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Properly living in a vault felt exceedingly strange. Given that Sole had been under the impression that that was what she was doing two hundred years ago, it felt odd to be doing so finally in a vault that wasn’t even her own.
All the other residents of vault 81 seemed to be under the impression that she was used to their way of life, and would often appear confused when she questioned them on their routines and equipment she’d found throughout the vault. Luckily, saving that poor kid’s ass from the molerats had earned her some massive saviour points. They’d even given her an old storage room to fix up as her own. She’d busied herself the last few days with making said storage room into a proper living space.
Now, if she were being honest, it wasn’t just her cluelessness that the residents had been judgemental of. While she’d met her fair share of people who hated anything non-human, she hadn’t exactly expected it from a relatively friendly vault.
It was nearing the nightly turn-in time, and she found herself going through another storage room for supplies she could take back to her own once more. Some random trinkets like usual; an extra pillow, some snacks, another random cat painting. Seriously, why were there so many cat paintings in this damn wasteland?
She’s given a nod to the two vault dwellers that had entered the room after her, but hadn’t expected them to approach her.
“We just wanted to thank you for rescuing that poor child,” the woman spoke first, hands clasped together over her chest, “I can’t imagine what I would’ve done if that was my little boy. We’re all lucky you were here.”
Sole had been approached by several other vault residents over the last few days thanking her for the kid, so she had no problem giving the pair a smile. “Of course. I’d like to think any kind person would’ve done the same.”
It was the man of the pair who spoke next. “We also had a question, though, if it isn’t out of line,” Sole couldn’t help but raise a brow, but nodded for him to continue regardless, “we were wondering… how long you planned on keeping that ‘companion’ of yours around.”
Ah, of course. Sole shouldn’t have felt surprised. She just shouldn’t have been enough of a fool to get her hopes up. She was reluctant to talk the same way she knew they did, but it wasn’t like they’d even know his name. “If you’re referring to the ghoul who’s been accompanying me, I’m afraid he goes wherever I go.”
“I see,” the woman, looking a tad concerned, “I assure you, Miss, the Overseer can easily get rid of it if it is an annoyance.”
At that, she did find herself genuinely surprised. “Get rid of it—? No. Why would I want to get rid of him?” She honestly couldn’t comprehend how they could even propose such a thing. Vault dwellers were supposed to be kind and open-minded, from what she’d read in all those damn manuals, yet here they were.
“Well, you know how those creatures can be,” the man carried on where the woman had left off, taking on a tone that was obviously meant to resemble sympathy, “they’re dangerous. Unpredictable. Full of diseases, haven’t you heard? It can’t be good to have… ‘him’ so close.”
Sole quickly began gathering up the pile of her things. “I assure you, he’s not diseased. And he’s no more dangerous than I am.” She wanted to take a piece out of the two of them, truthfully, but she knew that it would get her absolutely nowhere. They’d never learn out of fear. Regrettably, she forced herself to bite her tongue and calm her tone. “Listen, he won’t be a bother to any of you. I promise. Just leave him be and he’ll do the same.”
She’d really hoped they’d get the message and take their leave, but the woman visibly winced. “I hate to be disrespectful, Miss. I don’t think my child should need to be around that thing. It could be scary.”
Screw the tongue biting. “Well then you better never let your child leave his goddamned room because I assure you, there’s way worse than irradiated humans outside of this place. Miles worse. Hundreds of miles worse. In fact, ghouls who haven’t lost their marbles are some of the nicest folks you’ll meet.” She hadn’t realized she’d gotten up into the woman’s space, but both the woman and the man were staring at her with visible alarm on their faces and the reaction was honestly quite gratifying. “Maybe, go spend a week out there getting chased by Deathclaws and Supermutants and then get back to me. You won’t mind my ‘companion’ one bit.”
The pair appeared too shocked to speak. They definitely hadn’t been expecting such a reaction, which almost infuriated her more. They’d seen her walking around with said companion for weeks, and they’d honestly thought she’d throw him to the curb just because they’d asked nicely? The audacity of some sheltered folks truly baffled her.
