Chapter Text
“Aw, what’s the matter, Beckett? Lonely?”
He knew better than to answer. Being locked in a cage wouldn’t help him much if Ash got pissed at him for running his mouth. He’d already learned that lesson the hard way. So instead, he just stared at the man through his sunglasses and tried to keep his face as stony and still as he possibly could.
That was apparently the correct response. The leader of this particular raider cell flashed him a sadistic smile. “Yeah, you’re lonely. I can tell. But don’t worry, I got just the thing for that.”
Beckett watched as he headed over to where the radio was and found his need to be a smartass increasing with every exaggerated, swaggering step the strutting buffoon took.
AshTrey cleared his throat, not that it did much for the gravel in his voice, and spoke into the mic. “Listen up! All Blood Eagles out there are invited to a show! We captured Beckett. If you wanna see blood and roast a pig, then come on down to Rollins.” He winked at him, “Bring your friends! If they ain’t Blood Eagles, they get shredded, too!”
“Your mama never taught you it was bad manners to threaten to murder your own guests, I take it?”
He chuckled, “You know you’re the pig, right?”
“Yeah, no, I got that. Thanks.”
“‘Cause I wanted to make sure you knew.”
“Well, you made it pretty obvious.”
“Hmm.”
“Promising a pig roast in a world without bacon just seems extra rude from where I’m sitting.”
“Oh, there’ll be plenty of bacon. None for you, of course, but still.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
He smirked as he headed for the door, “It’s gonna be fun seein’ you finally drop the act. I bet you’re gonna be screamin’ like a little girl before we even light the fire.”
Beckett silently watched him go and sighed heavily as he let his head rest against the cold steel wall that made up the back of his jail cell. “Fuck.”
He couldn’t say how long he sat there in silence. Time didn’t have much meaning when you were completely cut off from the outside world and the only clock within sight read 9:47 no matter how much he willed the second hand to move. Truthfully, he didn’t even know how long he’d been stuck in this stupid crane. Long enough that the wounds his former compatriots had inflicted on him during his capture had healed, but the bruises remained. Long enough that he felt kinda gross and smelly. Or, more smelly than usual, at least.
Everyone was kind of smelly. That’s just how the world was during the apocalypse. Gone were the days of everything smelling like Abraxo and Pine-Sol. Long, long gone. He still clung to the memory of a cleaner world, though. Far off, fuzzy recollections of playing at his dad’s feet as he filled their washer with soap and bleach. The way the sheets had danced on the line after. How magical it had felt running through them, his fingertips just barely skimming along the cool fabric as sparkling sunlight and clean breezes dried them.
But then some asshole somewhere decided to press a button, and all that had gone to shit.
He must’ve nodded off at some point because eventually a muffled, booming explosion outside woke him. Kind of surprising, since the Ash Heap wasn’t exactly known for being serene. He’d long perfected the practice of sleeping through anything that wasn’t an actual emergency. Kinda had to if you were going to survive in the wastes. Weird noises you actively and subconsciously ignored, especially at night, were just a fact of life.
Beckett rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, put his shades back on, and sighed again as he resigned himself to more waiting. Time couldn’t possibly be dragging along as slow as it really felt. There was no way. He’d always kind of assumed that if you knew when you were going to die, the minutes would just zip right on by, but nope. Every second since he’d been locked up had felt like a hundred years, like he’d lived his entire life right here. It was actually hard to remember exactly what shade of blue the sky was at this point.
“Gonna have to jump the guard or something at this point… dammit. You really screwed up this time, Beckett.” He muttered quietly, “Maybe I can... convince them... ugh. No.” He made a face at the very idea. It was beyond stupid to think he could reason with these animals. “I need these sad shits out of my life. Can’t keep doing this shit.” And he really couldn’t. Sure, he wanted his revenge and he desperately wanted to save his only remaining family on the planet, but it was starting to feel like he just wasn’t the man for the job.
The door started to open and he sat up a little straighter. He might be completely and hopelessly doomed here, but he’d be damned if he let them see it. Beckett folded his arms and waited for Ash or one of his underlings to poke their ugly heads in and frowned a little when they didn’t. The door closed as quietly as it had opened. Still nothing but him and the dust bunnies.
