#ntzsche Dizz

[ntzsche9]

Of the 16 or so chapters I've written of my Nuka-World fanfic, the only chapter I am satisfied with is chapter 3. It came early on, was clear and easy, and the characters stayed in character. While the story was largely situational, and I could let the characters tell me what to do and things were easy. Then I went and tried to plot and now I am horribly, wretchedly stuck. Most of the characters don't want to do what I want them to and nothing is easy.

I thought I would post this in an attempt to defibrillate this damn thing back to being easier to write. One of the parts I like least is the very beginning, so I dunno if I will ever post more than pieces, really.

Bad Blood

A Fallout Nuka-World fanfic

Chapter 3

Warnings: Violence and gore, drug abuse, slavery, sexual themes with dubious consent, m/m

After agreeing to return with his father to the raider city built on the backs of slaves in the rusted remains of an amusement park, Lafayette does what he can to play the role until he can figure out what the hell to do with himself. He can only pretend for so long, though. After watching slaves be fed to a monster for the amusement of the raiders, he tries to protect a slave too drugged to realize what is about to happen to him.

When the screams finally subsided, the wet crunching of flesh and bone made the swill Lafayette had been throwing back all night roll in his belly. He never thought of himself as someone who was particularly sensitive to violence or gore, with how he grew up hunting and all the other shit he'd been through, but the intimate sounds of an enraged gatorclaw eating a pair of poorly-armed slaves alive had his hair standing on end and stomach beginning to heave. He had to get the fuck out of here, but he had to time it right, play it off. He knew he was being as closely watched as ever.

Porter Gage lounged boredly beside him. He had been making a half-hearted attempt to distract him with some wild account from his youth. Lafayette hadn't been listening. His dad and Mason both stood nearby, their backs to them. Dizz gnawed at the scorched limb of some strange creature the raider gang bred beneath the amphitheater, his appetite unphased, and Mason leaned against the high fence of the cage as he watched his new pet. 

The Overboss had a different tactic for handling the leaders of each gang, but despite how amicable they seemed now, he took particular joy in humiliating Mason. In the most recent of a long series of backhanded transgressions, Dizz had led Porter and Lafayette on a good old fashioned hunting trip, just the three of them, to clear out Safari Adventure. He had been putting pressure on Mason to do some real work himself, but the man had decided to act like the Overboss still needed to prove something to them. The Pack assumed they would receive the larger portion of the park zoo, especially since the Operators had already been granted the Galactic Zone and the Disciples were given Dry Rock Gulch. Instead, the Overboss assigned it to the Operators, and he didn't even give Mason a chance to be angry about it before the three of them returned with perhaps the last surviving gatorclaw as a consolation gift.

Not only was the Pack incapable of clearing the park out themselves, but Mason couldn't have pulled off capturing one of the monsters, much less made it look so easy. Dizz was bigger, fiercer, bolder, even more scarred than the Pack's alpha. He took out the previous Overboss while Mason was only posturing. Porter had been delighted to spread the old rumor to the Pack that the new head hancho's shredded face was from fucking a deathclaw, and they ate the story up. It served to put Mason's claim of biting the paw off a yao guai to shame. Mason dismissed the story as an obvious joke, but when the three of them strolled into the amphitheater that night, Dizz and Lafayette leading a bound and exhausted gatorclaw by its duct taped muzzle, there was no doubt in anyone's mind who the strongest among them was. Even his fresh-faced son stood at a close second, above Mason.

As they partied that night, Mason's amicable demeanor would occasionally slip when he thought the Overboss wasn't looking. Dizz must have felt the daggers glaring into his back, but it made him all the more relaxed, as if encouraging him to try something. They both knew an open confrontation wouldn't end well for Mason, no matter how angry he got. Porter was quick to point out each subtle passive aggression to Lafayette, and was far more entertained by that than the cage fights.

"My girl is still starving, look at her!" Mason loudly announced, words slurred. He had been tempering his rage with alcohol and jet, which left him leaning heavily against the top of the fence and well within reach of the gatorclaw. He was lucky it was still preoccupied with rooting around in the bloody crumbs of its last victim. "She's wasting away. Someone bring 'er another snack!"

"We're all out, boss."

"How the fuck did that happen!?"

"We were running low on captives after last night. You want someone to buy some more from the market?"

"Nah, fuck it," Mason said with a dark grin. He had spotted the red glow of one last collar after all. 

The Pack didn't keep slaves around for long. They might use them for a day or two, however they saw fit, but they always met the same end. Lafayette had heard there were dungeons below the amphitheater where they would handcuff captives to the bars while whatever starved beast they were training to fight ate them alive. No, when the Pack felt like having a party, they would rent a few whores from the brothel in the Parlor, and usually send them back in one piece - the Operators would expect them to pay extra if they didn't. This late in the night, they had all been dragged off to some place or another, all except one. Lafayette had noticed him briefly earlier, the back of his strawberry-blonde head bobbing between the legs of some stupid-looking raider in a horned stag helmet huffing jet in the stands.

Mason sharply whistled for his attention. "C'mere, boy. Yeah, you! Bring your ass, I got a job for you," he grinned. 

The slave was young, heavily freckled but attractive by Nuka-World standards. Even with his messy hair hanging in his face it was clear he was stoned out of his gourd. He hadn't a goddamn clue what was happening, and despite it being obvious that Mason meant him harm, he began to walk over willingly. He even smiled.

"Wait!" Lafayette found himself shouting. Everyone jerked their heads up to look at him after he'd spent half the night sullen and quiet. Dizz glanced over with a look of warning, eyes narrowed as he tore another bite off the large charred bone in his hand.

Lafayette turned his best lecherous grin on the slave as he passed, reaching over to grab his wrist and yank him closer. "Sorry, Mason. I been waiting my turn for this one."

"Hey, no worries, Junior," Mason sneered with an annoyed smile. "Just let me get him when you're done."

"Nah, man. I'm gonna take him back to Fizztop and call it a night," Lafayette said, standing to throw an arm over the guy's shoulders. He took great care to not touch the explosive collar on his neck - even being this close to one made him nervous. "Why don't you try one of your ghoulrillas? There were enough of them living in Adventure Zone that I bet it would make a more interesting fight."

"Shiiiit, that's a goddamn good idea!" The drunk man grinned before he turned sharply to shout after the other raiders, "Steg! Go get Motherfucker! And give him the super sledge!"

"Well now, your boy's finally gettin' laid," Porter chuckled to Dizz, walking over to elbow him in the arm. "Guess all that father-son bonding cheered him up after all."

"About damn time," Dizz chuckled. When he held Lafayette's gaze a beat too long, Lafayette knew he had seen right through him.

Lafayette didn't really give a fuck. He would keep up appearances in front of the gangs because it wasn't just bad for his dad's image, it was dangerous for him, too. They had already demanded he be put through the gauntlet and he had done what he'd needed to to survive, but he was still a target. His father, however, couldn't expect him to become a different fucking person since then.

Lafayette was also pretty pissed at himself again tonight, because their hunting trip in Adventure Zone earlier that day had been fun. It felt like old times. His dad was laid back, less on edge and exhausted as he had always been when Lafayette was a kid. He seemed to trust Lafayette to hold his own now, let him do things his own way. Lafayette still didn't have a high opinion of Gage, but the older men joked and hooted as they worked their way to the basements of the cloning facility, killing everything that moved, and Lafayette got caught up in the thrill of it. He laughed at their banter, and soon any time his dad clapped him on the back or threw an arm around his shoulders, Lafayette had found himself grinning right back.

