometime. A bit hard to get a hold of all the ingredients, but I bet we can manage it if we find a good food merchant.”

        As the inevitable topic of his ankle came up and gave her a nod. “It’s fine… aches a hell of a lot, but it’s manageable. Would like some more of that Med-X stuff that doc gave me… Felt great.” He told, giving her a bit of a grin. In truth it felt a little too good. Probably something he really shouldn’t take too much of. Looking down a bit at the road, he casually kicked a rock off into the waste. Holy crap, there wasn’t an echo. The rock just fell nearby with a really dull thud. Like a child, he did it again when another small rock got in his way.

        “Footwork…?” He asked giving her a confused look. Watching her talk, he then realised she meant some kind of martial art? He gave her a bit of a nod. He didn’t have any siblings to wrestle with as a kid, and he was practically a puppy when it came to his demeanour as a child. Still it’d be good to get some lessons from a chick who obviously knew what she was doing. As she punched his arm, Rusty gave her a playful laugh rubbing his arm. “Heeey.” He snickered. Looking at his arms he gave her a bit of a nod. “I suppose I do a bit.” Rusty gave his biceps something of a flex. It wasn’t anything impressive. He was fairly average built, but he did have strength, which was probably through working with his arms his life. He was a manual craftsman after all.

        Chuckling at her, he cocked his head it the side. “Ya think so, huh?” Rusty looked at his hands. “I could see that being useful. I always wanted to kick a door open like a badass one day.” He smirked giving a look off a ways. He imagined himself busting down a door and blowing away a raider. The idea put a stupid smirk on his face.

        “Eh, shouldn’t be too long.” Rusty told waving his hand dismissively at her. He didn’t want her to worry, but also his foot didn’t feel all that bad. It just ached now. When she began talking about their route again, Rusty listened, though he hadn’t heard of the places she spoke of. “Sure we can.” He smiled, in reference to Megaton. The idea of sleeping under the stars sounded good to him, though if he was honest he’d probably prefer sleeping in a ruin. It was something he knew, plus it as a whole lot defendable than wide open space. Still if they got to Andale they would probably be able to sleep within the town. “What’re the other two places you mentioned like…? Grayditch and uh… Fairfax?” He asked.

        As they followed the river north, Rusty looked into it. It was relatively lifeless now. Though still irradiated, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been a long time ago, not that Rusty knew that. If he was honest, he wanted to go for a swim. It probably wasn’t really a good idea. Still it looked like it flowed well. It was big enough for a boat to sail down, or up. That could’ve been a whole lot of fun. Plus he imagined sailing down it would save an awful lot of time.

        When the memorial came into view, Rusty’s eye widened tremendously. “Wha..?” He blinked speeding up just slightly. “Looks a bit odd just standing there…” Rusty asked having absolutely no idea of what the statues were for. Though he could tell they looked like army guys. “Guess people were really patriotic back then, huh?” He asked Shea stopping a bit to look at the statues. The caravan didn’t stop so he just quickly turned and went after them.

        Everything was a lot more open and quite a bit more desolate by the time they got to the actual wasteland. Rusty looked around, being able to see further than he ever bad before. There was so little debris everywhere. Sure there were still some ruins before them and the vast city of ruins lay behind them. More and more he seemed in awe as his idea of the world expanded tremendously. All he’d ever known was concrete and brick buildings, now there was dirt as far as he could see. Dark bushes and shrubbery littered the wastes. Rusty wasn’t entirely sure whether the plants were alive or not. As Rusty looked at the empty corpse of the cars they passed. They weren’t good for anything but scrap metal now. Rusty knew how to scavenge it too. He’d need a welder for that though. His father had shown him how to do it when he was about fourteen. They had then used the metal in the stuff they made. Now that he thought about it. He’d been making homemade grenades and what not. Rusty was never told who they sold their goods to… Maybe he should’ve asked at some point? Well, there was no chance of finding out now, he guessed. Not unless he stumbled upon one of those traders he’d seen visit his home that is. Rusty didn’t even want to think of the odds of that was.

        Eventually the two found themselves standing a bridge. According to Shea they were to split off from the caravan from here and quite honestly Rusty was pretty pleased. He kinda had enough of the smell of the Brahmin.

        Receiving the water from Shea, he nodded at her. “Mmm… Will do.” He nodded at her taking a long drink of the water and wiped his mouth. He didn’t finish it, so he just fitted the cap back on and stowed it in his satchel along with the food he’d managed to grab the previous night. Rusty breathed a bit, giving the small group a bit of a respectful nod. Still he listened to the group as they spoke about some woman in Megaton. Rusty watched them with ultimate curiosity. “Wait so there is women who…” Rusty trailed off to himself utterly baffled. The concept of prostitution had never come up to him. So the idea of a woman (or a man for that matter) selling sex was just rather confusing, yet intriguing to him.

        “The what now?” Rusty asked getting distracted from his thoughts about the woman from Megaton. “What’s an Ohio?” Rusty asked, never hearing the word. He followed the look to the river. He was more confused at that. “Wait… They have names?” He asked her, once again, his parent’s complete lack of education proved itself again. Had Shea have paid attention, she probably would’ve gotten the feeling that his parents barely told him anything beyond that which was necessary.

        Rusty, once they had to move again, quickly turned and followed after Shea. When they were thanked for accompanying the caravan with water, Rusty gave them a thankful grin. He then stowed his share of the bottles in his bag. Soon enough they were on the road again heading in what Rusty imagined was the direction of Arefu.

        “There many muties out this way?” He asked pointing in the distance. Rusty hoped there weren’t too many mutants out this way. Unfortunately that was always too much to ask. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a huge camp out there somewhere. He sighed heavily. He hoped they’d never have to come across it, if it did exist.

        When she asked him whether he’d seen this part of the wasteland before, to which he just shook his head. “It’s crazy how open it is.” He grinned back. “I feel so small… I mean I did back in the city too… But this kinda puts it into perspective. Rusty turned slightly to look back at the ruined city behind them. The look on Rusty’s face was mind blown to say the least, as he gave a nod to her introduction.


        From the bridge it was only an hour until they reached the suburb of Grayditch. As they walked together most of the buildings had scorch or burn marks in certain areas. Though they were under a decade old, whatever it was that caused it was long gone now. As they stepped along between the smaller brick buildings, Rusty got a shiver. It was so quiet, absolutely devoid of life. He shot Shea a questioning look.

        “Is it always like this?” He asked as they stepped through. His eye swept over one of the buildings, burnt out from the inside. Whatever had happened to the place, it looked like it never recovered. As they passed a few junk homes in the town, Rusty walked near one and pushed the door open. The door had been left open for years. Now dust covered the room inside proving no one had been in for at least a few months. The place looked awful and picked clean of anything of value. He turned and walked back to Shea. “It’s… like looking at a graveyard.” He told, putting a hand on his rifle. The place crept him the hell out.

“So uh… Where do we go from here?” He asked as he approached her.

