#━━ ✦ 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄 * FALLOUT ‚ what a diff'rence a day made .

[dcjavu]

I DON'T WANT TO SEE TOMORROW

December 24th, 2282

In spite of everything, holidays are still a welcomed celebration in the world. At least, underground they are. In Vault 101, the Wozniaks were decorating their two bedroom unit while the resident Mr. Handy got busy on Christmas Eve dinner. It was the only time during the holiday season that they’d be alone as a family, since on Christmas Day the entire vault was rounded up and had dinner and celebrated as a collective. The twin girls of Walter and Amihan were given tasks to finish touching up the fake tree propped up in the corner of the unit. Smiling down at her slightly younger sister, Reina reached her arms out so she could scoop Lainey into them and hoist her up onto her shoulders. They were aiming to place the star on the tree, since their parents were preoccupied in the other room and impatience was imbued in the nature of their beings as children, and after one solid hop Lainey managed to stick the star directly on the top branch. It landed lopsidedly, but neither of them noticed as they rejoiced together after Reina shrugged Lainey off her shoulders.

Reina squeezed Lainey in a hug and the younger twin’s nose scrunched up before she pushed her sister away, appreciating her personal space. However, Reina didn’t mind. She was just happy they did something on their own for once — everything else had been assisted in Vault 101; protocol, allegedly. She didn’t remember much of the Wasteland, so she drew every reference from the concrete and steel walls she grew up in, which meant their family had accomplished very little in regards to fending for themselves.

But that was the whole point of living, wasn’t it? Helping one another. No man left behind. 

Reina thought so, anyway. Lainey was always indifferent about the concept. 

“I’m gonna go get momma and daddy,” Reina announced to Lainey, who had sat square where she had stood with her legs-crossed, reaching out so she could shake the boxes of presents underneath the tree.

“‘Kay,” Lainey returned absentmindedly.

Scurrying down the small hallway, Reina did her best not to trip over herself in her excitement, catching a glimpse of their Mr. Handy, affectionately deemed Cogsworth, in the kitchen and stopping in place. She thought it’d be rude if she didn’t regard him, especially after he was cooking their dinner, so she made a quick detour into the kitchen and stood beside the robot.

She cocked her head to the side as she watched Cogsworth slice cranberry sauce that’d been extracted from a can. “Can I help?” she asked. The robot didn’t flinch, however he did chuckle at the offer.

“Oh, no, Little Madam,” Cogsworth said, his mechanical arms working speedily to plate the cranberry sauce. “What is my purpose if I can’t prepare a simple meal by myself! You go and tire yourself out somewhere. That way you’ll be sound asleep when Santa comes!”

Reina’s brows knitted together as she clutched onto the edge of the counter, eyes drifting up to Cogsworth. “How does Santa get in?” she inquired. “We don’t have a real chimney.”

“... I believe he uses the pipes nowadays,” the robot returned. The little girl glanced above her head at the two inch thick steel pipes and grimaced at the thought of someone being squished into one of them. “Go along, now. Let me handle this business!”

Giggling, Reina backed away from the counter and hurried back out of the kitchen. She could hear music playing from the other room, this song she recognized — I Don’t Want To See Tomorrow — playing on vinyl, evident by the crackling in the naturally smooth voices. She peeked her head around the corner and found herself smiling softly at the sight of her parents dancing, pressed close together as her mother’s head rested on her father’s shoulder. 

She began swaying along to the song with them, not wanting to disturb the peace they’d made in that moment. Too often could she say she’d been awoken in the middle of the night by an explosive argument between the two. It must’ve been that holiday magic everyone talked about. She did hope, though, very quietly, that when she was paired with someone in their vault, that they’d get to dance with each other all the time. No cares or worries in the world, unlike when her parents would argue and everything the other did became an issue.

The only times Reina ever saw her parents happy were often when they were apart. Like when Walter would bring Reina into the horticulture lab and they’d spend the afternoon discussing the different breeds of flowers they engineered from the scarce seed packets they were afforded after the War. They looked so sickly in comparison to the flowers she saw in books and magazines, which is why Amihan would always return from picking up gear with Lainey so they could paint metal scraps and assemble flowers that could last forever.

Amihan liked how they looked. So did Lainey, who thought the flowers in the lab smelled bad. But Walter and Reina much preferred them — at least they were real.