“Odd.”
He started to relax back against his wall when movement caught his eye and he froze. Well, not movement, exactly. Something was wrong with the light, which felt crazy to even think, but he was almost positive it was bending somehow. If he squinted real hard, he could almost make out an odd bubbling effect that seemingly floated a few feet above the floor.
“Very odd.” The warped light suddenly stopped moving and he tilted his head, “Is someone there?” It backed away from his cell and he scrambled up onto his feet. “Hey! Hey, wait! Wait a minute! You need to let me out of here!” His fingers threaded through the metal grating as he pleaded with whoever the hell it was. “Please? I know you're not with the others.” When they didn’t respond, a nervous laugh left him. “Come on, Casper. You’re supposed to be friendly, right? You wouldn’t really leave a guy behind to get killed, would you?” He huffed, “Look. I need to get out of here. These Blood Eagles are going to kill me, but only after they mess me up. You get me? It's not going to be pleasant.”
His mysterious possible-savior finally revealed themselves and he blinked in confusion at the shiny black suit they were wearing. Completely covered from head to toe. He’d never seen anything like it before. The helmet had large glowing orange eye things on it that kinda reminded him of a bug.
“Why are you in there?”
Even whispered, it was unmistakably a girl’s voice and now that he was looking, he felt pretty stupid for not realizing it before. It’s not like the skin tight whatever it was she was wearing hid the kind of figure she was packing. He felt his palms start to get sweaty and took a couple of steps back.
Just to be safe.
“Quick version, okay? I used to be a part of this gang. I left. They nabbed me, and now they want to make a lesson out of me. How's that?”
“You were a Blood Eagle?”
“Unfortunately, yeah. Not exactly the best decision I ever made, but yes.”
“Blood Eagles are nuts. How am I supposed to trust you?”
He sighed, “You probably shouldn't. I've done some bad things... maybe even a lot of bad things. And I've hurt people. All I'm asking for is a fresh start.”
Her head tilted a little and the silence stretched on long enough that he was starting to get even more nervous, when she finally spoke. “Okay. I'll get you out.”
Relief crashed over him and he grinned, “Okay? Okay! Now we’re talkin’! The key should be around here somewhere... probably in the room where the guy running this place sleeps.” He belatedly realized not only was she a girl, but kind of a tall, leggy one to boot. Just Ash’s type. His stomach twisted a bit at the idea of an animal like that getting his hands on – “Be careful. Please? You don’t wanna get caught, trust me.”
“Wait here.”
“Ha. Yeah. Good one.” He watched her open the door and winced as a hail of gunfire greeted her. “Shit! Hey, maybe you should –”, she popped out of sight again and the door closed firmly behind her. “Or not. Okay. Fuck.”
Great. So now he not only had his brother’s blood on his hands, but this little super spy’s, too. That was great. Perfect. Just what he needed.
He banged his head against the wall and groaned, “Fantastic.”
More muffled explosions from outside. Some far off shouts. The disconcerting ping of bullets ricocheting off the outside of the industrial crane he was stuck in. Every sound felt like a sledgehammer to his heart, but the silence that followed? That was way, way worse. He stared at the door, hope and terror at war inside him.
Then it finally opened and she walked in, this time visible, holding a key up to show him. “Is this it?”
“Yeah! Yeah, that’s it! Oh, my God!” He felt downright giddy as she opened the door, “You did it!”
“You’re welcome.”
“Oh! Yeah! Yeah, thank you! Shit.” He grinned at her and stuck his hand out, sweaty palms be damned. “I’m Beckett.”
“Twila.” She shook his hand, once, and immediately dropped it. “Do you need a doctor?”
“What? No. No, I’m –”
“You look a little… feverish.”
Fuck. She had noticed. “No, I’m just, uh, y’know, excited.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Uh…” It was about a thousand times easier to talk to her with his eyes averted, so that’s what he did. Just kept them trained on her feet. “Look, I know you’ve already done a lot for me and this is probably a really shitty thing to ask, but I really need you to help me with one more thing, okay?”
“Okay.”
“The gang took a bunch of my stuff. Things that I need in order to track down their leaders. Can you help me get it back?”
“What kind of stuff?”