East-Bank of the Potomac River, D.C. Ruins

        Rusty hadn’t said much in response to Shea after her comment about people willing to do anything for the right price. He’d kept quiet because he was kind of pleased at the news… Maybe even a little horrifying once he really thought about it. Though selling their body for caps… Rusty could see the upside of that. He got to thinking to himself about what he’d do for the right amount of caps. If he was honest, he didn’t really know. He guessed mercenary business really was about that. Finding the right price for something you’re willing to do. Shea had told him previously about the assholes from Talon Company, they obviously had no sense of decency. He looked over at Shea, and then at the briefcase. Shea seemed willing to carry around that thing, for the right price too. But him… He didn’t quite rightly know. With a lot of caps, he figured he could get properly equipped and do some real good with the equipment. Still… he wasn’t entirely sure whether he wanted to just hand it over.

        Rusty stared troubled into the murky depths of the river. If nothing else, there sounded like some rather interesting enterprising women out there. The though gave him a rather boyish smirk on his face. He listened to Shea as she told him about the names of things. His eyebrow furrowed somewhat in confusion. Why all the names? Why was there some kind of need to label everything? “Seems kinda... Unnecessary I guess... I mean, I can understand names for places and stuff but uh… rocks…” he trailed off shaking his head. There probably was a purpose, Rusty just didn’t get it.

        Rusty was blind to the references of the places outside of the wasteland. The furthest western thing he’d ever heard of before meeting Shea was Megaton. He had no idea of the slaver empire, or what a mountain was. He’d heard the phrase of course, though from what he guessed it just meant a big pile of something. The way she said it though, it was almost as if it was something more. He gave her a shrug. She’d seen so much of the world… He wasn’t that much younger than her, and barely half a year ago, all he’d ever see were the ‘four walls’ of his home and the street above. Rusty felt bad for being annoyed at his most-likely dead parents. It was becoming clear that they’d done him a great disservice by keeping him away from all that there was to see. They hadn’t even told him why.


        Rusty stared blanky around in Grayditch, sighing heavily. He hoped there hadn’t been too many people there when whatever it was that had happened happened. He felt uncomfortable in the former smouldering ruins. His eye watched a burn mark on the wall, wondering what it was that had caused it. There were weapons that could do that stuff, but something told him it looked like it’d been pointed up? Working with explosives all his life, he’d seen various scotch marks from the explosions. Most of the time the blast shot out from the source and this… He wasn’t sure. But it looked far too low down for a weapon.

        Rusty went over to the mark, trailing his finger over it. Before he could investigate any further, he turned sharply as Shea spoke. “Fuck it…?” He repeated in a questioning tone, wondering what she was talking about. Shea drew her rifle and Rusty did the same, though he wasn’t entirely sure why she put herself on alert. Rusty then turned, seeing smoke rising in the distance. “Oh, wonder wha…” Rusty trailed off as Shea told him they were going to see what happened. “Lead away.” He nodded.

        A blaze, something Rusty hadn’t expected to see. The two houses were lit up like the sun, everything was on fire. “What the hell…” he trailed off, sniffing the smell of smoke. It wasn’t usually an unpleasant smell smoke. With a nice bit of meat, some veggies it usually smelled great. Something about this one felt… off. He gave her a nod as she went to look around. “Stay safe.” He called, taking up his rifle and looking up and down the road. What had they stumbled across? He kept his distance from the fire, not wanting to get heated any more than he needed to.

        When Shea came back around, Rusty raised an eyebrow as he saw the dolly on her hip. It made him stare intently at it, not realising the level his eye was at. “Uh…” He murmured, though he didn’t question the topic. It was… an odd sight for the woman Shea usually saw. Shea was usually a harsh, fierce woman, but now she had… a doll. He wondered why she’d kept it, though… the more he looked at it. It… kinda looked like her in a way? Rusty’s head tilted to the side somewhat averting his gaze. “Oh… so it wasn’t an accident.” He frowned at her, but gave a nod. They were probably long gone now. “Let’s get outta here."


        After Shea taught him her trick to figure out how much sunlight they had left, Rusty figured they’d gotten slow over the course of the day. Maybe it was their stop in Grayditch had slowed them some. Or maybe it was Rusty’s ankle. By now it was really starting to ache. It hadn’t impeded his movement as such, but fighting back the pain had made him a lot more tired. Pain sat on the ankle seemingly waiting to strike. Again Rusty cursed the doctor for not giving him the rest of the dose to take later. ‘Ah well’ he thought giving something of a sigh.

        “We won’t?” Rusty asked looking over at Shea. “Crap.” He said sighing deeply. “Guess we’re gonna have to find a place to hold huh, huh?” He asked, looking over at the hills she referenced. “Alright got it.” He said acknowledging her request for quiet. They didn’t want to attract raiders. Though given their close proximity to the raiders, Rusty didn’t exactly wanna be out in the open. Hopefully they could worm their way in some place.

        “… Eye.” Rusty smirked, half-jokingly at her use of the plural form of eye. He gave her a short little nudge with his elbow as they continued on.

        Whatever playfulness Rusty had on him soon faded as they got ever closer to the town. His ankle began to hurt more as he climbed the hill. As they got closer to Fairfax, Rusty tensed up. He was quiet as a mouse, keeping his eye on everything possible. Soon enough the large buildings of Fairfax came into view. Most of the houses were either three stories or four stories, and there were a fair few stores and at least two large office buildings. That was as much as Rusty could see, but he knew there must’ve been more. He could see that some of the buildings had billboards on the top. As Shea led them further south around the ruins to avoid the metro, Rusty kept close behind her. Rusty kept watch.

        They were passing by an alley, when Rusty spotted something out of the corner of his eye. He hadn’t turned fully to look at it when he realised what he saw. Instantly he whirled around and moved quickly towards Shea. Not giving her a chance to react, and with absolutely no thought to the consequences, he grabbed her hip rather firmly. Quickly he dragged her into the alley pushed her up against the wall and into the dark shadow. A hand was across her mouth to keep her quiet. Rusty looked at her apologetically, before he turned slightly looking away. Had Shea have followed his vision, she would’ve seen a party of three raiders approaching them, splattered with blood. They walked close looking rather pissed off. Two of them carried hunting rifles, whilst the other held a shotgun. Seemingly Shea and Rusty hadn’t been noticed, but Rusty wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at the party of eight behind them. They were a ways off, but had Shea and Rusty have been seen, they’d have been upon the two mercenaries before they knew it.

        The group of eight, whilst in the distance could be seen bloody and pissed too. Obviously something hadn’t gone there way, they were all loaded with crap though. Every one of them had some injury looking like they had been through one hell of a firefight. Rusty knew the moment he laid eyes on them,

        ‘Sorry’ he mouthed releasing his grip on her, stepping away. Rusty then gave a nod to the alley. Noticing a large dumpster, Rusty quickly moved behind it, ducking down. They hid from the passing raider party behind the dumpster. Rusty looked around for a way out. They were in a dead end, there was only one way in or out. If the raiders looked down the alley, they would’ve been doomed. All of the rear doors were boarded up and whilst Rusty knew he could get the boards off so they could get inside, the noise it would make was too much to risk. It would’ve been especially loud in an alley too. Surely it would alert the party outside. It was at that point, Rusty noticed a basement window on the ground near their feet. As Rusty leaned in close he noticed the window ever so slightly ajar. Rusty reached down and slowly pushed it. Sure enough the window opened after a brief moment. With the window open, Rusty dropped to the floor and measured himself against it. “Come on.” Rusty whispered, unloading his stuff. “You’re smaller. You go in first.”