“Will we ever make flowers like these?” Reina had asked her father once, holding up a book entitled The Language of Flowers and displaying to him a painted bouquet of roses and lilies. “They’re so bright! I bet they smell good, too,”

“We can hope so, Rei,” Walter chuckled warmly as he reached over to lift his daughter into his lap. “Or, as your mother would put it, we could pray.” He said it in a way that dripped condescension, but Reina didn’t register it in the moment, simply smiling up at him.

“I like praying,” she told him. “Even though Lai Lai says that God can’t hear us this far underground.”

Walter grinned at this, shaking his head and reaching out to spray down the flowerbeds. “Well, I think your mother would say God can hear you wherever you are,” he replied. “Above or underground.”

“... What would you say?” she wondered, giving Walter pause as he thought over his answer.

“I would say that… Perhaps we all need that kind of enthusiasm,” he said slowly. “Whether or not anyone can hear it.”

Reina blinked herself out of the memory as the sound of air being driven out of lungs met her ears. She focused her gaze on her parents, still clutched against one another, except the longer they remained close, the more blood pooled on the floor beneath them. Looking on in horror, the older twin watched her mother unsheathe a knife from where she’d plunged it into her father’s side. She raised a shaking hand up to her face and covered her mouth, wanting to scream but, much like her father, lacking the breath for it.

Her mother watched as her father collapsed onto the floor into a puddle of red, staining his green button-up while he sputtered out a hoarse why. Reina decided to be brave, gearing herself up and running headfirst into the kitchen, calling out for her father until her mother caught her in her arms and lifted her up.

Reina kept asking the same question while being carried back down the hall: why, why, why? What did he ever do? He was a good man, a good father, surely that meant he was a good husband as well? This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be happening. Things like this didn’t happen in the vaults — it’s the one place in the world where everything was peaceful.

That concept was slowly beginning to deconstruct itself in front of Reina’s eyes as she was placed in her bedroom, Amihan then calling out for her sister. She knelt down in front of her elder daughter and pushed a few stray strands of hair behind the shell of her ear.

“Pack you and you sister’s things, Bowie,” she said gently, giving a sigh when Reina shook her head. “I did this for you both. Please. It’ll be okay. I promise.”

Amihan quickly fled the room to collect Lainey, who was taking her sweet time as per usual, and Reina sunk onto her knees and began to cry into her hands rather than do anything her mother instructed out of her. She had never felt such unbridled rage before; she didn’t think she was capable of it. She was a tempered soul, but now she could feel the threads of her being come undone as she hiccuped into her hands and mourned for her father who she naturally assumed was left for dead.

What was she supposed to do? She didn’t know first aid. She knew nothing except the botanical names for stupid flowers.

Once Amihan managed to get Lainey to pack their things, alarm bells sounded off overhead and they started to flee their unit — Reina glancing in the kitchen for a moment before her mother covered her eyes and shoved her out into the hallway. There was a distant groaning, the sound of a vault door that was long said to have never been opened since it was first shut, and both the twins were disoriented by the time they made it to the exit, outrunning guards and other vault members that believed they were doing the right thing by rescuing the girls from their mother.

Reina was blinded by the sunlight as they stepped out of Vault 101. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying desperately to level her breathing, and when she opened them again, there it was, right in front of her: the whole, ugly world. Brown and grey and black, the only bright color painted being from the sky above.

Is this how it is? She asked herself as Amihan rushed them further and further away from the only home she’d ever known. Is this how it’s always been? 

There’s no place for flowers to grow.

[dcjavu]

BEGINNING OF THE END

October 22nd, 2077

Fine china wiped spotless, a vacuum sucking at the dust clinging to the drapes, mops squelching against the floors, the hum of the radio on the kitchen table as a chicken roasts in the oven, whispered lullabies and hushed babies, an old army jacket thrown over a chair with initials sewn into the shoulder, pairs of newly polished shoes by the door and a jacket being hung up as a man entered through the front door. Kicking aside his work boots, adding to the pile of dirties that his wife need clean before the day’s end, he lifted his hat off his head and tossed it aside so that he could collapse onto the couch and sling an arm over his eyes to cover himself from the dying light pouring in through the windows. The smell of bleach and lemon-lime permeating the air. Sun bleached rooms that lit up in primary colors painted onto every appliance. 