It was hard to maintain that you were being held against your will when you got happy your goddamn daddy was paying you some attention. Sure, the man he was now was closer to what he always should have been - warmer, more relaxed and agreeable, believably paternal. The years of living on the bare minimum, then the psycho addiction, had done a number on him, but Lafayette would never write off all the awful fucking things he did because of it. He saw enough of his swagger around Nuka-World to know Dizz was still every bit as capable and willing to do all the same things, and more. He was the same man who torched settlements, hung people off overpasses, and collared people into slavery. He was the same man who helped carve Gabe up and beat the brakes off of him just for fun, and would have otherwise put Luvell in a collar without a second thought.

He was at home, here.

Lafayette was relieved when they all just let him walk out of there, for more reasons than one. To his credit, the guy under his arm kept up with his longer stride well for as inebriated as he was. His eyes were as pale as his skin, indiscernible in color, and his pupils blown wide.

"Did you say we were going to the top of the mountain?" he asked with a grin, a hand petting up Lafayette's chest to toy with his nipple through his shirt.

"Uh, yeah," Lafayette said, glancing around before pushing his hand away. He hadn't exactly expected a slave to be so forward, but every inch of this place was crawling with raiders right to Fizztop. There were few places in this whole goddamn park that Lafayette didn't have eyes watching his every move. He would have to keep up with the charade until they were inside.

"What's your name?" Lafayette asked, and this time he let the man's skinny arm wrap around the small of his back, fingertips sneaking into the waist of his jeans.

"Dandy," he said with a stifled laugh, like he was telling a joke.

"Dandy? Like the apples?"

"Dandy like the apples," he grinned. "And they call you Junior, right?"

"They call me that," he scowled. "But my name is Lafayette."

"Mmm, La-fa-yette," he sang softly, both hands now heavily petting Lafayette's torso beneath his shirt. Dandy bit his lower lip and purred, "What are you planning to do to me tonight?"

"Knock it off," Lafayette said quietly, the two still not past the Disciple's lair.

Dandy flinched at his tone, his hands withdrawing and his gaze dropping to the ground immediately. "Yes sir, I'm sorry."

Lafayette felt awful. He sighed and squeezed the man's shoulder. "It's alright, just.. wait until we get up there, and alone. Then we'll talk."

Dandy didn't say anything the rest of the way. Lafayette kept an arm around him, holding his body close, and led him through the lobby and up the back elevator. He didn't often have Fizztop to himself - he didn't really get much privacy at all, but once they stepped off the elevator he relaxed.

"You hungry?" he asked, letting the man go.

"I'm fine."

"You sure?" Lafayette lingered. He had seen how the slaves got treated, what they were fed. Being from the brothel he might get a little better than the usual, but he sure didn't look like it. Dandy shook his head, looking around as if he expected someone else to be there. He still wouldn't meet Lafayette's eye.

"Well.. let me know," Lafayette said, unsure himself. "My room is over here, the kitchen is that way down the hall, and the bathroom is over there. The water works, if you need a shower or anything."

That seemed to pique his interest a bit, but still he walked to the bedroom. Lafayette followed him and lingered awkwardly in the doorway. When Dandy started to strip off his shirt he quickly said, "Hey, no. That's not why I brought you here."

Dandy lowered his arms, his thin white shirt taut between them. "What do you want me to do?" he asked carefully, chancing a brief look back at him.

"Fuck if I know," he sighed. "We're not having sex. Just.. hang out, for an hour or two? Or the whole night, whatever. Eat something, take a shower, whatever you want. My dad and Porter will be back before too long, though, and once they do you should stay in here with me."

Dandy stood there, blinking slowly. Lafayette wondered if he was too high to even understand what he was saying, much less shower or eat. "Or you can just sleep. I only got the one bed, so we gotta share but.. No sex."

"Wait, what?"

"You'll be safe if you stay the night here. And you can look at me. Fuck, I hate this fucking place."

Dandy slowly looked up, his hazy expression still baffled. Lafayette huffed in frustration and reached over to hit the light. There was a string of christmas lights along one wall, casting the room in dim but colorful hues. After closing and locking the door with a set of hooks and a chain he had hammered into the wall himself, Lafayette walked to the other side of the bed. He turned away to take off his jeans, and climbed into bed in his shirt and boxers.

"Get some rest, Dandy," he prompted him, dividing his pillows and shifting to one side of the bed to make space. Then he rolled over, facing away from him.

He listened to Dandy breath in the quiet room for a minute or so. Then there was the sound of fabric hitting the floor, and eventually he felt the mattress shift as the other man climbed in next to him.

…….

A few hours later, Dandy woke up, and hadn't the slightest idea where the fuck he was. There was the broad back of a very tall man beside him, and at first he guessed it was the Overboss. He'd blown him once, back when he was first getting to know the gangs and Mags wanted to make a good impression. The man never gave him a second glance, but Dandy distinctly remember that he was fucking hung. His head was pounding, but his body wasn't any more sore than usual. He was only missing his shirt, and the other man looked fully dressed. 

He carefully sat up and slid off the mattress, shifting the bed as little as possible. It was Junior, he realized, getting a better look at him in the dim lights. It still didn't make any sense that he would be in the guy's bed without feeling wrecked, though. Dandy didn't puzzle about it much more, tugging his shirt back on and checking his pockets. 

He only had thirty caps. He couldn't go back without one hundred and fifty. Maybe one-twenty, if he could sweet talk his way out of a beating.

He cursed under his breath and looked around. He still didn't know where he was, though now he assumed it was somewhere above Fizztop. The room was jarringly neat, for a raider. The floors were swept, furniture sparse but uncluttered. It took him a few minutes of creeping around, nearly holding his breath in the quiet space as he slowly eased open footlockers and drawers, making sure to put everything back just right. When he found a small fortune of caps, he grabbed two handfuls before he managed to check himself. If he robbed Junior it would be a goddamn death sentence. No, he would just take one hundred. Maybe one-twenty, just what he needed. He probably wouldn't even notice, right?

Dandy sorted himself out and glanced worriedly around the room, afraid something would be amiss. His heart was hammering, and he gave the sleeping man one last look before he carefully eased out the door.

[ntzsche9]

Hopped on this tag game posted by @eldritch-flower cuz it looked fun.

Rules: Include one character quote of your choosing ⁠from each chapter of your WIP (or as many chapters as you'd like). Give absolutely no context, save for what's between two parts of an interrupted sentence, should that occur. You may mention who said it. Have fun! No pressure!

This is gonna be for Bad Blood, but some chapters are still in such tiny pieces that I couldn't pick from them.

Chapter 2 - Dizz

"You were too small to reach all the locks on the door to get out, but you knew how to shoot a man dead. You woulda shot me, too, but you'd run out of bullets. Still bit the shit outta me when I grabbed you, though."

Chapter 4 - Luce

"Looky looky what I found sneaking ‘round the mountain,” Luce sneered, gripping the smaller man upright by his hair, smug as a cat returning home to present his prey as a gift. “How'd you lose track of your shit already, Junior?”

Chapter 5 - Dave

"Ohhhhh-kay buddy," Dave said slowly and began dragging the chair away from the computers, and Luvell with it. "No more all-nighters with the artillery system."

Chapter 10 - Luce

“Listen, Dix. Be a doll and shut the fuck up about all this, huh?”

Chapter 12 - Jonah

"Lafayette, this is Josephine," Jonah introduced, gesturing between the two. "Josie, Lafayette. He's gonna help us kill all these motherfuckers."