        It wasn’t a time for uncertainty and politeness; he just got her to get inside as quickly as possible. Shea had only gotten inside when Rusty heard the raiders.

        “What ya lookin’ at. Aint nothin’ there asshole.”

        “Coulda sworn I ‘eard somethin’…”

        “Ya crazeh, but if ya think der somethin’ go look.”

        Rusty’s eye widened at the conversation, quickly shoving his stuff through the window and got into a prone position. Panicked, he quickly shoved himself back through the hole, landing on an old pre-war washing machine. Rusty ducked somewhat under the window and closed it quickly.

        Outside footsteps could be heard. Separated by a mere four feet the guy’s voice could be heard clearly.

        “Aint nothin’ here…” He grumped before stomping away. A distant voice from down the alley laughed.

        “Told ya, yah going crazy.”

        In the distance there was an angry shout and the three grumbled angry whispers before going off in the direction they’d initially been heading. Rusty breathed a sigh of relief safe in the walls of a pitch black basement. Rusty couldn’t see anything, and he doubted Shea could either.

        “… Fuck. I think they’re gone” Rusty murmured, lowering himself on the machine. Putting out his hand, He felt around a bit, touching at everything. “Uh… where’s my stuff?” He asked as made a confused noise. “I… don’t know what that is.” He whispered pulling back his hand before moving a bit. Eventually he found his bag. “Oh. Ah. Hold on a sec.” He grinned, reaching into it and then he dragged out the lantern he’d fixed the night before. Clumsily, the kid turned the light on. Immediately he turned the light down, just in case any of the light leaked out of the basement and lit up the alley. Panicked sweat ran down the side of Rusty’s head. He looked around quickly at the room. “Huh.” He trailed off; realising there was multiple washing machines in the room. Boxes of Abraxo cleaner sat up on a shelve nearby. There were a few laundry baskets on the floor. Clearly it the room seemed to serve multiple households. Had they have gone around the corner when they were outside, they would’ve realised they were in a wide four story apartment building, facing the wasteland to the south. With no more than eight apartments on the building two on either floor either side of a central staircase. All of the windows were boarded up shut and whilst some still had curtains, others were exposed.

        Needless to say, it was a somewhat safe place to rest for the night. Though with a party of eleven raiders around them, it was clear they’d fallen into the nest of vipers.

Fairfax Ruins, Capital Wasteland

        The light flickered on; he winced slightly, though he made sure to keep it as low as possible. As he held his hand over the light, he noticed the clammy spore dust on his fingers. “Ew, gross.” He complained wiping off the dust on his thigh. “Might not be a good idea to breathe too much in here.” He told as Shea gave him her jacket. Quickly he used it to shroud much of the light, making the lantern a make-shift flashlight. Panning the light across the room he found the door. “Eh… You’d have noticed them eventually I’m sure…” he murmured in response to her comment about his eye.

        There was a small reflection of light as he moved his lantern, preparing to hop off the washer. As he got his stuff together and on his back he looked to the floor. “Oh, okay.” He muttered, the light reflected more revealing some light flooding. “Guess that’s why there’s mushrooms everywhere…” He sighed, slipping off the washer with a splash. “I hope none of this gets in my boots…” He grimaced, shuddering at the thought of nasty fungus water covering his toes.

        In passing, Rusty took notice of the boxes of abraxo cleaner being rather… well preserved. He remembered back home. His father kept the stuff around for cleaning purposes, but he also used it to get rid of the mould that plagued one of the back rooms. Rusty discretely grabbed two boxes and stowed them in his satchel. They might’ve come in useful at some point, abraxo cleaner was multipurpose. If nothing else they could get their clothes clean at some point. Rusty’s feet then pitter-pattered over behind Shea following after her.

        When she pulled out the quantum again, Rusty made sure to use the light to illuminate what the bottle couldn’t, though he didn’t bring the light up too much. He didn’t want to accidentally alert the raiders to their position, knowing they were almost in town.

        Rusty continued after Shea all the while, electing to shoulder his rifle and pull out his crowbar. Knowing the thing could be a bloody devastating weapon at close range, but also a fantastic tool for opening doors. They passed by a dirty skeleton on their way out. Rusty looked at the thing, before sighing a bit. “That guy’s final moments must’ve sucked…” Rusty whispered with a frown as he continued behind Shea. The smaller hall now had focused his light in a very limited direction and Rusty blinked. “Hey uh, Shea, you’re bleedin’ maybe we should look at that in a bit.”

        After receiving thanks form his companion, Rusty gave her a shake of the head. “Don’t… it’s no problem. You’d do the same for me, I’m sure.” He told waving a hand dismissively in her direction. What she said next though, gave Rusty the shivers. Not many people had threatened him before, and none of those people Rusty ever gave a damn about. Shea however, he did care about, he wasn’t entirely sure to the extent or the intention of said care but he did. It made him feel pretty guilty. “I…” He began though he wasn’t able to finish what he said in that moment. Rusty rubbed the back of his neck and breathed out. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “I didn’t think… I just saw them and knew I needed to get you in the clear as fast as possible.” With utter honesty, Rusty’s tone didn’t feel like one of fear more, that he was disappointed. He had thought he did the right thing, and she seemingly agreed with him, but perhaps he’d just gone about it the wrong way… Maybe she could teach him a way of doing it, without hurting her or something of the like. “But you’re right; I won’t do that again… I’ll just uh… give you a signal of some kind.” Rusty stated his voice still with a hint of disappointment, almost reminiscent of a pouty child.

        She continued leading the way, leaving Rusty to mull over to twist his guts over his actions. Why had Shea reacted that way? Was there stuff about her he didn’t know – of course there was, but maybe there were things he should know, just in case similar things happened in the future. He kept his eye moving as he trailed after her. “Of course.” He said quietly, following after her. “Maybe these places will have some curtains… we could probably cover the windows and make sure no one can see us.” He whispered his focus on the conversation but he was still quite distracted.

        Moments later they came upon a maintenance room. Rusty grinned at her as he approached the door and jammed his crowbar in. “Perhaps this should me on my list of expertise… opening maintenance doors!” He joked, wanting to get his mind off worrying about what he had done. When he opened it with a shunt, he looked around. There wasn’t much there… but there was a full role of ductape and a fusion battery. That would’ve come in handy for the lantern eventually so he elected to keep it. But then he grabbed up the duct tape. “Hey. We can use this to seal the cracks in the curtains, stop light getting out!” He grinned shoving it in his satchel.

        Following her up to the second floor, Rusty turned and leaned over the bannister. As he looked up he could see at least two more floors and what looked like a hatch in the ceiling. “Huh…” He trailed off after following Shea into the room. “Room-mates… aw not roaches-wait no woulda heard them already.” Rusty told as he looked over by the window. “Ah.” He said simply.

        Rusty frowned at the morbid, but sweet scene. “Died together, huh…” he sighed, walking over and finding himself a seat on the arm of the nearby couch. Rusty brought his feet up slightly to put it down on the couch, but remembering the fungus, he elected not to. Instead he just unloaded his backpack, knowing they weren’t going anywhere for a while at least. Shea had taken a few minutes for herself anyway. Whilst Shea was in the bathroom, Rusty meandered around the room, casually looking in the drawers. He pulled out anything of any particular note.