“Have a good night,” she retrieved her things once more, and quickly made her way past the two of them still frozen where they stood, “and if I catch you talking to my companion about any of this, I’ll be telling your Overseer about your inhospitality.”
The two stared at her wide-eyed, but the man finally gave the smallest of nods. Good enough for her. She gave a final attempt at a smile and took her leave.
The walk back to her own storage room-turned-home was relatively short, but felt exceedingly longer with the numerous thoughts swarming around her head. The other residents wouldn’t turn on her or anything like that, would they? The Overseer would never allow such a thing. At the very least, she didn’t understand how they could be so ill informed about the state of the world outside their vault. Hell, she imagined they’d be afraid of a tumbleweed if they were to see one.
At last, she slid open the door to her room and was greeted with the sound of the tv playing. She set her things down next to the door after closing it once more, and perked up at the voice that equally greeted her.
“Hey, Sunshine,” it came from the couch she’d dragging into the room a couple days earlier, and she turned to find him sprawled out against it.
The proud mayor of Goodneighbour looked much more like a pampered house cat, she couldn’t help but think. Taking up the entire two couch cushions so he could stretch out comfortably and even dressed in a T-shirt sporting a picture of one of the same cats she always found in those paintings. Resting with his head against a pillow and happily watching the tv.
“Am I missing something, or did you have a wardrobe change?” She couldn’t help but ask with a chuckle, her worries momentarily forgotten. She moved to take a seat on the couch after he moved his legs back enough to provide her some room. Even that old tattered flag around his waist was gone— replaced with a pair of clean sweat pants.
Hancock only spared her a glance from where he was rather intently watching the tv, enough to give her a small smile. “Yeah, clothes’re getting cleaned. They gave me some stuff to wear in the meantime. No indecency allowed in the vault, ya know.”
“How sad for you,” she faked sympathy, “that all you did? You smell.”
He turned to her again and raised what would’ve been an eyebrow. “Smell? Like what?”
She gave a shrug. “Well usually I don’t notice, but you smell like flowers or some shit. You didn’t eat any of their plants, did you?”
“What? You think I look like a fuckin’… something that would eat plants?” He sounded offended, though his banter was all in good regular fun. “I took a ‘shower’, if ya gotta know. Water pressure nearly tore my skin off, wasn’t nice at all. There was a bar of some shit in there though that they told me to use.”
“Yeah, it’s called soap,” she supplied, and she watched him roll his eyes, “that certainly explains why you don’t smell like death for once.” She was silent for a moment, before it truly sank in what it was he had said. “Wait, you said ‘they’? You spoke to people?”
“Oh, yeah, don’t sweat it,” he raised a hand to pat her on the arm, nonchalant as usual, “some kid and her mom. Said somethin’ about since my ‘fantastic saviour girlfriend’ rescued that other boy then they’d try to pay it back or whatever. Then the kid invited me over to see her pet cat.” Adding air quotes around the nickname of ‘fantastic saviour girlfriend’.
The relief she felt was enough to make her shoulders visibly sag. “So, you went and saw the cat?”
“Nah, gonna go over there tomorrow. She said you should come too, so we’re both going to see the cat.”
“It’s a date, then,” she smiled a little. She let her gaze finally fall to the tv still playing, which seemed to be some recording of a forest. “What’re you watching, anyway?”
“A ‘nature documentary’,” more air quotes, “dunno what half of the stuff is. Never seen anything like it.”
She was often able to forget the massive divide between her and most of the people she’d met in the Commonwealth, but when he went and said things like that she couldn’t help but be reminded. “Well, that’s what forests used to look like back when plants still grew. People would turn them into nature parks or conservation areas and then you could walk around in them.”
“Sounds relaxing.”
“Yeah, it sure was. Oh— see that small thing? That’s a rabbit. I always wanted one as a pet when I was a kid. And that thing climbing a tree is a squirrel. You know, back in my day we didn’t eat squirrels.”