[ntzsche9]

Anyone else get super disturbed by that scene from House of the Dragon where we find out the prince likes hanging out at a place that pit-fights children to the death?

Why is it so fun to write evil stuff like that???

Anyway, here's something awful. It's a random bit of writing about my Lafayette's raider daddy's childhood, cuz I have trouble making him sinister enough and gotta look back to destroy his humanity.

Dizz's origins for Bad Blood

Warnings: graphic violence, child-on-child murder, implied child abuse and neglect, profane language, found family gone terribly wrong

Eleven years old and tall for his age, Dizz is forced into his first pit fight to earn his keep and his place within his new "family".

Dust cake in the blood around his nose and mouth. The left side of his face felt stiff, but the pain hadn't caught up to him yet. The girl beneath him coughed, wet and choking. Her dirty face was flushed and vicious, her hands clawing up at him. He had a longer reach than her and reared his head back as he twisted the knife lodged between her ribs. She screamed and fought harder, desperate as an animal in a snare, blood quickly filling her lung. Dizz flinched as he became speckled in it when she coughed harder, blood bubbling up from her mouth and seeping between her teeth. Then she slowed, and as her eyes lost their focus he snatched the blade back to plunge it into her chest again, and again, and again, desperately for it to just be over.

The drunken, roaring applause of more than two dozen people drowned out her last gurgling breath.

Dizz stayed caged over her, chest heaving as he frantically looked around the arena for the next threat. The body of another child laid face-down in the dirt nearby, and after three rounds, no one else was shoved into the ring at him. It was only beginning to dawn on Dizz that he'd won when Sidney snatched him up by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet.

"I knew you had it in you, spitfuck!" the boy shouted over the din. Instinct had Dizz reeling back on him, but Sid caught his wrist before the knife got anywhere near him. Exhaustion was taking hold and slowing him down, and the older boy easily wrenched it from his grasp. Dizz watched him toss it aside - it hadn't been his in the first place. Sid couldn't stop grinning at him, his piercing blue eyes wild with glee as he looped an arm around his chest and dragged him from the makeshift arena.

"Pay up, bitches!" a large, barrel-chest man was reveling at the center of a dense crowd of raiders, few of which looking pleased. "100 from each of you twats!"

He didn't bother to look at the kids as they returned to his side, Sid easing Dizz down on a bench as he finally had the sense to contend with a deep cut across his calf that kept him from walking on his own. It was supposed to have sliced his achilles, and though it had landed too high, he couldn't use the leg. Dizz inspected the bloody, gaping wound with a grimace while Sid took his sweet time fetching a stimpack. He jammed in his thigh with no warning, and called him a pussy when Dizz cried out in surprise. 

There was so much dirt caked into the blood covering his body, drying it into a sticky sludge, making it hard to tell what was his and what wasn't. His adrenaline was still up, but without the momentum and distraction of fighting for his life, the injuries were making themselves known. His cheek was swelling beside a blackened eye, and his nose steadily dripped blood. These things were so common that it was more unusual if he didn't have a black eye or busted nose. The welts and slashes across his lean body were worse, but as the stimpack did its work, the lacerations grew tight and itchy as they worked themselves back together. Dizz gritted his teeth, hating the feeling almost as much as getting stabbed in the first place.

Only once he collected all his earnings did the large man turn to them. He looked Dizz over with a huge grin, making the hook-shaped scar running from one side of his mouth up to his ear crinkle.

Albert Jackson. "Smiling Jack," to his friends and acquaintances, but he was "Uncle Jack" to them. Dizz immediately dropped any hint of pain or discomfort from his face, head bowed slightly as he looked up at Jack from beneath a filthy mop of black curls. He knew a smile didn't make him any less mean. Even after his wins, even with his pockets brimming with caps, Dizz still didn't know if he had been good enough.

"Atta boy," Jack said fondly, giving him a rough shake by the shoulder. Dizz was a kid that didn't smile very often, and he wasn't any good at it. The smirk that dimpled his cheek didn't reach his eyes. "They didn't wanna play fair, sending in two after ya, huh? But I knew you were a demon, so I raised 'em double-or-nothing, and sure as shit you came through! You'll be eatin' good tonight, my boy!"

As he spoke, a stocky teen shouldered his way through the dispersing crowd to stand beside Jack, but didn't so much as look at Dizz. Nearly a man grown, Mutt was the oldest of them, and took post as Jack's bodyguard in case anyone thought about trying to get their losses back. A few moments later, a scrawny little girl with matted orange hair squirmed through the crowd to cackled at Dizz.

"I thought for sure your ass was done when that bitch pulled out that third knife!" Marigold grinned, words whistling through the gap from her missing front teeth.

"Mari," Jack reminded her, a sing-song tone in his voice as he held out his hand. Marigold went stiff, her smile gone, and whipped around.

"Just a little of this and that, Unc," she said in practiced nonchalance as she began emptying her pockets of all the things she had pilfered from raiders in the crowd. Caps, mostly, but a couple of mags of ammunition, a few explosives, a gold watch and a sturdy bowie knife. Marigold was still too little to be of any use in the pits, but she was tenacious and earned her keep in other ways. Despite her young age, she knew that being a wiry, crusty, gap-toothed little kid wouldn't spare her from what became of most girls who were alone in the wasteland, and was keen to never give Uncle Jack a reason to turn her out.

She held her breath as Jack considered the haul thoughtfully, then nodded his head. He wasn't impressed, but his good mood extended unexpected mercy. "Always put business first, baby," he said, and her shoulders relaxed. She turned back to Dizz, looking him over and was about to say something else when Jack declared they were leaving.

Dizz was lucky he turned to lead them away, because when he stood, he nearly blacked out. Sid was quick to catch him under his arms before he hit the ground. Glancing up quickly, Dizz felt only momentary relief before his eyes met Mutt's, the older boy smirking maliciously. Just behind him, Marigold pretended she hadn't seen a thing.

"Next time you oughta keep more blood in your body, dipshit," Sid said cheerfully, steadying him until he found his feet again. "You'll get the hang of it."

That night, in the derelict old house they bunkered down in before heading back home to the half-collapsed block of apartments the rest of Jack's gang inhabited, Jack made good on his word. He used a gemerous portion of the night's earnings to reward Dizz with a huge slab of steak, eggs and tatoes, with a luke warm beer to wash it down with. It was more food than he might see in a week. As ferociously as Dizz jumped on the spread, he was well aware of the target on his back as the other kids looked on - they had been told to fend for themselves, like usual. Jack announced he was going out for a drink, commanded them to stay put, and left.

Mutt was immediately on the other side of the table, staring down at the younger boy. Dizz paused, chewing slowly as he glared right back.

"You hot shit now, huh?" he asked, a mean smile inching across his face. He had a webbing of scars across his cheek and jaw, and his mouth didn't move much to that side. "Just because you didn't die tonight don't mean you won't die next time. They went fucking easy on your virgin ass."

Dizz watched as he plucked up the larger portion of the steak he had only just cut into. Mutt took an exaggerated bite, gnashing with his mouth opened and smirking when Dizz did nothing to stop him. He was at least five years older than him, and while Dizz was unusually tall for his age, Mutt still had at least 50 lbs on him. Even if he weren't exhausted and injured, he couldn't beat him in a fight. Mutt seemed appeased when he didn't rise to the bait, and as Dizz glowered up at him, he laughed and swiped the beer before walking out.