        With a slight jump as she came back out, Rusty gave her a nod. “Mmmm might be… Or the raiders somehow got the pumps working… Dad got the ones working in the tunnels below our home... was able to get some water to us somehow… not good water, but we were able to purify it a little with pills.” It had been why he’d grabbed the bottle of Rad-X from the chem dealer in the market place. He planned to do the same if they got their hands on some ‘bad water’. “I’ll have to use it in a few minutes though,” which he did, right before they settled for dinner at the table.

        Rusty had pulled out his camper oven from his bag when they settled down to eat. Instead of having a cold meal, Rusty made sure to heat everything up to what he imagined was the right temperature. He’d taken a bit more of a control with the food, given that he knew how to cook, he was gonna at least warm stuff up so they didn’t have to eat anything cold. Rusty carefully used his knife and fork, like his parents had taught him, though his eyebrow furrowed somewhat at her when she asked him about what was on his mind. “I uh… a few things I guess. Though uh, some are relatively minor”

        Chewing on his own mirelurk cake, he pointed over at the skeletons behind his left shoulder. “They’re rather creepy, kinda wanna get rid of them, but at the same time it seems weird to touch them ‘cause this is where they died… Maybe we wanna look upstairs… probably gonna be more places to sleep… maybe ones that aren’t… occupied. Who knows what’s in them too.” He gave her a shrug, before continuing along with their feast.

        “I uh, noticed there’s a hatch at the top of the stairs… Would be good for getting a look to the south… we’re going in that direction aren’t we?” He asked, as that was the second thing to come to mind. “I also want to tape up the curtains, but I don’t really wanna waste the roll down here if there’s a better option higher up… Plus there’s the place across the hall too.” Rusty had figured out there were eight more apartments in the building. The two on the ground floor, Shea and Rusty had elected to ignore for a multitude of reasons. That left five more apartments to check out. Hell if they wanted to they could probably take two of the apartments for themselves for the night to get a bit of privacy. Rusty kind of wanted it, after the previous night. Though it had felt… somewhat good to be close to someone, he didn’t want to risk waking her with another nightmare.

        Some part of him wanted to bring up the briefcase, though another matter took precedent. “I uh… wasn’t too rough or something was I? I didn’t mean to hurt you or something, I just… You gotta understand, I just wanted to get you out of their sight quietly that’s all… Thought you might yell or something… I dunno.” Rusty frowned, toying with his food somewhat. He looked worriedly at her, like he knew he’d done something wrong, but he wasn’t entirely sure what.

        “I thought it might be…” Rusty told giving her a bit of a concerned look. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to yah know.” he told simply. Part of him wished he did though; he needed a bit of an explanation from her, if just to set his mind at rest. Maybe it wasn’t his fault entirely. He sipped at his water, finishing off what little food he had left.

        “Oh…” He frown, wishing she hadn’t said anything, but he wasn’t about to tell her to stop. He listened carefully, giving her his full attention, though he became quite a bit paler by the news. His hand twitched, having laid down his arm on the table. If he didn’t know better, he probably would’ve reached over and took her hand. He knew that wasn’t a smart idea, not to mention Shea practically told him she hated close physical contact. People were the real monsters? Rusty frowned with dismay. He wanted to tell her that wasn’t true, but he was just a kid. He was naïve, she must’ve known better, but what if she just hadn’t met the right people. Hell… Rusty knew he wasn’t a monster, or perhaps that was the reason she seemed to take to him. He was young and innocent, not yet corrupted by the wasteland. Rusty’s eye trailed her features as she looked off. Rusty couldn’t quite understand. He had never experienced those things. Even killing McQueen… that wasn’t anywhere near the crap Shea had pulled herself through. “I can’t say I fully understand Shea, but I dunno… it makes a lot of sense.”

        When she brought up his parents, Rusty looked away. “I know…” he sighed, heavily. There was no dealing with the loss, as there was no closure. He didn’t know if his parents were alive or dead. If he was telling the truth, he kept the hope going that his parents had escaped like he had. He knew it was wrong, hell, the doc from the underworld told him as such. But still, it was hard… especially given the timeframe. Rusty wasn’t entirely sure about the time frame, though he guessed it was around three months since everything happened. If he was honest, it wasn’t the loss of his parents that got to him, it was being utterly alone in a camp by himself with monsters ready to throw him upon a fire and roast him alive. All the while he imagined a similar event happening to his parents. Perhaps they’d already been eaten by the time he woke up. Rusty frowned at the idea.

        Giving her a look, his frown softened somewhat at the sight of her smirk. “Oh okay, well that’s good I suppose.” He breathed out letting out a long sigh, shrugging off his memories.
    
        With a wide eye he snorted a bit. “Oh. I see… well uh, I’ll make sure to keep that in mind next time I need to grab you.” He half joked, though he really did take it to heart. He would avoid trying that stuff from now on. Though it did remind him they needed to figure out a short form of communication. Rusty had a feeling the woman had an idea about that sort of thing… she usually was good about that sort of stuff.

        Rusty gave her a sort of nervous laugh as she told him they were done with that topic. “Couldn’t agree more” Rusty huffed heavily. Rolling his shoulders, he looked at the glowing cigarette. Again he wondered what the appeal of it was, did it taste good? What did taste good apparently was the Insta-Mash he made. He snorted a bit at her. “That good huh?” He grinned, shaking his head. He certainly was impressed by her hunger. Once she was done he cleared away their food, sticking the pots on the counter by the sink as if expecting they’d ever clean them…. They wouldn’t. He repackaged what food was left sticking anything he could in his lunchbox and fastening it up. It was soon away in his bag, never to be seen from again until the next time they ate.

        “Yeah, I am.” Rusty stated as he pushed his chair under the table. “We should leave our stuff here, might as well.”


        Frowning at the emptiness of the third floor, Rusty sighed. “That kinda sucked.” He grumbled quietly as he followed after Shea. He hadn’t found a thing, and he had elected to ignore Shea’s unmentionables when she found them. Instead he just checked anything he could think of. Yawning Rusty got up to the top of the stairs, his ankle flared up somewhat. Bending over as Shea looked out of the window; Rusty took a moment to rub his ankle. It was sore, but that was about it. Standing up, he flashed a grin when she told him how close Andale was. Unfortunately what excitement for the continued trip he had, faded instantly as a Mohawk wearing raider shouted at them, practically ripping open the door of its hinges.

        With a wide eye Rusty froze. “I uh…” He blinked, turning to Shea. Before he knew it the woman grabbed the guy, smacking him across the neck and knocking him back. Rusty went in after her, holding the crowbar in his right hand. Suddenly there was a woman in the room; Rusty’s eye widened quickly moving to Shea’s side. Rusty never said anything, he just stood, not really sure what to do. Shea however seemed to know exactly what to do. She went straight at the barely clothed woman. Had this not been raiders, Rusty would’ve looked away immediately. Instead he just gave a low growl.