She watched his eyes narrow. “‘S definitely not what I pictured a ‘squirrel’ looking like, but I’ve seen radrabbits around. They’re not murderous, you know, we could get ya one.”
She couldn’t help but recall that Nate had never even offered. “Yeah, that’d probably be nice, John.”
He only smiled all too happily, and continued to watch the tv. “That one looks like a yao guai,” he remarked.
She too turned back to the tv, to see a bear and a cub resting against another tree. “We called them bears, before they got all extra murderous.” Teaching him and her other companions such things was almost fun, if not still a little mood-dampening.
“They were murderous before too?”
“Yeah, most wild animals were. We used to have things like wolves and coyotes and other wild dogs that are now just mongrels probably. Not rats, though, rats were always small and left us alone.” She hadn’t exactly noticed the slight fall of her expression, or her slumping shoulders, until his hand was on her arm again.
“‘Ey, this isn’t bumming you out too bad, is it? I can change the channel.” She turned back to where he still lay against the pillow to find him looking genuinely concerned.
She stared at him for a moment, before she made a point of straightening her posture and giving her head a shake. “No, no— it’s fine, I promise,” he didn’t appear too convinced, “it’s just… everything, in here, I think. I’m in a vault that looks like the one I went into at the start of the war, sitting on a clean couch and watching tv, and you’re laying here in a cat T-shirt.” She let her shoulders slump once more, and let out a small sigh. “You look normal. Everything looks so normal.”
He didn’t speak for several moments, but his hand remained on her arm all the same. At last, when she was beginning to think he wasn’t actually going to reply, he gave a laugh. “Me? Look normal? Sunshine, have ya seen me?”
Of course, like always, his words were enough to raise her shoulder once more. “You know what I mean,” she gave his arm a light slap, “I’m just desensitized to your stupid face. I don’t even notice it half the time now, I swear to god.”
Somehow, it was that that finally got him to raise from his pillow and sit upright, only enough to pull her into a side-hug and press his face to her cheek. “You don’t notice this? You gotta be joking.” Referring to where the remaining bone of his nose cavity pressed into her skin.
She kept her eyes on the tv. “Nope, don’t notice a thing. You must be imagining shit.”
She could practically feel him grinning, but all he did was hum low in his throat.
“I had a couple approach me just a little bit ago,” she finally decided to get it off her chest, and could feel him staring at her intently, “said some shit about wondering how long I planned on keeping you around here. If I’d get rid of you.”
“And, what did you say?” It bothered her that she could hear a small twinge of doubt in his voice.
“Basically that you weren’t going anywhere and I’d report them to the Overseer if they tried doing anything about it.”
A hand rubbed gently over her shoulder, the doubt already masked once more. “Not everyone’s gonna love me, Sunshine. Especially folks in a place like this. Can’t really blame ‘em, it’s not like they know much better.” She finally turned to face him properly as he spoke, and he continued to smile despite his words. “Only thing that matters to me is my ‘fantastic saviour girlfriend’ not letting it slide. Couldn’t ask for much more in life.”
She gave a small nod, smiling along with him— if not a little sadly. She knew his charisma was often only a shield, but she could tell when he meant the words he was saying. She moved to mimic his previous actions and let her nose rest against the rippled skin of his cheek.
“Tell ya what— here’s the plan, Sunshine. Tomorrow, we go see that kid’s cat. We come back here ‘nd I get to watch some more ‘nature documentaries’ because the voice-over guy has a nice ass voice. Then, the day after, we’ll go back outside and I’ll find ya the cutest radrabbit I can find. You can name it ‘Rabbitmeat’ or whatever. You can give it a bandana and knit it a sweater. Sounds good?”
She sighed out softly. “Yeah, sounds good.” Shifting herself up to press a kiss to his cheek. “Sounds really good.”
She found herself being pulled along as he collapsed back onto his pillow, hands around her shoulders and leading her to lay against him. “Great, now let’s finish my show so we can go to sleep. I still got another forty minutes of trees to stare at.”
She only grumbled out a “fair enough,” and found herself happy to doze off against him instead.