Sidney was more patient. He even smiled in inauthentic surprise and appreciation when Dizz split what he had left. It made Dizz furious to watch his hard-won meal dwindle to almost nothing, but he reminded himself that things would be different now. Dizz knew he hadn't just survived the pits, he had excelled. He had made Uncle Jack happy, and he would be more inclined to favor him now, to train and feed him and give him shelter. Sidney would take credit for his success, but even that would benefit Dizz. They were close in age and equal in size, though Sid was a bit older and sharper while Dizz was cautious and baby-faced, still growing into his increasingly lanky body. Rather than compete with each other, they would form an alliance now. Sid had promised as much - so long as Dizz won his fights. It had been a struggle for him to hide how desperately he wanted the older boy's friendship as they trained. As ravenous as he was after tonight's fights, Dizz would pay his dues.

He glanced at Marigold as he finally started shoveling the last of the food into his mouth in quick bites. She met his gaze for only a moment, long enough to look for any sympathy and, finding none, slinked away. She didn't bother catching Sid's eye. Fending for herself would be tricky when they were ordered to stay, and had already eaten up what little was to be found in the house, but it was nothing either of the boys were concerned about. For now, they were only focused on filling their bellies, and struggling to eat slow enough to remember how good it tasted.

[ntzsche9]

This was one of the most fun things I've ever written, and is the story idea that finally got me writing again after years and years. I need to stop plotting stories so much and let them be purely situational, like I did this. The characters were completely in control. I tried so, so hard not to end it the way it does, but Gabe wouldn't chill tf out. Since then, writing alternative endings to big plot events has been a useful way for me to break a writer's block.

If Dave Had Died..

An alt-ending fic based in Fallout 4's Vault 81

Warnings: major character deaths, amputation, violence and gore, underage drug and alcohol use, bad drug trip, child murdering another child, gun violence, stabbing, 18+

Dave doesn't survive getting his leg chopped off by cannibal raiders. Everyone deals with their grief very badly.

Lafayette realized later that he knew it was over, in some deep, dark part of himself, three days before it actually happened. It was a smell. No matter what the medics did, how much antiseptic or bleach or whatever cleaning chemicals they used could cover it. It was there, in the room with him, lingering beneath all the medication and the noise and the smell of everything else.

There had been a moment that everyone was hopeful, though. More than hopeful. After the initial surgeries - it had taken three - and loaded up on med-x, Dave had come around. He was so pale and swollen, his skin burning hot, and he couldn't eat or drink without retching. But he was awake, talking, fucking laughing because it surprised him to be awake at all. He hardly remembered coming in but now delighted in being in another vault, exhausting himself by asking everyone questions. Lafayette had still been so pissed at his dad for leaving him underground in a place completely alien to him and was relieved to talk to Dave. It was like all these people were crazy and the two of them were the only normal ones. On the other side of that awful night, the awful journey afterward, the initial chaos of medical treatment, Lafayette assumed that the worse had passed.

But Dave kept struggling. A few nights after the surgeries, his fever soared again, and he had a seizure. He was awake the next day, and while he looked defeated, he still checked up on Lafeyette and Luvell. He wanted to know what they were doing, how they had been treated, how they were feeling about the place. He still made his stupid lame jokes and let Luvell snuggle up to him. It hadn't been easy for them either, but the other adults in the vault were indulgent and attentive. It made Lafayette feel edgy, the way it was like someone was always watching him, every move he made. But they were nice enough, gave them clean clothes every day and let them eat and drink as much as they could stomach. The food was weird but it wasn't terrible, and more nutritious than either of them had ever had before - especially Luvell. Running water was also pretty fucking great. Dave told them funny stories from his childhood in Vault 101, gave them advice on how to nip extra food, and how they could trade and barter for anything else they wanted. He promised to show Lafayette how to work a pipboy, which apparently came with games, to help him pass the time since he was refusing to participate in schooling like Luvell was.

Later that night, when Luvell woke up shrieking and Lafayette had hit him with his pillow until he stopped, the smaller boy slipped out of the room to curl up in the slim hospital gurney Dave slept in. He had done it before, but the doctors had tried to convince him to share the room down the hall with Lafayette instead, to give Dave space to rest and heal. He wanted to listen, was so eager to please, but the night terrors always came for him. And Lafayette had too many of his own to spare much sympathy. 

Near morning, Luvell woke up Lafayette again bu shaking his shoulder. Lafayette turned to snap at him, until he saw the damp sheen of tears on the boy's face from the light of the hallway.

"What.." he started to say, but his voice faded out. He knew 'what' the instant he looked at him. But no, this had to be wrong. He flung himself out of bed, pushing past Luvell but hearing him follow as he stormed to the medical bay.

The curtains around his bed were drawn. There were people moving around behind them, talking. The room was unnervingly quiet now, the machines that Dave was plugged into having been silenced, or turned off. Hesitating briefly in the doorway, Lafayette stormed forward and yanked the curtain open.

He was a kid of the wasteland. He had seen death before. He saw it on Dave's gray face now, even when his eyes were closed, like he was still sleeping. And he knew that smell.

The doctors turned toward him and quickly covered Dave's head with his sheet. They said something to him, but a sound was rushing in his ears, and when the female doctor stepped toward him he swung on her. She stepped back in time, his fists barely skimming her hands as she raised them in defense, but Lafayette didn't get a chance to swing again. The doctor, Foresythe, wrapped him up from behind quicker than Lafayette would have expected. He fought against him, but the old man squeezed his arms to his chest and backed him away from the bed, and out toward the hall.

"I know, I know," Foresythe told him gently. He didn't know shit. "I'm so sorry. He put up the best fight he could. But now you need to be strong, for Luvell."

"Fuck Luvell!" Lafayette spat, and didn't even look toward where the small boy had crumpled to the floor in the doorway, sobbing softly. He tried to wrench away but Foresythe squeezed him tighter, with a shake.

"You're in this together, don't lash out at him," he chided, his voice both gentle and firm. Lafayette knew that all these people hadn't gotten the full story, but he wasn't about to explain shit to them now. Like how Luvell was a stranger to him, because Dave had felt sorry for the kid even after he had been used as bait in the trap that got them captured by the raiders. If Dave hadn't made what Lafayette thought was a dying wish to get him out, he would have left him there to rot.

"Let me go!" he shouted miserably, struggling again. The old man was reluctant, but let him go slowly. He was worried he would try to fight again, but this time Lafayette took off, and Luvell wasn't trailing behind him.

As long as he kept running, he wouldn't cry, but while the Vault was a labyrinth he had hardly begun to explore, it wasn't long before he ran to the end of the tunnels. Lafayette went down deeper into the vault, where few people would go, where the place looked like it was falling apart, where the lights were blown and never replaced. He hit an alcove with a door that wouldn't open, deeper than he had ever been before, and after keying it, and punching it, and kicking it several times, he turned around. He panted heavily, desperate to keep running, even when he knew he would never be fast enough. Reality was relentless, and caught him like a punch to his aching chest, making him double over in rough sobs he could hardly breath through.

He stayed that way for hours. No one ever came after him, to his relief. The walls echoed back his misery until the tears ran out, and he sat on the floor in drained exhaustion for so long that the tears eventually came back. He had never felt grief like this before, and once he started he mourned everything. He mourned everyone the raiders had killed. His dog, Bruiser, and the family that lived in the farm nearby, who would see him through each winter when things got tough. He even mourned the life he had before this nightmare, lonely and wasting time waiting around for his old man. He mourned the father he had thought he had, because Dizz was clearly someone entirely different. He mourned the childhood that had been full of its own hardships and trauma, but had come to a screeching end two weeks ago. 