        Less than a few seconds must’ve gone by; Rusty stared at Shea as she killed the woman in front of him. He looked pale though he knew it was a necessary. It wasn’t like these weren’t the first raiders he had killed either… though seeing it up close was a different matter. Having been frozen to the spot, Rusty flinched awake as he heard the noise from the bathroom. “Oh shit.” He grimaced. There was a third guy?! Why was there three?! He turned sharply as Shea was rushed, though the woman threw the guy into the dresser. The loud noise made Rusty wince. It wasn’t nearly as loud as a gunshot, but it was loud enough to be heard, if someone was immediately outside of the building.

        “Right, crowbar.” He repeated, as the man with the knife turned on him. Rusty turned his body towards the guy with the knife. When the guy lunged at him, Rusty slipped to the side before slashing downwards with his crowbar. He had timed it in such a way that the crowbar was down against the knife wielding arm. The strength of the blow, combined with the heavy crowbar hitting exposed flesh, caused the guy to scream out. Rusty quickly brought the crowbar back across the guy’s face, stunning him and sending him back with stunned silence. The raider managed to grip the edge of a nearby dresser, remaining upright as Rusty stood over him. Rusty wanted to apologise for what he was about to do, but he couldn’t quite get the words out. Rusty swung the down his weapon slamming it against the raider’s head before bringing it up and swinging from another angle. Two significant blows to the head caused the guy to stop moving. Blood seeped from the guy’s nose as he laid there limp.

        “… Fuck…” Rusty began. “Someone’s gonna come looking for these guys…” He looked at Shea going over her. “Are you hurt-you’re not hurt are you?” He asked immediately checking her over. The immediate regret of going to look through the building… then again, this was actually a good thing. Now they knew raiders were there, they wouldn’t find themselves lulled into a false sense of security. Though, they’d be on edge until they left… at least Rusty would be at least.

        “Maybe, but I’m not sure if I wanna be around when they come… then again I don’t wanna be out there in total darkness either.” He sighed heavily, standing next to Shea looking over the unconscious naked man. Had to say, this guy looked like crap compared to him. If Rusty was honest, he got a bit of a bit of satisfaction at the thought. Then again, this guy was a raider, wasn’t exactly the epitome of wasteland ‘hunks’. Still, there wasn’t any denying Rusty did look better. So if this guy could…wait a second. Rusty looked at the two dead raiders. Suddenly his eye widened. “Waaaaait. Were these guys…? Whilst we were…” Rusty frowned dramatically, shuddering a bit. Rusty shook his head. “Gross.” He snapped.

        He was glad she wasn’t hurt, though his eye followed Shea’s look to the guy he downed. “Slug-“ he began though she immediately informed him of what she meant. “Ohhh, I see. I uh, yeah. Figured I’d get rid of the weapon before taking him out… bit dangerous to get in close with a knife right?” He asked, though of course he knew the answer. Rusty watched the woman pocket the jewellery and then looked away. “That’s what I’ve been thinking; it’s been good to me, not to mention I can break shit open with it if needed.” He grinned at the compliments he got from her. It felt good to be told he was actually good at stuff. Rusty never really felt that he was, most of the time he just did stuff and hoped for the best. It was nice to get some assurance. He gave a loud snort as she told him he would clear out bars. “Oh please Shea, now I know you’re just flattering me.” He grinned, flattery would get her somewhere, but it was still flattery at the end of the day. Rusty wasn’t much of a fool, though that didn’t mean to say he didn’t like the flattery.

        Catching the bag of caps he showed it in his satchel and turned to the door once told to. “Oh right.” He told, grabbing his duct tape and throwing it over to Shea when she held out her hand. “Oh probably not… Suppose we’ve got until then at least.” He sighed giving her a bit of a nod. His mind was relieved a bit at the thought. It was true that the raider boss wouldn’t send guys after the three. Though that meant they wouldn’t get a decent amount of sleep, needing to wake up much earlier than normal, in the hope of getting out before the raiders in the metro woke up.

        Shea wanted to question the raider though, Rusty supposed it couldn’t hurt. Plus the guy might know a way out of the guy without alerting the raiders.



        A short while later, Rusty and Shea were stood over an awakening man. Rusty elected to remain quiet as Shea played bad cop. Rusty’s eye watched the raider carefully, even though he knew the guy was well bound, you couldn’t ever trust a raider. Rusty almost choked up a lung when Shea called him ‘Kidd’. ‘Creative name’ he thought sarcastically. His arms were folded as he sat there on the edge of the table looking at the raider.

        Rusty was rather amused at the back and forth between Shea and the raider. It was… odd to see such a dynamic, crazy even. He shook his head as he listened. Of course the guy was in the metro. That wasn’t anything new. From the sounds of it, this guy wasn’t going to give them anything they really needed. Rusty sighed a bit, pulling a rag from his satchel and began wiping away the blood from his crowbar. Rusty looked up as he was mentioned, giving the raider a bit of a smirk as he was used to threaten the guy. He was in the middle of cleaning the blood off before holding it up once it was clean. He didn’t really do much else but it seemed to do the trick. The guy quietened down, but not before he told them who the woman was. Rusty frowned somewhat. Once the raider boss found out his sister was dead, it’d be likely the guy would be pissed even more than usual. That didn’t spell good luck in Rusty’s eye.

        He listened to the Shea continue to talk to him, before he was told that Rusty would be dealing with him. Without changing his expression Rusty grimaced. He didn’t want to, but he knew he couldn’t rely on Shea to do the dirty work all the time. Rusty looked at her and nodded, though his face revealed distracted. He had a good idea of what he should do, he just didn’t know if it was the right thing to do. As Rusty slipped off the table taking his crowbar with him.

        “W-w-wait!” The Raider exclaimed, “There’s uh, a big raider group comin’ to talk with the boss. Dunno what about, but it’s important… like a really big deal!”

        Rusty looked between the raider and Shea. “How many of ‘em?” Rusty asked eventually turning back to the guy. “Party of eleven?”

        “Nah, ‘bout fifteen, bringing his whole crew.” When the raider was done talking, Rusty stared at him. Seemed like that was the crew they’d seen approaching Fairfax. From what Rusty guessed they must’ve been attacked on the way, lost a few folk.

        “And that’s all you know.”

        “Yeh, asshole, what more to you expect of me.”

        Rusty sighed heavily, really wishing the guy had more. If he had more, Rusty would at least be able to delay his decision. Unfortunately for the guy, Rusty knew what he was going to do. Silently he picked up the roll of duct tape, the raider’s eyes brightened somewhat at the sight. Rusty then cut off some of the tape and placed it over the raider’s mouth. With a frown, the Kidd leaned over the Raider. “Now uh. This aint personal, but I know you’re gonna sell us out the moment you get free and… we’ve got enough guys after us as is. I’m… sorry.” Rusty explained flatly, walking around the back of the Raider’s back. Panicked the raider started shaking against the bindings. Rusty wrapped an arm around the guy’s neck, holding his head in place. His face paled as he held the raider’s head and held a pillow from the bed over the raider’s nose. Holding it firmly, Rusty closed the guy’s airways and held him still.

        The raider continued to struggle for a surprising amount of time before he fell unconscious in the kid’s arms, though Rusty made sure to hold him still after. After checking the guy was truly dead. Rusty stepped back, with frown. “He’s gone.” He told. Rusty wasn’t above killing raiders, but he was above causing unnecessary pain. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to take the guy out with one blow, and suffocating the guy was the sure way of doing it, even if he did panic. Rusty shuddered slightly, feeling dirty. He knew it had to be done though. “Let’s get outta here, got one place to check I think.”