This was the American Dream — at least, that’s what Riley Worthington was fed her entire life. 

She could hear her husband enter and she kissed her teeth, wiping clean the knife she was planning on using to carve the chicken that’d been baking in the oven for hours. Dirtying her skirt by placing the blade up against the hem and erasing any blemishes on the surface, she wandered out of the kitchen and stared him down as he was sprawled out on the couch.

“Ry,” Riley spoke up, gently at first as he started snoring theatrically upon hearing her voice. She didn’t blink. “Ry, wake up.”

“If it ain’t about dinner bein’ ready, I don’t wanna hear it,” Her husband returned and moved over onto his side, burying his face in the cushions.

She bit her lip. No talking back, ever, she could hear her mother’s voice say. You made your bed. Now die in it. Or was it lie? She couldn’t quite recall. Reaching out, she tugged on her husbands ankle so he’d wake more, which only summoned a groan from him. She kept tugging, growing impatient with each yank. God, her son was easier to coax out of bed in the morning than this grown man.

As Riley tugged harder, her husband reached out and grasped onto her wrist tightly. “What the fuck is it, Riley?!” he then snapped — silenced quickly whenever she held the kitchen knife directly at him. “... Riles,”

“Don’t start, Ryker,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “Tell me why I shouldn’t gut you right now for what you’re plannin’ to do.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Riles?” Ryker asked, sounding more exasperated than usual as he glanced between his wife and his reflection in the surface of the knife. “Listen, calm yourself down first, then we can talk about whatever you’re all riled up about. That sound good? I’ll even get you a cold Nuka Cola, take the edge off.”

Riley didn’t falter, only cocking her head to the side as she smiled in pure disbelief. “You’re somethin’ else, you know that, Ryker Worthington?”

“Riley,” Ryker said cautiously. She could see his hand raising slowly, presumably to steal the knife from her, which only prompted her to jut the point closer to his neck, making him flinch. Figures. Always a coward. “H-Hey now. Cool it with that, it ain’t no butter knife.”

“I fuckin’ know it’s not a butter knife, dipshit,” she spat. “That’s the whole goddamned point. Now, start talkin’ or I’m gonna gut you like a fish.”

Ryker eyed his wife with caution, slowly lowering himself back onto the cushions. “I don’t really like fish much, you know,” he said to try and ease the tension. Needless to say, it didn’t work, as Riley only snorted in return.

“I’ve been married to you for five years, trust me, I know you aren’t very familiar with any kind of fish,” she quipped.

“Oh, you’re funny,” Ryker said, chuckling slightly out of nerves. “What’s gotten into ya, huh, Riles? … Is it your daddy? Did he call you again? Offer to fly you back out to Shitstain, Missouri and live with him and your mama and sister? You know he’s full of it. He can hardly provide for her, how could he—”

“Speak another word on my daddy and I won’t hesitate.” Riley deadpanned in return. That silenced Ryker — for a time, which just kept irritating the young woman as her wide eyes tracked every twitch of his limbs. “I’m talkin’ about your work. Vault-Tec.”

Ryker’s eyes darkened and narrowed at his wife, who kept her chin held high as he propped himself up on his elbows. “Right, then,” he said. “We’re havin’ this conversation again. Tell me, Riley, do you remember the definition of insanity?”

“It’s what the fuck you’ve been up to the past three years,” she snapped.

“Not quite,” Ryker said, sounding eerily calm. “That’d be the exact opposite, really. Why don’t you stop beatin’ around the bush and give it to me straight? What do you know that’s got you like this?”

Swallowing thickly, Riley could feel her nerves clench, forcing her hand to develop a tremor. Goddammit. She squeezed the handle tighter and kept it held as straight as she could. “I know what you plan on doin’,” she said. “I heard you. In that meeting.”

“Oh, so we’re committin’ espionage now?” he snorted. She couldn’t deny how unsettled he was by his blase act, but she held a brave face as she stared him down coldly without answering. “... Alright. So, we’re doin’ this. You know the truth, now you wanna hear it from the horse’s mouth. I always did peg you as a bit of a masochist, y’know.”

“I married you, after all,” she shot back.

Ryker grinned crookedly at her. “That you did, Mrs. Worthington.”

“Say it to me,” Riley said through gritted teeth as she angled the knife closer to his neck, and she was satisfied to see him flinch for the first time since she’d met him. 