He was a man now, by wasteland standards. The right of passage had to be surviving a living nightmare like he had. He would never have been able to cry like this around his father, or even Luvell, but in this dark little hole deep underground, he was free to be self-indulgent. In some way, he felt he owed it to Dave, to cry until he was dry heaving. The man was a complete idiot, but he had been so selfless and kind and good. Good in a way that Lafayette was absolutely sure he would never see again. That deserved to be mourned, his body aching with it down to the soles of his feet.

Lafayette fell asleep on the cold floor, and woke up with a start hours later to the sound of talking in the tunnel beyond. He rubbed his face roughly with his sleeve, trying to rid himself of the river beds of snot and tears he had let run freely.

It was two vaulties, who he had seen around but never spoken to, and one was hissing at the other about lighting up the joint in his mouth before they got to their spot. Just as they turned the corner, Lafayette realized that's where he was. There were two chairs nearby, an old broken table with a bottle of liquor tucked beneath it. All that time and he hadn't even noticed.

"Oh shit! Oh, shit," the man startled when he saw Lafayette, dropping the joint from his lips and burning himself when he caught it. "Damn I thought you were one of those fucked up molerats."

Lafayette didn't say anything, and a woman peered cautiously around the corner. When she saw who he was, she relaxed a bit, but they glanced at each other awkwardly. Of course they knew, everyone in this damn place seemed to know everything, immediately. They knew who he was, and they knew why he was here.

"... You want a hit?" the man offered after a long silence.

"Jacob! He's a kid."

"He's a teenager from topside, and I mean.. come on, Joyce." He shrugged, gesturing at Lafayette in a way that pissed him off. 

Anger was so much better than sorrow, and he stood up to meet the man, taking as deep and desperate a hit off the joint as he could. He exploded into a coughing fit, putting tears back in his raw eyes. Jacob patted his back a moment, but when he reached out for the joint, Lafayette jerked it back toward himself, taking a second long hit despite not having recovered yet from the first.

"H-hey, hey, it's cool. We were planning on hanging out down here a while, there's more where that came from," Jacob assured him. He patted him on the back again, Lafayette near choking.

"Is there any water?" the woman behind him asked, her arms crossed tight across her chest but watching Lafayette with pity.

"Nope, just whatever booze we left last time," he chuckled.

"... That's fine," Lafayette managed to whisper, his voice so hoarse the sound of it surprised him. Jacob glanced at Joyce, sure she would put up another argument, but the kid sounded so rough that he went and grabbed the vodka tucked away under the table.

Lafayette hit the bottle with more familiarity, taking a few deep gulps before grimacing with a shiver.

"How old are you?"

"Old enough," Lafayette scowled, and took another drink.

"That's.. fair," the other man sighed. He rubbed his neck before offering, "So you, uh, found our secret spot. You're welcome to hang out with us? No pressure, we'll leave you alone if you want."

Lafayette glanced between them, thinking about it for a moment. The distraction was welcome, especially if these two were willing to share what they had. They looked like they were about ten years older than him, but he doubted any other adult in the vault would be so willing to let a 14 year old drink himself stupid.

So he stayed. He didn't talk much, and they were kind enough not to ask him a whole bunch of questions. A bit awkward in the beginning, but as they all began to loosen up, Lafayette found the weed and the liquor mixed in a high that made his brain completely numb. He was content listening quietly to these two banter, and before long, they left him to the joint and the bottle as they pulled out chems a little harder than that. Joyce seemed a little cagey still, doing drugs in front of a kid and a stranger, but it soon became apparent she was the one itching for a fix. Lafayette had drank and smoked from their contraband, enough that Jacob was ready to vouch for him, and before long they all grew quiet into in the mellow of their highs.

Lafayette had absolutely no clue how long he stayed down there, with them. Eventually he passed out on the floor again, and woke up alone, but with an old prewar jacket draped over him. His head and belly felt like absolute shit and there was a wretched taste in his mouth. He looked around in case they had left another joint, but there were only stubs of the rolling papers. What little was left in the bottle of vodka had been spilled onto the floor. It was enough to make him moan, and as if from muscle memory, grief came rushing back to him like a flood. 

Desperate, he turned to the stash of chems he had seen Joyce tuck into a lose panel in the wall. There was a few things in her stash he recognized, chems she had to have smuggled in from topside, though who knows how she got it past security. There wasn't any more of the daytripper Joycw had taken before, and Lafayette had no interest in the inhaler of jet. He had seen people tweaking on that, and he wanted a downer. He was pretty certain they would at least have med-x, and desperately hoped for the relief it seemed to bless everyone else with. 

He found a syringe, but it was strange. Unlike the simple, pen-like drug he had seen them give Dave, this one had a thick plunger, and the chems were in two different chambers. It looked like something that came from the wasteland, not the vault. It would probably be better, then.

Clumsily, Lafayette used the stretch of plastic tubing to tie off his arm, just as he had seen others do, clenching his hand until his veins were pronounced. The needle was ugly and painful, but it was all easier than it should have been for him to empty the chem into his arm.

"..Oh holy fuck," he shuddered, because it was like his body was immediately taken over. His heartbeat pounded through every inch of his veins, his bones and muscles sang and sparked. He suddenly didn't feel a fucking thing he was running from, not the pain from the needle or his grief. No hopelessness, no fear. Not a fucking thing. Why the fuck hadn't he done this sooner?!

He scrambled to his feet, looking around, trying to recall the way back. He was ready to run, before the humming current in his body drove him mad. He needed to get above ground, that was it. He needed to get out of this cold, weak, stupid place. It was making him soft - he had been pathetic, sitting here and crying for so long. Fuck this vault. Fuck waiting for dad, he always waited like a fucking idiot and for what? So the sinister bastard could lead some other vengeful, sadistic raider to him? He would show him vengeful. After all this shit, Lafayette could handle anything.

He kept waiting for bright lights overhead as he ran through the dark, dilapidated tunnels. He hit two dead ends, confused in this human ant nest, and eventually found a large wrench to crack a couple windows as he passed by. Just in case, to mark where he had already been. And because the shattering sound was so satisying.

When he found himself back in the halls of the medical wing, the lights were still dim. It was nighttime in the vault - or so they said, it could be high noon outside and these freaks would never know it. Fuck, what a way to live. How had Dave been so normal, growing up in a place like this? He had said something about the Overseer in his vault being crazy, were they really sure it wasn't the same here? He managed to take a half dozen steps to go ask him before reality slammed into him again.

And it was agony. He was just so strong and free, but suddenly his breath was panicked and his heart hammered in his ears. The chems had just made him feel untouchable, but here he was falling apart again, clutching out to the wall to steady himself.

He needed to get the fuck out. Now.

He needed his boots. His gun, his pack. He turned and rushed to his room, practically kicking the door down and slapping the switch that filled the windowless space with light.

Luvell woke with a hard start, yelping and clutching at his blanket. Lafayette had forgotten all about him, that frail mess of a kid. Who even was this kid to them, beyond a bad fucking omen? Why had he even come here with them?

"Y-you're back," Luvell mumbled, and climbed from his bed, and came toward Lafayette, full of some sort of relief with his arms opening to him, and his face crumpling into tears.

"The fuck you crying for?" Lafayette snarled, every inch of him suddenly bristling with rage. It stopped the younger kid in his tracks. "That pathetic shit ain't gonna work for you now. Not with me."