        Shea soon led the kid out of the room, Rusty now had the crowbar in his hand as he walked out after her. As he did so Shea was hit, stumbling out of view. Rusty quickly moved after her, only to get blindsided by the door. “Fuck.” Rusty snapped as he was knocked against a small table near the door. As Rusty self-righted himself, he could hear Shea talking with a raider, though the guy was attacking her.

        Rusty leapt to his feet at the sound and went after her. As he did so, Shea issued him a warning, allowing him to dodge to the left. The golf club would’ve injured his left shoulder quite badly, had he have been wearing his mechanics jacket. Fortunately for Rusty, the lightly armoured leather jacket from before soften the blow. It still hurt like a motherfucker, but it wasn’t going to do any permanent damage. “Fucking asshole.” Rusty moaned in pain, turning to the raider who attacked him. As the raider swung again, Rusty stepped back, allowing the swing to smack roughly against the doorframe. Rusty breathed out a rather large sigh as he saw Rusty fighting with the raider boss.

        “Come out and fight, punk.” The raider taunted Rusty as the kid adjusted the grip on the crowbar. He leaned forward slightly allowing the raider a ‘free shot’ but Rusty dodged back allowing him to miss. Rusty then moved back quickly, with the pointed end of the crowbar as a bayonet. He quickly thrust forward with the crowbar and caught the square in the chest. Though not enough force to break the bone, Rusty had enough force to knock the raider back, which he followed through with his shoulder. The raider’s lower back met the bannister for the stairs and for a moment, the Raider looked happy as if he was safe. Unfortunately for the raider, years of decay in a damp apartment building had rotted the wood to it’s very core. The ear-piercing sound of wood snapping under the weight rang out in the hall. Rusty watched as the raider fell back between the square staircases, landing with a harsh thud on the ground floor.

        As he stood there, Rusty panted heavily the sound behind him quiet. For a few moments he forgot all about Shea, as he stared down below at the dying raider. “Urgh… What a fucking day.” Rusty grumbled.

        “Well yeah, we both have… just… this day sucked.” Rusty grumbled. “Hopefully that’s the last of them in the building…” Having seen the raider below die, Rusty took a moment to catch his breath before turning to look at Shea. Seeing her coughing, Rusty stomped over to her. His ankle hurt him slightly still but he was too busy focusing on the amount of blood on Shea.

        After a few moments of looking at Shea, he spoke “Geez, ya look a bit of a mess, ya doing alright?” The corpse of Big Ben sat near his feet, his neck still leaking blood onto the old world carpet. Rusty shuddered a bit. He’d never liked the sight of blood, so he was thankful for the darkness. Rusty went to help her up, but remembering the events in the alley a few hours prior, he held back and allowed her to pull herself up. Rusty watched as she injected herself with the stimpak. That sounded good about now, though he figured he could wait. He wasn’t as badly hurt as Shea, and stimpaks were hard to come across in the wasteland. Though, with that in mind, he could’ve certainly done with a bit of pain relief. The raider he’d killed certainly had a swing on him, enough to hurt Rusty like hell through his armour. Rusty put a hand on his left shoulder, rolling the joint slightly. It’d be sore for a few days; he had no doubt of that.

        Listening to her, Rusty dropped his behind on an old hallway table. Rusty yawned slightly and looking around at the room. “Yeaaah… we’re fucked if we stay here, I getcha. Though I’d kinda like to see their faces when they realised five of their guys got their asses whooped by a skinny chick and a kid.” Rusty smirked, finding a bit of humour in their situation, even though he was quite afraid of what they would do. He’d seen the corpses strung up on chains before. It’d given him nightmares like a good many things in the wasteland. Rusty shuddered somewhat, but he watched the woman search the corpses. It didn’t take her long to search them, in fact, from the looks of it; she’d only stood up to light up and take the stimpak.

        “They were what now?” Rusty asked looking at her confused, though what she said next seemed to explain what she meant. “Uh, cool though, looks like a nice haul… though we will probably use the stims and the med-x… As for the mentats… I have no idea what they even are… are they valuable or…?” Rusty asked. Like many things in the wasteland, he hadn’t come across some of the seedier sides of life. He had a good idea that jet and rocket was bad… hydra had helped him recover from his injury before, so he knew about that. Beyond that he was pretty unclear about chems. He knew they must’ve sold for a decent amount though, given the store keepers prices on some of them. He guessed mentats would be the same… Although having said that, the tins themselves looked interesting. As Rusty took one of the tins in his hands he opened them up and looked at the tin. It wasn’t very deep, but the tin sealed up nicely and protected the contents inside. “Huh tins could be useful… for what, I’m not sure… Shame they aren’t a bit deeper though, they’d be awesome for carrying meat or somethin’” Rusty shrugged replacing the lid and stowing them away.

        As Shea took anything of value from the Ben, Rusty went back into the room they’d just exited and grabbed up the weapons that the raiders hadn’t managed to fire. Another reason keeping them quiet was a good thing. They wouldn’t needlessly waste ammo. As such Rusty managed to empty out the sawed-off shotgun and the hunting rifle, stowing away the bullets in his jacket and putting the shotgun in his satchel. He carried the hunting rifle in one hand as he scooped up the nine millimetre pistol from the chair and stuck it in his belt. He knew how to fire one of those; he’d been trained to by his mother. Maybe he’d keep it if it was in good enough condition. He needed a sidearm as such. The assault rifle was nice, but it just wasn’t useful in buildings. The crowbar was good too, but he’d come into some issues if he wasn’t right next to his attacker. The revolver soon ended up in Rusty’s small bag he used for gathering, soon after he gutted it of ammo. The baseball bat was taken too, though awkwardly stuffed upwards in Rusty’s bag. If nothing else the bat could’ve been broken up into firewood once they were free of Fairfax.

        On the way down the stairs, Rusty noticed the gleaming of the switchblade’s blade in the dim light. He quickly snatched it off the floor as he made his way down. He wasn’t too interested in knives, but it would’ve been a good tool. He quickly closed it up and stowed it in his pocket.
    
        When they got down to the second floor, Rusty looked over at Shea. She seemed to stop moving for a moment and grabbed a hold of the table. Rusty was in the middle of reorganising his weight, putting the guns in his backpack. Using the sheets off the bed they would’ve slept in, Rusty wrapped it around the guns and made them more static. It was better than having the guns jumping about in his bag, making more noise than he wanted.

        Rusty quickly moved over to her side, with a concerned look on his face. The kid blinked a bit as she referenced his ankle. Having forgotten about it in the rush to just get out of the place, Rusty realised the throbbing ache. “It’s... fine,” Rusty added simply, as he finished packing his things. “I… If you say so Shea,” He sighed; honestly he was disappointed with his actions in the fight previous. He’d just stood there as Shea handled it like an attack dog let out its cage.