“Before I do, I want you to think about Rue,” he said. 

“Don’t bring him into this,” she denied. “You don’t get to even speak his name after what you’ve done. What you’re gonna do.”

Ryker scoffed at his wife, who maintained her composure in spite of his expectations. “He deserves to have his family whole when it’s all said and done,” he told her, but when she didn’t falter, he let out a tired sigh and eyed her before letting his shoulders slack. “... War never changes, Riles. You know that better than any of us. And the world we’re livin’ in now does nothing but perpetuate it. Look at the past three-hundred years of this country — has there been a century of it without war?”

“So the best solution is to, what?” Riley began, feeling her voice thin out with every word she spoke. “Burn it all to the ground?”

“This world’s corrupt and dangerous,” Ryker told her flatly. “It’s for the best that we give humanity a second chance and start over. And yes, that means most people will have to die. But not us. You, me, Rue, we live on. We get to build a better future for him, Riles. Together. Ain’t that what you always wanted? Is that not what you went to war for in the first place? In the vain hope it’d make a better life for us all?”

Riley clenched her jaw, feeling frustration course through her veins as she clutched onto the knife even tighter. “Don’t talk to me about war,” she said. “You don’t know the first goddamned thing about it.”

“Don’t pull that shit with me,” Ryker then snapped. “You know what I did every fuckin’ day when you were gone? I waited for a letter, or a phone call, anything, just to know you were still breathin�� and that you were comin’ back to us. I slept alone. I took care of Rue, I told him you were gonna come home when I didn’t have the slightest fuckin’ idea if you were even still alive out there. So don’t stand there and jab a knife at me and stand on some fuckin’ high horse like you’re the only one who knows what war is like. I know, Riley. I fuckin’ know.”

She gasped whenever he reached out, grasping onto her wrist and keeping a firm grip. Struggling at first, it wasn’t long until the knife went sliding across the vinyl floors and they were stood, face to face with one another, and neither of them quite knew what the other had in mind next. Instead of scrambling for it, he reached out to take a hold of her neck and bring her in closer.

“We’ve got a place ready for us,” Ryker said lowly, and despite knowing she was technically stronger, Riley could never find it within her to do anything except for squeeze his arm so he’d loosen his grasp. “And we’re leavin’ when it’s time. Is that understood?”

When he let her go, she gasped for breath, collapsing onto the floor and spitting where it’d just started to shine underneath the light of the sun. He stepped around her and grabbed the knife, working his way toward the kitchen. 

“Your chicken’s burnin',” he called out. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it. Always do.”

That night, Riley couldn’t catch a wink of sleep, meanwhile Ryker was in a peaceful slumber beside her. She kept staring out the balcony windows, at the city lights of Los Angeles ahead of her. Carefully, she peeled the sheets away from her and padded toward the door in her slip dress, eyeing her husband from over her shoulder as she stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

Reaching into a potted plant and unearthing a silver cigarette case — she promised she’d quit a year ago — she popped it open before picking out a cigarette and placing it between her teeth. After some more digging through the wet soil, she fished out the lighter and held it up to the end of the cigarette and flicked it on. She watched the flame as it danced in the wind, sucking in a long breath whenever it caught on the paper. The bud glowing, she held it delicately between her index and middle fingers as she leaned over the balcony on her elbows, observing the cityscape. 

How long until it’d be reduced to ash and bone? 

She closed her eyes slowly and thought back to simpler times. Her childhood, out in the suburbs of Missouri. Really, she’d always lived a cushioned life up until she was drafted, and she was considered a lucky girl that that’d been the only run of bad fortune she’d encountered in her life. But she was still young, only 23 years old as of June that year. 

She could remember her father chasing her around the backyard and, from the porch, her older sister sketching them as they ran in circles and played kickball and catch. She was the closest thing to a son he’d ever get — that’s why she was named Riley, because her mother was certain she’d be a boy up until the doctor presented her with a fully female newborn, much to everyone’s surprise. And disappointment, of course, though every time her father told the story, he kept expressing to her how overjoyed he was that she was a girl.

“You were the prettiest thing in the universe, Riley,” he said, grinning cheesily at her. “Right up there next to your mama and sister.”