Luvell shrank back from him in fear, but the more he looked like prey, the more it egged Lafayette on.

"You always knew he was going to die," he continued, stalking forward. "You helped that sick fuck drag us down there, remember? You knew what they were going to do with him. And when he threw you pieces of Dave, you gobbled them up while he screamed."

He didn't realize he was even still holding the wrench until he raised it over his head, but the weight of it delighted him. Made it more satisfying to swing it down on him, breaking those brittle little bones. "The fuck you crying for!?" he shouted again, over a wailing scream, and kept swinging that wrench down until it stopped.

Destroying the skinny kid wasn't enough. Lafayette lost himself to the rage and the grief, smashing everything he could in the room. High on psycho and completely out of control, he made it into the medical unit, shattering glass and overturning cabinets until the racket had woken up half the vault. 

It took three men in riot gear and armed with batons to put him down. They tried to use as little force as necessary at first, seeing him for the traumatized fourteen year old boy that he was. It didn't work, and he didn't stop fighting until he was knocked unconscious. 

When they discovered Luvell's body, however, they couldn't move him from medical to a holding cell fast enough.

Lafayette regained consciousness sometime late into the next morning, laying on the floor of a cold cell, anxious and still a little high. His hands wouldn't stop shaking, and he was starving. His whole body ached and he felt like shit, but he also remembered everything pretty clearly when he focused on it.

And he didn't regret it one bit.

Whatever compassion the vault dwellers had shown this feral wasteland kid was gone, now. They were horrified at what he had done, and disgusted at his complete lack of remorse. They didn't ask about what had set him off, what chems he had taken. They just seemed to think that was what wastelanders were always capable of. He was begrudgingly fed, more on McNamara's orders than anything, and only one of the doctor's orderlies, Rachel, ever came to speak to him. She always looked at him in this sad, scared way, and he hated her for it. The more they treated him like an animal, the more vicious he became, and Rachel seemed to take the brunt of it because she was the only one who would try to talk with him.

The others, they all wanted to get rid of him. Especially as the days wore on. Throw him topside, back into the wasteland, or just take him up there and shoot him. They were happy to talk about it in front of him like he wasn't there, and some would even tell him to his face. Lafayette had all the time in the world to come up with new threats in rebuttal, and ruminated for hours on inventive ways to kill each and every one of them.

But the Overseer wanted him alive. They still needed those power cores they had bargained for, in exchange for taking Dave in and doing their best to keep him alive. She was taking a gamble that the others would even return, or be willing to hand them over when they learned the teen was the only one still alive. After a few weeks, she tried to talk to Lafayette, wondering if he had been abandoned after all. She had refused to consider any suggestions of killing him, but after Lafayette cursed and screamed at her with a ferocity she never imagined a kid could be capable of, it was a bit easier to reconsider.

She didn't want to be a child-killer, though. That couldn't be her legacy. The whole situation was monstrous and heartbreaking, and she wouldn't make the mistake of opening the vault to outsiders again. She wanted this to be done. 

---

The rumble of thunder above ground now and then shook the Vault - a gentle tremble more than anything, promises of rain or radiation or whatever ungodly mixture of both the bombs had brought into creation so goddamn long ago.

As a child Gabe had heard stories that by now he vaguely remembered, that the rain before the bombs was clean and left the world smelling new and good. That it served to nurture the ground, the plants and trees and people and animals. It was not the torrential sort of onset that existed in the world now, that did more harm than good.

Sometimes Gabe found himself wishing he had known the world before. Maybe, if it’d been another time and another place, and he’d chanced across Dave then… Well. Maybe things would have been different.

It was not the good sort of rain that night.

They had raced the onset of glowing clouds. Tried to beat it out before they spread across the inky black sky overhead, turning mid-day into darkness. The power cores - all ten, plus one extra they’d found by the sheer grace of God on a dead caravaner North of Goodneighbor - rattled in Dizz’s pack in tandem with their thundering footsteps that somehow seemed louder than the oncoming storm to Gabe. They echoed in his ears, and every pound of his heart promised something amazing should he only manage to keep going.

The shadowy mouth of Vault 81 beckoned them, and they picked up their pace as they crossed a bridge over a shallow river, then up the trail leading to it. Deafening lightning cracked the sky in two, and the rain came as it echoed across the wasteland. First in a soft pattering on their armored bodies, building quickly into a torrential gusts that soaked the pair to the core. It burned when it touched Gabe’s skin, and the yellow glow that hung in the sky cast the world in a sickly pallor. But still they pushed forward, driving each other faster and faster - because there were people waiting at the end of the line, through that shadowy doorway.

Please let there be people waiting.

He hated the way his mind spun those little whispering thoughts now. Hated how he could feel his heart in his throat, hated that he didn’t know if the wetness on his face was rain or tears or both. Wouldn’t dare let Dizz see it, wouldn’t dare let anyone see it. Because it’d been over a month, maybe more - he’d lost track of the days - since he’d seen Dave alive. The days had stretched into what felt like years. 

They’d come so far and fought so goddamn hard - and for what? The hope that Dave had lived? That he wasn’t already six feet under in some unmarked grave so common in the Wasteland? If he was dead, what had all of this been for?

Under the shelter of the stone outcropping they shoulder checked the door open, beating out the irradiated rains despite the soaking they’d received. Gabe stormed up the the metal stairs and, without a pipboy to activate it as Dave had, pounded the buttons on the great console until the people inside knew they had come knocking. Dizz hung back and watched in a weary sort of way at how Gabe was ready to beat down the giant titanium doors himself. He said nothing to slow him down, because he felt like they would just as soon lie, tell them what they wanted to hear to collect their payment. Dave had been in such terrible shape when they dragged his drained and bloodied body over these catwalks a few weeks ago. Dizz had never seen a wound like that that wasn’t fatal. He said nothing, though.

The crackling voice of the guard came over the intercom, and barely had gotten out the usual barked greeting before his voice was interrupted with another, “Holy shit it’s them - get the Overseer -”

Silence. A heavy, telling silence, and the door didn't budge. Dizz watched a shudder tremble down Gabe's back, and he started banging on the console again.

"No, no, no! Open the fucking door!" he shouted, with no way to tell if the mics were even on. "I swear to fucking god I will dig every last one of you pale ugly cunts out and f-"

"This is Overseer McNamara," a woman's voice cut him off, sounding official but resigned. Gabe went silent, his fingertips digging into the console as he leaned forward and glared out the window between it and the door, unable to see or to be seen by the woman speaking.

".. It's Gabe, right?" her voice asked, suddenly kind, and Gabe felt nausea rush up his throat. He didn't want to hear her say it. ".. I'm sorry. Dave put up a fight, but the infection was too great. Sepsis, his body fought so hard that it started to fight itself. He died three weeks ago."

Even though his mind raced, in a grief so great it couldn't possibly be contained in his body, Gabe froze stiff. All but his hands, which clutched at the console, as it was the only thing that kept him upright. After everything, none of it had mattered. They were too late.

".. Hello?" the woman probed gently after a long silence. It was Dizz who stepped forward and spoke.

"Where's my kid?"

"About that," the woman sighed, and Dizz realized she had more bad news. Why the hell did he think he could trust these people? "I'm speaking to Dizz, correct? I hate to put it like this, but we still need those power cores. We did everything in our power to help Dave, and it cost a lot irreplaceable supplies."

They were holding the kids hostage. These people had more balls than Dave had led him to believe. "Where is my kid?" he asked, in a slower and more lethal tone.