“It's my bag full of radio signals, contacts, maps, general notes that I took so I could destroy these shits once and for all. I’d go myself, but obviously you’re a little better at the whole infiltration thing than I am.” He was probably, definitely, pushing his luck here, but most decent people loathed the Blood Eagles and she had saved his ass when she didn’t have to, so he was hoping she’d go for it.
“Hmm.”
He didn’t remember ever seeing anyone in an outfit like that around Foundation, but she kind of had that bleeding heart settler vibe happening, so he added, “Also has some of my personal belongings in it. Few books. My mom’s locket. A sketch I made for a bar I wanted to open someday... when things settle down. Goals, you know?”
It seemed to work. She shifted her weight towards him a little and folded her arms before shrugging. Interested but playing it cool. He respected the attempt.
“Are you sure it’s your stuff? Or are you just trying to trick me into stealing for you?”
Damn. Maybe she swung more Crater’s way. “It's mine, okay? And it's important. I've already spent too much time gathering information on these idiots. I can't afford to start over. Believe me, if I wanted you to steal something for me, I'd be straight with you about it.” It all came out a little more desperate and hoarse than he’d opened for, but that just seemed to amuse her for some reason.
She almost laughed. It was kind of a quiet shake of her shoulders before she responded, “Okay then, I’m in.”
He sighed, “Good. I can run interference while you get the heck out of here. Distract those morons, you know the drill.”
“No need.”
“No need?”
“The morons in question are all dead. So long as we leave now, before more show up for your… barbeque, we should be fine.”
“Oh. Heh. Alright. Uh…”
“Where’s your stuff at?”
“I overheard them say they took it to the Sludge Works. It's not too far from here, I think. Where should we meet up after all this? Do you have some sort of place where you're squatting, or…”
"Are you trying to invite yourself to my house now?"
"No, of course not. I just figured wherever you're set up will be a hell of a lot safer than some random location or a station, and I don’t know how Crater or Foundation would react to having an ex-Blood Eagle hanging around, so…"
“Right. Okay then. I have a little homestead set up. It’s on old 89. Just south of the water plant. You know where that is?”
“Uh… kinda west of Sutton?”
“Yup. Down the hill behind the train station.”
“Nice. That’s a choice spot.”
“Thanks.”
“Okay, well… I’ll start heading that way. Guess I’ll see you soon.”
“Yup.”
They parted ways and he immediately headed north. Taking the most direct route to her place would’ve meant a shit-your-pants scary sprint through the heart of Charleston and since he was unarmed and wasn’t looking to find out what the inside of a snallygaster looked like, he went the long way. Up the railroad tracks to Sutton and then cutting through the scrub down the hill towards 89. Took about three days of walking and hiding whenever anything tougher than a bloatfly appeared on the horizon. Had to skirt around a few ferals there at the end, but the dim light helped. The sun wasn’t due to come up for another hour when he finally found it. Or what he assumed was it, at least.
It didn’t look like much at first glance. Just a small, newly built two-story cabin set about twenty yards back off the road. Had a covered porch that wrapped around one side, a water purifier out back, and the beginnings of a stone fence out front.
Kinda cute, really. Very rustic. Very Davy Crockett. Not exactly what he’d imagined, given its owner’s proclivity for high-tech stuff, but good enough for free.
Then he finally noticed the twinkling little lights just above the porch. Turrets. Sleek and black, just like that outfit she’d had on. They didn’t chug the way a regular turret did. Just silently swiveled around, constantly scanning for a target. He watched one perk up and laser beam a baby bloodbug to death from over a hundred yards out. Nothing left but smoking ash after.
“Yeah, that tracks.” Beckett decided, for his own health and safety, to not directly approach the little cabin. Instead he cupped his hands and yelled, “Hey! Hey, Miss… uh…" Shit. What was it? "Miss Twila! You home?"
The fuck kind of name was Twila anyway? The twangy way she said it marked her as a local. Maybe it was an Appalachian thing? Or maybe she’d just had hippies for parents. Who knew?
He snorted quietly to himself as a light turned on upstairs, "Techno hippies. Heh."
The porch light flipped on next before the door opened just a crack. He waved and she opened it further.