        “Oh.” Rusty snorted, shaking his head as he hulked the bag onto his back. “Got everything, I think.” Rusty told. “Except for that club that guy had. I want it… It’s pretty long, and I think I’ve got a use for it.” Rusty said remembering the club was on the first floor. Still in the hands of the raider he’d pushed. “I don’t think we should leave the city just yet though. I don’t wanna get caught out in the open by those assholes so… ‘least in a building we can make a good defence against ‘em.” Rusty was firm in what he told her. It wasn’t a good idea for Shea to go too far either; her momentary lack of focus could’ve gotten them killed. Not to mention, Rusty’s ankle hurt. He didn’t want to end up having to run on it and risk a terrible injury.

        “Mmmhm.. Sounds like a plan.” Rusty told her as he followed after her, in reference of her idea to find another building close by. “Uh huh. If ya see a good building just go for it… hopefully it won’t be as infested as this one was.” He snorted quietly. Rusty managed to scoop up the golf club on the way out, sliding it into his backpack. It was tall, so much so that it sat about a foot higher than Rusty’s head

        Following Shea inside a building as she crawled through it, Rusty’s feet had been about to slam straight onto the floor before Shea pointed out the glass. “Oh, uh right.” Rusty snorted, scooting himself along the window ledge and then hopping onto a ‘clean’ stretch of the floor. Looking around at the bakery, Rusty blinked. It was empty… looted utterly. Rusty quietly walked over to the cash register and picked it up slowly. Putting it back onto the counter he looked it over. It was in rather good condition, hell, cleaned up a bit it would actually be worth something. It was incredibly heavy though. Was it worth the caps? Probably, but he didn’t necessary have room for it, and carrying the thing would’ve been ridiculous.

        A little while later, Shea and Rusty were sat in the upstairs of the bakery. Shea had managed to grab one of the matresses from the beds and stuck it under the windowsill to give her some comfort. Rusty meanwhile rolled out his camping bed and had laid it over the second bed in the room. His bags and guns were in a neat pile by the foot of it. His nine millimetre pistol sat next to his ‘pillow’ this time made of his winter sweater. “If yah sure…” Rusty told yawning slightly as he grabbed the med-x they had liberated from the raiders. He quickly dosed himself estimating the amount the doc had given him. He didn’t want to use it all and be unable to wake up. “When it’s my turn uh… ya know what to do.” Rusty told leaning down to his pillow and turning his back to her. It would be a while before he would be able to sleep, his ankle ached and it’d keep him awake. Still the window was busted open so they couldn’t really talk to past the time away. The wind would’ve carried their conversation and they probably would’ve been heard.

        So Rusty sat there, thinking about their latest fight. Against the raider known as Big Ben and his ‘friends’. He even thought about the three they’d caught off guard and the raider chick in the uh… Rusty shook his head to get the mental image out of his head. It was all just terrible. Why’d he have to choose to go into that building of all things… Then again. There were a whole bunch of raiders approaching the town. Had they have been discovered, chances are they’d have been involved in a shootout in the alley, which would’ve alerted the five raiders in the building next to them along with all those raiders in the metro. They would’ve been fucked and cornered. They were banged up now, but they were alive. That was something to smile about.

        Then… then there was the raider he had executed. Rusty shuddered at the thought. He knew it had to be done… whether or not it was the right thing to do, Rusty wasn’t sure. Guilt swept over him, though he told himself that the guy was a raider and he probably wouldn’t have even thought twice about screwing them over. Hell he’d probably killed more innocents than Rusty had bad folk.

        With a tired sigh, Rusty chose to ignore the thoughts and feelings and try to get some sleep as the Med-x kicked in.

        “So the Kidd’s done it again huh… How many’s that now…” A male voice spoke with curiousity, echoing in the background of the darkened room. “Quite a few I’d imagine. Been killing a lot more folk since ya met her though, aint ya Kidd?”

        Rusty rolled over slightly on the bed; he rubbed his eyes and looked over at Shea. Shea was sat there in the window with the rifle pointed out of it. Rusty looked over in the direction of the voice as it began to chuckle.

        McQueen smirked over at Rusty; one foot rested on his knee as he put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. “Becoming quite the killer, aint ya boy… Think Talon company’s gonna be headhuntin’ ya, and not for a bounty. They like kids like you. Young killers have a long career ahead of ‘em.”

        Rusty grimaced a bit, as sunlight flooded the room and blocked his vision. It was at that moment Rusty realised the pain in his left eye, and finally knew he could see out of it. “Urgh… This isn’t real is it…?” Rusty told, getting to his feet and looking at Shea, who’d ignored him the whole time.

        “Nope. Yer dreamin’ Kidd…. I mean ya turned me into jam. That shoulda told you everything.”

        Suddenly Shea shot; Rusty immediately jumped and looked in her direction. McQueen got to his feet and wandered over to Rusty’s side. “Think she thought you were actually in danger when she shot one of my guys? Or do ya think she got bored with the way you were handling it and decided to…” McQueen put a hand to his head and mimicked a gun.

        Rusty growled at McQueen. “No. She thought I was in danger so she fired…” Rusty told sounding annoyed. McQueen put his hand up and waved the cigarette in the air, blowing some smoke in Rusty’s direction.

        “If you say so Kidd. In my opinion she’s been a great help to ya.” McQueen chuckled. “Got you off that sorry ass of yours and got you workin’ on something. Gave you some balls too, you’re standin’ up for yourself too-unless… maybe you’re just trying to impress her. She aint bad lookin’ is she? ‘specially when she’s just climbed out of the tub, eh Kidd ya dog…” McQueen nudged Rusty with his elbow.

        Rusty grimaced. “She’s… alright… But she’s been good to me. I like her… Plus we’ve only killed assholes like you so far. I knew what you were going to do to me if you got half a chance.” Rusty ran a hand through his hair.

        “Did ya? Or was that something she planted in yeh head. I wouldn’t keep coming back if you were sure I was an asshole, right. Maybe she just yanking your chain. Maybe she’s making you like her… a killer with instinct. And don’t get on at me saying ‘she can change’ cause she can’t… you on the other hand… You’ve killed more people in the past three days than you have in your entire life. That’s saying something Kidd.”

        Rusty suddenly sat up in bed. “Will you just shut the fu-“ he snapped loudly before realising he was awake. He looked over at Shea with a wide eye. “I… uh… sorry.” Rusty whispered. He put his face in his hands before shaking himself awake. He slowly got up onto his feet and walked over to her, kneeling beside her. “Go on… it’s your turn to rest-you probably needed it more than I.”

        “Will do.” Rusty spoke shortly, his mind distracted and half aware. Taking the rifle barrel in his hands, he lifted it into his lap and rested the butt of it on his upper thigh. “Yeah, yeah, of course… don’t wanna start waving a flag out of the window and tell ‘em we’re here.” Rusty noted. Watching Shea as she went off to the bed, he moved closer to the window. The kid fidgeted on matress under him, and once he had found the right position to sit in, he turned his back to Shea.

        Before too long, Rusty was left to his own devices. He would’ve preferred not to have been left ‘alone’ to his thoughts but he knew Shea needed rest. Instead he just decided to occupy himself by examining the ruins. From the doors to the windows, to the pieces of debris in the street, Rusty’s eye wandered. There was no real movement from anywhere in the ruins that Rusty could see for the remainder of the night. Rusty did see the stirrings of birds on the rooves nearby though, scavengers most likely, looking for fresh food he imagined.

