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It’s strange, he realises, to have your back to someone and not be worrying when they’re going to put a bullet in it.
The Vaultie is so righteous it’s almost sickening, there's no doubt in his mind that if he turned around and asked her to give him her shoes because his soles had worn through she wouldn’t hesitate — she might’ve chucked the steel-toed boots at his head, and he’d have to cut off his remaining good toes to cram his feet into the damned things, but she would do it.
It’s unnerving, knowing she’s never going to twist the knife.
She’s part of him now, an uncalloused, unmarred finger on a map of scarred and irradiated skin, and the death that he inhibits is part of her — her finger is only just getting its colour back, still grey at the fingertip that she keeps jamming into doors and not even flinching about.
But she’s hardened now, scabbed over, and he’s softened, shiny new.
She practises shooting Nuka Cola bottles when they settle for camp, blasts the neck of the bottle and sends the cap hurtling off into some distant darkness for someone else to scrounge up, and he wonders if it’s her Daddy’s big head she’s thinking about shattering into tiny little diamonds.
So he teaches her how to shoot the cap off with a revolver and stows them in his pocket.
He stops more often than he usually would, he gives the damned dog their good water and saves the YumYum Deviled Eggs for her to feast on, and he watches as she closes her eyes and savours every bite, drawing in her plump bottom lip to make sure no crumb of pipped yolk goes to waste.
So he takes the last one when she offers it to him and it almost tastes as if it isn’t ash in his mouth.
She cries when she thinks he’s sleeping and it’s her watch, these harsh little hiccuping things that wrack her entire body, and he hates that he wants to reach out and hold her, smooth that pretty brown hair.
But instead he says, “You wish I were your shiny knight?” Her hiccuping stops, it stretches on for heartbeats, and his eyes almost roll out of his head — she’s waiting for him to roll back over, silly little thing. “I’m irradiated, not stupid.”
He hears her shift, the rustle of her crinkly suit before she says, “No.”
“You wish your Daddy wasn’t such a piece of shit?” He asks.
She does this scoffing laugh and then swallows it quickly. “I wouldn’t put it like that, but… yes.”
He sits up, squints at her silhouette through the darkness and tries to imagine her wide brown eyes set in that angled waify face rimmed red and dripping with tears, he thinks she’s hugging her knees to her chest.
“Lot’sa people are pieces of shit, Vaultie, they’re made that way — your Daddy ain’t any different just because he’s wearing a shiny suit and pretty smile.”
“I know that.” She snaps, and then she sucks in a deep breath, he thinks she has her head in her hands. “Of course I know that. I just don’t… understand. How could he do that to my mom? How could he— he said he loved her. You don’t— don’t do horrible things to people you love.”
Her words puncture something deep inside him, that humanity he had buried so deep he was afraid he was never going to find it again, and the aching heart inside himself that he thought had long since healed over starts bleeding again.
He knows he sounds pained as he says, “Anyone who says they haven’t done something horrible to someone they love is tryin’ to sell you something.”
She huffs in annoyance, and he can imagine her arched brows creasing, her lips turning down in a pout. “So, what? I’m just supposed to accept the fact that people are horrible and the world is horrible and there’s nothing I can do?”
“Are you tryin’ to tell me you’ve never done something horrible to someone you loved?” The laugh that rips from his throat is almost a bark, and even in the darkness he knows she’s flinched away from him. “You ain’t a saint, Vaultie.”
“What I’ve done is different!” She spits.
“Why? ‘Cause you managed to frame it in a way that made you feel better?” He asks, and she sucks in a sharp breath. “Bullshit, sweetheart.”
There is a moment of silence that could’ve stretched on for seconds or hours where neither says anything, and then her wavering voice replies, “ Excuse me? ” And oh, she is positively vibrating with that righteous anger again, the same kind that would send her boot or the butt of her rifle into his head.
“Bull. Shit.” He repeats, and he hopes she can hear his shit-eating grin. “You can coat shit in sugar, but it’s still shit. You ain’t better than anyone else up here, and the sooner you can swallow that without pulling a face, the better.”
“You’re awful.” She spits. “You’re just as willing as everyone else to make other people suffer to get what you want.”
“Ain’t that why you’re sitting here with me? ‘Cause I know I’ve gotta get my hands all dirty to survive, shit, I’m down-right thrilled about it, in fact.” He shuffles closer to her, until he can smell her sweat and that faint, chemical, soapy smell only Vault Dwellers have and his breath is fanning over her cheek. “You’re sitting here with me because it serves you , because my willingness to survive helps you . You don’t mind that awfulness so much when it’s saving you, and deep down you know it’s ‘cause this is the way it has to be.”
She turns to face him and he’s close enough now that he can see her features, how shiny and wet her eyes are and her wobbling upper lip.
“It doesn’t have to be this way.” She retorts. “I won’t be that way. Not anymore.”
He hooks his shiny new trigger finger around her dead one. “Sweetie, you already are .”
For a moment, her hand slackens, and then her finger curls more firmly around his.
It’s amazing, to feel her so warm and pliable beneath him, even if it is just a single finger, and with her eyes gazing so relentlessly into his ( all warm and gooey like a fuckin’ chocolate chip cookie) he feels as if they’ve shared a hundred more words, a thousand more experiences and a million thoughts in the span of mere seconds.
An understanding .
And he realises all at once why she’s never twisted the knife, never planted a bullet in his spine or thrown anything more deadly than a shoe at his head, because deep down she knows she’s always been as willing as he has to succumb to that part of herself that wants so horribly — that will do anything to fulfil its desire.
Does she want her Daddy dead? Could she do it despite her golden rule?
Hell, he’d do it if she asked him to. If she gazed up at him with those sundae eyes and gave him a miniscule nod. He’d bloody his hands for those tiny golden vials pressed into his palm, to repay that bloody debt, for her .
“You’re not horrible.” She whispers, so sincerely he swears his heart stops beating. “Not to me.”
“I am.” He tells her, and the sincerity in his own voice causes her face to crumble. “I was horrible to you. Downright cruel, just to get what I wanted from ‘ya.”
“You said it yourself; everyone’s done horrible things to people they love.”
He doesn’t know what makes him reach out to cup her chin in his free hand, but something burns when she leans into his touch — shit, she seems practically starved for it — and to distract himself from it he wrenches his hand away from her soft skin almost as quickly as it got there, gropes around blindly for his hat, and shoves it onto her head.
He presses the brim down until he can’t see those pretty eyes anymore and imagines stroking her hair as his thumb rubs against the soft leather.
He swallows thickly, presses their joint hands to his chest to staunch his bleeding heart and says, “Go to sleep, Vaultie. ‘Fore we start something we don’t know the ending of.”