Then she was talking to him. Or at him, really, since he wasn’t capable of listening at the moment. Too much blood whooshing through his ears. All he could hear was his heartbeat as it rocketed into the stratosphere.
Miss Twila Whatsername wasn’t just shapely. She was gorgeous. Messy brown hair that fell to her shoulders, creamy skin with just the right amount of freckles, bright blue eyes under her furrowed brows, and a soft, sweet mouth that he couldn’t stop staring at.
Historically speaking, girls had always rendered him into an idiot, which was part of why he'd never actually had a girlfriend. Never even made an attempt. He'd had sex and whatever, of course, since that was one of the three things raiders did a lot of, but actually talking to a girl? No. Getting up close and personal in an emotional, romantical kinda way? Hell no. He'd kind of thought maybe it was just the intimidation factor of the strong, usually homicidal, women he'd always run with. Raider chicks were almost always more brutal and ruthless than the men just because they had to be. It had made sense to be nervous around them. You never really knew if or when one of them would whip a knife out and decide to neuter you, or worse.
But Twila wasn't really the intimidating type, fancy gadgets notwithstanding. She seemed… nice. He knew she was a hellaciously efficient spy or thief or whatever the hell she really was, but she didn't look it. Definitely didn't radiate barely suppressed violence and cunning like he was used to. No, instead she stood there on the cute porch of her equally cute cabin looking like some lumberjack's wet dream come to life in her oversized flannel shirt and absolutely nothing else. Those long, now bare, legs on display for the whole wide world. Adorably pouty and rumpled, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and yawning behind her hand. Soft. She just radiated softness. The human equivalent of a sundae with a cherry on top.
Looking at her feet did not help this time. Even her goddamn toes were weirdly cute. Dainty little things with shiny red paint on the nails. He watched them reflexively curl against the chilly wood and jerked his eyes away as the thought of them wiggling in his lap suddenly took center stage in his mind.
Shit, was he into feet now?!
It finally dawned on him that she was no longer talking. He had no idea how long she hadn’t been talking, either. Fuck.
"I'm sorry, what?"
“I said, are you injured?”
“No, why?”
“You made a… weird noise.”
Double fuck. “No, I didn’t.”
“I’m pretty sure you did.”
He gave her his best bullshit smile, “I'm pretty sure you must still be dreamin’, friend.”
She sighed and gestured over her shoulder before heading back inside, "Alright. Come on, then. Coffee."
"Cool. Thanks." Beckett trotted along after her and as she was busy in the little kitchenette just inside, he kept his gaze firmly planted everywhere else. There was a small dining room table with chairs and a bench under the window. A fireplace tucked in on the far wall. Couch, armchair, overstuffed bookshelf and a TV. A peek through the only other door revealed an actual, factual bathroom. He whistled appreciatively, “Wow. This place is –” Cute. “-- cozy.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s upstairs?”
“Bedroom.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, makes sense.”
She glanced over at him hovering like an idiot in the doorway and frowned again, “You can sit if you want. It’s gonna be a minute.”
“Yup, thanks.”
“Close the door behind you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He passed the couch on his way to the table and noticed his pack sitting on it. “Oh, hey! My stuff! You really got it!”
“Yup.”
“Thank you. Again. I hope it wasn't too much trouble. This is…”, he sat down and started checking over everything. “Uh… did you… look through this?”
“Yup.”
Kinda rude. “Why?”
She shrugged, “Had to make sure there wasn’t anything dangerous in it.”
Oh. Well, that was probably smart. He had already told her he was a former Blood Eagle. God only knew what she actually thought about him. In fact, he was kind of surprised a girl like her would let a guy like him inside her house at all.
Then his eyes landed on the shiny, deadly gauss shotgun mounted up above her door and he nodded to himself, muttering under his breath. “Yeah, that definitely tracks.”
“Also, I wanted to make sure all the stuff you’d mentioned was still there. Your books and that locket and whatnot.”
“Oh.” Fuck, she really was a sweetheart. “Thanks.”
“M’hmm. Here.” She set a cup of piping hot black coffee in front of him and sat opposite in the other chair. “And I washed your clothes.”
He’d just started to take a sip when he choked and started coughing, “Y-you what?!”