        He was relieved when he noticed a blanket of light arrive on the horizon. It’d mean Shea would wake up and the two would make their way into the wasteland. Soon they’d be away from the infested raider ruins of Fairfax.


        A few hours later, the two were walking next to each other; Rusty’s eye looked up into the clear sky. He was almost cursing the lack of cloud cover. At least then they’d be covered in a bit of shade, but now he was just made to be uncomfortable in the sun. Still, it could be worse... if it rained they’d probably have to find shelter for the entire day. Whilst the rads from the rain were barely anything, even Rusty knew it’d accumulate and they’d be stuck. The night’s rest had relieved him of some ankle pain. He still felt terribly sore from their ordeal; he couldn’t even fathom how Shea must’ve felt. She’d taken the brunt of the assault. It made Rusty wonder if he should be the one to start leading everywhere. He wasn’t as fragile as Shea, and whilst she was quite a bit quicker than he, he could at least take some of the flak… at least he hoped so anyway.

        “I’ll… uh-try, I guess. I dunno how good I’d be at that.” Rusty rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. Rusty stepped a foot onto the dirt and next to the road they were walking down. “I feel like I’ve been jumpy and tense since I left home. Hell the other night in Rivet City was probably the most relax I’ve been in a long time. It was uh… nice.” Rusty told thinking back. It was good to have a night out of the wasteland. He’d no fears that night, maybe some anxieties but it was good on the whole. Plus the bed was comfortable at the very least. If Rusty was honest, he could’ve settled down in Rivet city for that room alone… but he imagined he’d have to be really rich for that to even potentially happen.

        Rusty listened to Shea as she talked, though remained rather quiet, as he usually did. Attempting to take it all in, he followed after her. It wasn’t what he was used to, conversing with someone. There was only so much three people could talk about in the same building for two decades. So Rusty took in as much as he could, though there was more information than he really knew what to do with. So he chose to default to the nodding at her.

        When they finally came to a hill, Rusty looked out over it. It was weird to see how much change there was to the wasteland out of the city. Within the city, everything was more or less level, anything higher or lower could be accessed by steps or ramps, now there were hills. Some were small, some were big. This one was rather rocky and uneven. Rusty watched Shea descend before following in her footsteps. Several rocks were kicked loose by Rusty’s clumsy feet, throwing them in several directions.

        Soon enough he was once again by her side and he gave her a stupid grin. “Nah, I’m all good Shea.” Rusty reassured, looking around a bit. “Huh wassup…?” Rusty asked, his hand reaching for his newly acquired pistol. “Aw crap.” Rusty grimaced as he saw the arachnid crawling towards them. It was rather small, Rusty turning his head slightly to look the thing over. His black hair flopped to one side lazily as he looked at it. “Oh. It’s tiny.” Rusty snorted with disbelief once he got a proper look at it. As Shea took out her knife, he followed after her carefully. He watched her every movement in anticipation of her attack on the creature. Suddenly she moved and had got the creature, presumably in the brain. After it stopped squirming, Rusty realised that must’ve been the case. Cutting off it’s limbs, Shea butchered the arachnid, making Rusty grimace somewhat. That wasn’t really pleasant, but neither was the roasting of radroaches, and he’d done that countless numbers of times. Still he preferred actual meat than… whatever was on a radroach.

        With his hip tilted in favour of his non-injured right leg, he watched Shea as she told him about the meat. “Uh… sure I guess” He muttered in response to the information about the meat. “Prefer a Brahmin steak myself, but uh… beggars can’t be choosers,” With a shrug, he nodded at her talk about the tail. “Would’ve been handy to carry around a mason jar about now… That’d be perfect for carrying the venom. Would probably be good to use on your knife, I’d imagine.”

        It was a few moments before he responded to her comment about his foot. Smiling he shook his head. “It’s… not so bad now. Bit sore… quite sore, but I’m managing. Probably won’t bust it running, if that has to happen.” With a raised eyebrow, Rusty watched as Shea pulled out some Med-X. “Oh uh…” Rusty trailed off looking away from the thing as she flicked it. “Y-y-yeah, I’ll be careful, I’m sure.” He nodded, allowing her to lean down and give him his dosage. Sucking in his breath vocally as he felt the prick, Rusty winced. “Th-thanks.” Rusty spoke appreciatively, after taking the rest of the Med-X and stuffing it carefully into his bag with his other medical supplies. He did the same with the two stimpaks. Giving her a grin, Rusty spoke again “Will do thanks.”



        As Andale popped into sight, Rusty stopped and took it all in. An oasis in the wasteland, the houses scrubbed clean, some windows were boarded up still, but others were in near mint condition. Fences were fixed up, and whilst nothing grew in the yards, it was kept clean and clear of rocks. Rusty breathed a small sigh. It was rather… nice, in a weird way that made Rusty shiver somewhat. It looked out of place. There were no vehicles in sight, or debris on the roads. Hell, he could see someone filling in the cracks in the road with gravel of some kind. A wheelbarrow was next to the man, with a spade in it. Rusty watched as another man approached him with a nuka-cola in hand. The two stood next to each other and admired the man’s handiwork. As Rusty looked he could see the road had just about been fixed up by the resident’s houses. Did they expect a truck or something to come barrelling down the road or something?

        “I’m… already getting that feeling Shea… Maybe they’re all vaulties or something…” Rusty shrugged. “They’re probably not that bad though.”

        When she spoke of their target, Rusty gave her a nod. “Alright, I’ll keep an eye out for him.” Rusty snickered, jokingly as he began to walk again. It did look like a nice place though, they definitely dressed well. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why these folk were still alive though. There were no defences set up, and no guards. At least none that Rusty could see. Maybe that was the point. Rusty listened to the ‘story’ Shea had cooked up for them. “I can’t imagine they’ll ask too many questions… But alright…” Rusty told giving her a smile.

        Together they walked, quieter this time. Closer to Andale they could see the rest of the town, a bit more built up than the area they were approaching. Still, a lot of it seemed to have been fixed up, or at least in the process of it. Some parts of it were still ruined. One housing lot seemed to have been gutted manually, with debris piled neatly together as if waiting to be carted away. In another lot, one a whole lot clearer than any of the others, three kids played catch. Two of the kids had mittens; the other was making do with his bare hands. The three were watched over by an old man, sat on a fold out chair, with a mangy old dog laid under his legs. Rusty glanced over the man, as they past. He raised his hat in acknowledgement of them, but for the most part he ignored them and let them past. The two men on the road however, focused their eyes upon Rusty and Shea. As the workman took up his shovel he began to continue to fill the holes in. The other man, who’d given his friend a nuka-cola approached Rusty and Shea. With a broad smile, he held out his hands to them. He was taller than Rusty by several inches, broader too. A pistol rested on his hip, clipped in a holster. His brown eyes scanned them over with a broad friendly smile.

        “Welcome to Andale friends, the best town in America! I’m Michael and the guy behind me is Robert. It’s nice to meetcha friends, anything I can help you with?” Michael didn’t allow them to speak, instead he instantly spoke after seemingly getting an idea. “I know! I bet your thirsty, hungry maybe? We’re about to have lunch. Maybe you guys wanna rest your legs, grab a bit to eat. My Barbara’s pies are to die for… and she does love to have strangers join us at the dinner table.”