A fond smile laced Riley’s lips as she reminisced before it began to fade. Was there any saving him? Or her mother or sister? They were all innocent, and if Ryker and Vault-Tec were set on repopulating the world with the right kind of people, well… Her father and sister would at least make the cut. 

She remained on the balcony until she could see the sun break over the horizon, having chainsmoked the last of her cigarettes throughout the night. By the time Ryker woke up for work, she was back in bed, having doused herself in perfume so that he wouldn’t smell the chemicals on her. She was awake the entire time he readied himself, listening to the rustle of his belt and his grunts and groans — he was getting old. Was he even qualified to be in the program he so eagerly pitched ideas in favor of?

Once she felt his lips press against her cheek in goodbye and heard the front door shut, Riley sat up out of bed and rubbed her face before she hurried over to the closet. She hauled a suitcase onto the mattress and flipped it open, yanking out all her dresser drawers and piling as many clothes as she could into the empty space.

Whenever the suitcase was packed nearly to the brim she fled her bedroom. Hurrying down the hall, she rounded the corner into her son’s room and crouched beside his bed, nudging him carefully so that he’d stir awake.

“Ruru,” she whispered softly, reaching out to caress his cheek. “Wake up.”

Whining, Rue rubbed his eyes and blinked at his mother, still drowsy. “School?” he assumed.

“No, cowboy,” she chuckled a little as she scooped her arms underneath him to help prop him up, hoping it’d wake him more. “We’re goin’ on a road trip, you and me. Out to grandma and grandpa’s. Don’tcha wanna see ‘em again? And Aunt Nonnie?”

“Why?” the young boy asked. Always inquisitive, that one. He certainly inherited that from his mother. “... ‘Cause of the bombs?”

Riley frowned at him, freezing where she’d gone to take some clothes out of his dresser. “How’d you know about all that?”

“Heard you and daddy talkin’,” he said honestly. “I’m sorry, mama. Is that why we gotta go?”

“... C’mere, Ruru,” Riley let out a sigh as she lowered herself onto her knees and held her arms out for Rue, who stumbled forward so that she could cradle him. For a moment, it was almost like he was an infant again with the whole world at his fingertips. Now, it was falling apart and he didn’t even have the bliss of ignorance to protect him from it. “You wanna know somethin’ I learned about those bombs in the Marines?”

Rue looked up at her with curious brown eyes, and she smiled down at him before holding her thumb up and shutting one eye. “If the cloud is smaller than your thumb, then you start runnin’,” she told him.

“What if it’s bigger?” he then asked.

Her expression softened and she lowered her hand. “Well. They said there’d be no use in runnin’ then.”

“Is it gonna happen?” he kept wondering.

Riley’s lips pressed together, then she leaned in to press a kiss against his temple. “I certainly hope not.”

Thirty minutes later, Riley had all of their necessities packed and she’d written a brief note to Ryker that she stuck on the leftovers in the fridge: GONE CAMPING. SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE. — R.

As she loaded their things in the older car of hers that’d been rotting away in their garage since she came back home, Rue was sat in the front seat, kicking his feet around and listening to the radio while he waited for his mother to finish sorting everything. While she murmured a list to herself over and over, assuring herself that she wouldn’t forget anything else they’d nee to acquire during the drive, he glanced up at the horizon and tilted his head at the mountains in the distance.

Slowly, he held his thumb up in front of his squinted gaze, and though it tremored he managed to keep it straight after a bit of practice.

“Mama?” he called out.

“One second, Ruru,” she said in return as she struggled slamming shut the trunk.

“Is it your thumb or mine?” he asked.

Looking up at him, Riley’s attention was thwarted to the horizon, where a mushroom cloud had developed and a darkness had engulfed the skyline. She could feel her heart jump into her throat and expand there, a loud beating that couldn’t be swallowed. From the car’s radio, only one thing could be picked up before the radio tower was knocked out:

“—followed by flashes, blinding flashes. Sounds of explosions. We’re trying to get confirmation … seemed to have lost contact with Anchorage stations. We do have — we do have coming in confirmed reports, that’s confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in Alaska and Washington State. Dear God—"

Riley's eyes widened in horror and she slammed the trunk shut with all her might as she went around the car to jump into the driver's seat. Buckling Rue in first, she jammed the keys into the ignition and started peeling out the driveway; driving into the darkness, or else the light.