“Your clothes. They needed washin’. Coulda stood up all on their own if they’d had a mind to.”
Well, no shit, Sherlock. It wasn’t like laundromats were a thing nowadays. He felt absolutely mortified that this girl had even seen his dirty laundry, let alone handled it. Scandalized, even, and he didn’t know how she didn’t, but nope. She just sat there, calm as you please. Blinking slowly at him, clearly still half asleep.
“But –”
“You’re welcome to use the shower, too, if you want.”
He huffed a little at the indignity of it all, “Yeah, thanks.”
Another sip and she waved carelessly at his meager worldly possessions, “Also spiffed up your sketch some. It was kinda… lackin’ in a few areas.”
“What?!” He yanked his notebook out of the pack and frantically flipped through it, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw his dream still intact. “Oh, thank god. I thought you’d erased it or something.”
Twila reached over and flipped the page, tapping on the new drawing there like he could somehow miss it. “See? That’s better, right?”
“Uh…” He was pretty sure she already thought he was some kind of idiot, and he knew he wouldn’t be doing himself any favors by asking, but since nothing he was looking at made any sense to him, he kinda had to. “What is this?”
“Oh, sorry. You had books and there were all those notes, so I just assumed you could read.” She tapped the page again, this time to the underlined title at the top. “Beckett’s bar, version 2.0.”
Yup. She thought he was maybe a half step up from a mirelurk spawn in terms of intelligence. He could tell. “Yeah, no, I can read. I got that. I mean, what am I looking at?”
“A bar.” She said it slowly like that would help him understand somehow.
“M’hmm.”
“I don’t tend to frequent that many bars or anything, but my friend, Duchess, has one that does pretty well. You ever been to the Wayward? Down by Flatwoods?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s nice. Kinda big. Converted pre-war structure. I figured you weren’t interested in the hassle that comes with a place like that, so I came up with this instead. See? You’ve got seating and a kitchen and a back room for storage or whatever.”
Okay, now the seemingly random lines with their teeny tiny corresponding numbers kind of made sense. He tilted it a bit and frowned, “It’s… nice, but it’s a little, uh… see, I’ve never really built anything before, so…”
“I have.”
He rolled his eyes and gestured at the cabin around them, “Yeah, I figured.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t build this. My dad built this.”
“Oh.” Of course. Of course she had a doting, probably shotgun toting, daddy to keep her safe from big bad wolves like him. Or, not him specifically, just… the general him. “So is he out hunting or –”
“He died.” Her hands tightened around her coffee mug and she stared out the window at the pre-dawn world. “Just before… it was late January.”
So barely three months back. Had to be tough. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, “Don’t.”
Beckett nodded and went back to looking at her blueprint or schematic or whatever this thing was. He got it. People had apologized to him and Frankie a lot, too, after their dad died. He’d hated it. Must be a universal sort of thing.
After a few moments, she cleared her throat and spoke again. “You said you wanted a fresh start, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well… I have a proposition for you then.”
His eyebrow twitched and he actually bit his tongue so the extremely inappropriate comment resting on the tip of it didn’t escape his stupid mouth and potentially ruin everything. “Hmm?”
“I’m not really home that often. I… I mean, I’ll probably be here a little more once summer really hits, but usually, I’m out and about. Daddy was the homebody. I’ve got locks and everything, and the security system, but I worry about things like a tree falling on the roof or molerats infesting the place.” She looked at him like she was gauging his reaction and he could tell his poker face frustrated her, “So I was thinkin’, if you didn’t already have a place in mind for that fresh start of yours, this is a nice area. Quiet, but you get a lotta traders and stuff comin’ up the road. We could be neighbors, and then you’d have my turrets for backup and I’d have a little more peace of mind. How’s that sound?”
He was pretty sure if she kept giving him those big, beautiful puppy dog eyes, he’d agree to anything. Up to and including giving her his kidney. Both, even. If they weren’t already shot anyway. He actually wasn’t sure on that and he did not want to know.
What he did want to know was…
“You’d really want an ex-raider for a neighbor?”
She gave him a half smile, “Would it shock you to know that I myself am loosely affiliated with Miss Meg at Crater?”