"We're going to let you across, Dizz. Just.. just you."

Dizz looked at Gabe, rather surprised that they were less concerned about the large waster with the deep ugly scar across his face than the small, scrappy gunner. Maybe they were wise enough to know the kind if violence Gabe was still capable of, especially now. Or maybe they just thought he would be easier to control with their hostages.

Gabe looked back up to Dizz slowly, his eyes haunted and wild. "Let me go," he whispered.

"No."

"Dizz let me fucking GO-"

"No."

Gabe lunged at him, or to pass him, he wasn't sure. It was the same moment they disengaged the lock of the door to the catwalks, and Dizz shoved him roughly back to slip through it, slamming it again in his face.

Gabe beat on the glass, screaming in an aching rage, cursing Dizz now along with the rest of them.

"I'm sorry!" he tried to shout over him. He was relieved when he felt the lock slide back in place. "You know it has to be me!"

"If you don't kill every last one of them I'm going to fucking tear your kid up right in front of you!!" he roared, then screamed again, though the end of it sounded more like a sob. Gabe hung his head against the door, his fists still beating on the steel. 

Dizz couldn't find anything else to say, so he gathered himself up, and turned to cross the catwalks, the great door of the vault beginning to open for him. He threw the bag of cores at the first person he saw, hitting the man in the gut with them. His gaze locked on McNamara, who eyed him suspiciously in return for a moment before nodding to the weapons strapped on him.

"Leave those," she said. Dizz willingly dropped two of the guns from his belt onto a nearby table, then the powerfist from his back. These idiots didn't bother to search him, though, and didn't find the large knife strapped to his ankle in his boot. They almost had his respect there for a moment.

He was thinking about that knife when McNamara turned her back to him, and beckoned him to follow.

"You do this routine often?" he asked with a smirk. "Hold kids hostage to get the shit you need?"

McNamara shot him a look, appearing stung by the words. "No, no we do not. We.. we had wanted to take care of them just as well as we would have Dave."

Past tense. Dizz raised his eyebrows, itching for his knife all the more.

"Lafayette is fine," McNamara was quick to add. "He's unharmed. But.. you should know. Something.. happened, and we believe that he killed Luvell."

Dizz almost asked who the fuck that was before he remembered the mangy little kid Dave had dragged out of mines with them. Dizz hadn't bothered to learn his name. "Shit," he replied, surprised but still conversational. "What'd he do?"

McNamara stared at him a moment, shocked at his nonchalance, then seemed to check herself. Because of course he wouldn't react like a normal person to something so atrocious. The apple couldn't fall far from the tree and save for the scar, Lafayette looked just like his father. "It was the day after Dave died," she replied stiffly. "He just.. lost it. We've had to keep him in holding while we waited for you to return. He, um, has been understandably upset about that."

She was honest, Dizz had to hand it to her. He had assumed she would say whatever she needed to get the power cores and get rid of him. Instead, she let a much more dangerous wastelander in - even when she took his weapons, a man Dizz's size was never truly unarmed, and it wasn't because of the knife in his boot. Whatever they had done to Lafayette, Dizz was sure it wasn't anything like the last time he'd been captured.

When McNamara walked him to the holding cell, Lafayette had been sitting by the bars, chewing on his fingernails. His knuckles were swollen with fresh bruises, and the yellow blotches of healing bruises colored parts of his face. But he looked just fine when his distant gaze turned to them, and he gasped, leaping to his feet.

"Let me the fuck ooout!" he mockingly demanded of McNamara, a mean sort of smirk on his lips as he rattled the bars. He had made all sorts of promises to her and all the other vault dwellers and they were clearly on his mind.

"Don't be an idiot," Dizz warned him, and stood in front of the door when McNamara finally unlocked it.

Their reunion wasn't like last time, when Dizz had been desperate to find Lafayette alive. Neither of them moved to throw their arms around each other. Lafayette looked up at him warily, angry at Dizz spoiling his fun when he owed these motherfuckers, but also pissed at him for everything else, too. Dizz could see in the bruises and circles beneath his eyes that the kid saw the world differently, now.

"C'mon," was all he said, and turned to leave. Lafayette stared McNamara down hard as he passed her, as tall as she was despite his young age, eyes bright and hateful. But he followed his father.

They didnt speak again until they were at the entrance of the vault, even when one of the doctors showed up to press a pair of tin boxes into Dizz's hands. Their ashes, she told him with watery eyes, pointing out whose was which. Dizz just looked at them, bored, and shoved them in his pack to focus instead on collecting his weapons. As he was strapping his powerfist to his back again, he pulled Lafayette suddenly close, and kept his hand on the teen's shoulder.

"Listen," He whispered, eyes watching the people around them cautiously. "I'm probably going to have to kill Gabe now, too."

Lafayette didn't say anything, but he did look surprised, and frowned at his dad.

Dizz tilted his head side to side a moment, as if trying to find the right words to explain. "He never forgot I got them into this shit. I want to give him a chance, but.. he put a gun to your head once already. And right now, he is fucking crazy. I don't really know what he'll do next, but I can guess. If he moves on either of us, we have to put him down. Don't hesitate, don't hold back."

Lafayette clenched his jaw, but nodded his head once. Dizz pressed a pistol in his hand, which was quickly tucked into the back of his pants. 

When the door opened, they saw Gabe wasn't at the control panel across from them, and a security guard said he had gone back outside. McNamara tried to say some parting apology, sorry for their loss, or maybe to thank them for the power cores. Neither of them acknowledged her as they walked across the bridge and back outside. Lafayette felt their stares following him, probably so fucking relieved, and he imagined again what how fun it would be like to massacre the lot of 'em.

As soon as he stepped out from that giant rolling door, Lafayette gasped, taking a big deep breath of wasteland air. The storm had nearly passed, the land damp and more irradiated than usual, but to him it was beautiful and right. All that earth above him had been such a weight, and free of it, to see the fucking sky, he almost felt like himself again.

Gabe sat a ways off on a short, crumbled cement wall leading up to the bridge over the lake, completely soaked and with his back to them. His rifle laid discarded on the ground, but as they got closer, they noticed the knife he was turning over and over in his hands. His dad didn't pull his weapon yet, but Lafayette's hand slipped behind his back, holding the grip of his gun as casually as he could. He hadn't needed to be warned not to trust or underestimate the man.

"They gave me this," Dizz announced, holding up one of the plain metal boxes McNamara had handed to him. He tossed the other to the ground, but set Dave's on the stones beside Gabe. The knife in his hands stilled, but instead of looking up at him, Gabe closed his eyes.

"Ashes. They said this is what they always do to vaulties," he shrugged, and sat to the other side of the box.

There was a long stretch of silence before Gabe's eyes opened, raw and red, looking down to the box. It was preposterously small, to contain his whole world.

".. I fucking knew it," Gabe whimpered. Then, louder, and filled suddenly with venom, "I fucking knew it."

"Gabe-"

"No, fuck you, you don't get to talk," he spat. He looked back down at his unsteady hands and took a shuddering breath. Then he chuckled wetly, "That stupid idiot was always so friendly. I always told him this would happen. Everyone told him, all the time. And he just kept doing dumb shit anyway."

Dizz relaxed slightly. Talking was good, and he would let him have all the quiet he needed.

"We should have told you to fuck off." Gabe groaned, tilting his head back and blinking slowly up at the receding storm clouds. His hair was wet and skin burned slightly from the rain, but it had stopped completely now. "Should have left your old fucking boyfriend to kill you. It should have been your kid he chewed on instead."

Lafayette scoffed, and Gabe turned to pin him with a hateful stare. It was the 'boyfriend' remark that had made him scoff, looking sideways at his dad, but he then met Gabe's stare boldly. His hand was still on his gun behind his back, and it didn't go unnoticed. 

But they had something important in common, he thought to himself. Gabe had been with Dave for years, Lafayette knew he couldn't compare to his pain. But Lafayette got it. He got how it mattered more that Dave was dead than any of them. He got how fucking sad it was, at how much good was gone from the world now. He wished he'd had a chance to know Dave longer - he had never met someone like that before. Probably wouldn't again.

Lafayette had almost worked up the nerve to say as much, but didn't get the chance.

Gabe's eyes had turned to Dizz again, who looked away, out toward the crumbling skyscrapers of Boston. His face relaxed, considering the larger man's profile for a moment. Then he flipped the blade in his hand, gripping the handle to strike.

Dizz snatched his gun from his holster, but he was too close, and Gabe shoved the pistol away before he could fully turn toward him. He dove under that extended arm as he did, and Dizz could only slightly twist away, the knife stabbing deep into his side rather than up into his ribs. Gabe tried to pull it out, to try again, but Dizz yanked the knife into himself with one hand, and grabbed Gabe by the throat with the other. The grappling sent them tumbling to the ground, and Gabe straddled his hips to stay on top, leaning into his knife and Dizz's grip to drive him down. Dizz tried to buck him off, but the knife in his side made him regret it with a shout.

Despite his smaller size, Gabe had him pinned. That single hand on his throat wouldn't be enough, no matter how large and how tight he squeezed. He knew that, first-hand. He just needed to wrench the knife free, and drive it into his chest like he had planned. He yanked once, and as Dizz held him tight, pain was clear in his face, a heartless grin slid across Gabe's face.

"Remember when you said.. how you and I.. would settle this?" he chuckled in the gasps of air he managed beneath his tightened palm. The grin on his face didn't fade when he felt a fist grip the wet roots at the back of his head, and the barrel of a 9mm press against his temple. Dizz hadn't needed to remind Lafayette about the time Gabe had him just like this earlier, he easily returned the favor.

"You can't do shit to me, kid," Gabe choked out from beneath Dizz's clench hand, and tried to yank the knife back again, making the man beneath him groan in pain as he resisted. Gabe didn't have a damn thing to live for, now, and he was eager to take either one of them out with him.

"I killed Luvell," Lafayette admitted quietly. Whatever Gabe had expected him to say, it wasn't that, and his smile faded. "That's who's in that other box. My dad is a fucking asshole, but he didn't do this. He asked you for help, and you two accepted. Dave agreed to help him. It was Luvell who tricked us, got us captured. It was Sid who cut Dave up, his men who cooked him, and Luvell who happily ate their leftovers."

Emotion made his voice tremble, and there were a few harsh, tense breaths between the three of them before he found it again. Despite having spoke on it moments ago, having imagined it hundreds of times in the last few weeks, Lafayette had seen it first-hand. Those simple words managed to momentarily stun Gabe, his rage flickering to sorrow if only for a split second. Lafayette pressed the barrel into the side of his head harder.

"We fucking killed them all for what they did," he hissed, "The three of us, we killed every last one of them. There isn't anyone left. My dad isn't one of them."

His hand was trembling with tension, his finger so ready to pull the trigger, but he desperately wanted Gabe to reconsider.

"..Your dad," Gabe finally growled. He hadn't taken his eyes off Dizz, and watched where his knife was plunged into the large man's side, how the blood was soaking his ragged old shirt. Despite everything, it felt fucking great to take the cocky, hulking bastard down like this. "He walked us.. right into hell… And I'm gonna.. I'm gonna make sure.. he ends up there with us."

He punctuated his words with a sudden twist of the knife, and Dizz screamed, letting his throat go so both hands could grasp at his arm and the knife. "F-fucking shoot him, Lafayette!"

"I don't want to do this!" Lafayette roared in his ear, holding his head tight as he smashed Gabe in the face with the gun, twice. Jamming the barrel back against his cheek, he openly begged, "Please, I owe Dave my fucking life, he fucking died trying to help me escape! I can't do this to him too."

"Fuck you!" Gabe yelled back through his now bleeding mouth, "I don't owe you shit but to kill you both!"

He twisted the knife back the other way, making Dizz scream in pain, shouting Lafayette's name again in desperation. He couldn't take it anymore, and pulled Gabe's hand and the knife out of his side. It was just the opportunity Gabe was waiting on, yanking it out to drive it into his heart. Lafayette wailed, in anger and regret, pulling the trigger and blasting three rapid shots out the other side of Gabe's head before the blade could reach him again.

For a moment, his whole world was narrowed down to the thundering blast of those shots. With a harsh sob, he let go of what was left of Gabe's head, shoving away from him just before his knees buckled and sent him dropping back on his ass. Dizz sat up, clutching his freely bleeding wound, kicking Gabe's body the rest of the way off of him before collapsing onto the ground with a pained groan. "Stupid… fuck.."

Lafayette struggled to catch his breath before screaming again and curling up with his arms around his knees. He bawled, desperate and angry, into the knees of his pants, and hit himself in the head with the butt of his gun. This wasn't right, and the nightmare of all this shit just wouldn't stop. Dizz said nothing, letting him cry. He couldn't lay there much longer without bleeding out, already feeling light-headed, and crawled to his pack to jam a stimpack into the bloody mess of his side. He rested against the old wall as it did its work, but didn't ease the pain much.

As Lafayette finally wound down to exhaustion, body still coiled so tight, Dizz finally said, "It's us or them, Lafayette. That's all it ever is, in the end. Us, or them."

Lafayette sure understood it now, but it didn't stop him from hating his dad for it. He threw the pistol on the ground, and it skittered into Gabe's crumpled body. Lafayette buried his head again, arms wrapping around himself.

Dizz's gaze had followed to the body, too, and he sighed. He was unpleasantly surprised at how bad he felt for his death, too. He knew it would end up something like this, but they had been through a lot of shit together, and so close to being done with it all. He would have much rather convinced Gabe to join them than participate in what was essentially an assisted suicide. Gabe was never going to survive Dave's death, but he'd had to give some of that pain back to someone else before ending it.

Once his body had pulled itself back together, Dizz hauled himself up. He looked around and, finding nothing to dig with, dragged Gabe's body to a depression in the ground between the bridge and the river. He searched his pockets and pack for whatever was worth taking, then he brought over the box he had left the vault with. He unceremoniously dumped the ashes over Gabe's body, then began to pile rocks and chunks of the stone bricks he could pry loose from the bridge in a heap over him.

Lafayette watched for a long time before he stood and helped bury them both beneath stones and chunks of concrete. Once they ran out of rocks and rubble, Dizz did the practical work of sorting out their packs. He found a vault boy bobblehead in the bottom of his bag, amongst other random wasteland souvenirs, and scoffed. Lafayette looked up from the grave at the sound, bristling slightly, but Dizz just handed it to him. Lafeyette looked it over, biting his lower lip at how the stupid plastic toy had been drawn on, to make it look like Dave. Then he set it gently on top of the rock pile.

"Grab his rifle," Dizz instructed him, shouldering his pack and handing Gabe's old one to Lafayette. The boy shouldered it and took one last look at the grave, and the cave of 81 beyond it. When he noticed the other tin can on the ground, he kicked it toward the river, ashes scattering as it rolled down the bank. He turned and followed his father in silence.