“Yeah, actually, it would. You’ve kinda got Foundation written all over you in twelve foot tall neon lights.”
“Ha. Those carpetbaggers? They wish.”
He chuckled, “At least you’re not one of those Seventy-sixers, right? Those idiots are flat out crazy.”
She openly stared at him for a moment and then pointedly stared at the couch right next to him. Beckett turned and considered the bright blue Vault-Tec blanket tossed over the back of it and kinda wanted to die right then and there. Had she been wearing a PipBoy when they first met? How the hell had he missed that? A quick peek confirmed she was now watching him with interest, no doubt waiting for him to bolt for the door and run screaming into the hills.
“Uh… and I mean that in the best possible way, of course.” Another bullshit grin and he rested his chin in his hand, “So… vault life, huh? Bet that was a trip.”
Twila’s eyebrow lifted ever so slightly, “Yeah.”
“Yeah, I um…” Shit. Kinda hard to come back from that. He uncomfortably cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, accidentally dropping his notebook. “Oh! Whoops.”
Was it pathetic to be a grown man grateful for the momentary refuge provided by essentially hiding under the table? Probably, but it was still a thousand times better than enduring her giving him that thousand yard stare. He grabbed his notebook and then made the fatal mistake of not keeping his eyes firmly pinned to the floor on the way back up.
Beckett snapped upright in his chair, hand still clutching his book, as his brain struggled to properly process what he’d just witnessed.
Turned out the flannel was not the only thing she had on. Turned out she was wearing honest to god panties under it. Cute white ones with some kind of flower printed on them. Maybe. He was pretty sure. Mostly sure. Although that detail might also just be his own mind filling in the blanks with completely unnecessary minutiae.
She scowled, stood, and planted a hand on his forehead. “Are you absolutely positive you don’t need a doctor?”
Her hand felt like fucking velvet on his skin. Cool and soft and perfect. All he could do was blink up at her like the idiot he clearly was. “What?”
“You made that weird noise again.”
“Uh…”
Her foot tapped thoughtfully and she folded her arms, “Here. Stand up for me.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause I wanna check to see if your ribs are broken, of course. It almost sounded like you were in pain.”
Oh, fuck. Oh, God, why did she have to be just as sweet as she was pretty? She’d said she was affiliated with Miss Meg so she was as good as a Diehard, but he’d never in his entire life encountered a raider who cared as much as Twila did. Not even that former preschool teacher turned raider down by the river was this nice.
If he stood up right now, right now-now, with her scrutinizing his body so closely, he was pretty sure she’d notice something she didn’t like and he’d end up getting blasted with electric buckshot or whatever the fuck gauss shotguns actually used.
So he did what had always worked in the past. He lied right through his teeth, “I’m just hungry. It’s been… a while since I ate, I guess.” A forced chuckle and a sheepish shrug to really sell it. “Not like Blood Eagles really have a sterling reputation for outstanding hospitality or anything, right?”
The foot went still and her whole face softened in a way that had the problem in his pants doubling. Minimum. “Oh, gosh, they were starving you, too?”
“Uh…” Her voice went all breathy and soft when she was concerned about somebody. That was… good to know. Something to know at least. “Yeah, I guess.”
“And you didn’t eat on the way here?”
“Um.” He had. Of course he had. First thing he’d done was case some random settler’s farm and help himself to whatever wasn’t nailed down when the dope wasn’t looking. No reason she had to know that though. “Not really. Didn’t have my gear, y’know. Or… caps.” Lie, lie, lie. There was a whole sack of caps tucked into the toe of his boot but, again, absolutely no reason for her to ever know that.
“Oh. Oh, I… I’m sorry –”
“No, no, you don’t have to –”
“-- I’ve been a terrible hostess! I haven’t even started breakfast or… oh! Here!” She actually ran over to a cabinet, grabbed a pristine box of Sugar Bombs, and all but threw it at him. “Munch on those while I get the stove goin', okay? Just help yourself to anything. Don’t think you’ve gotta ask, either. Good lord. Haven’t eaten in days and I’m just sittin’ there like some kinda ninny interrogating you and what would the Overseer say!? Sweet Jesus.”
A new layer of guilt took up residence on his shoulders as she started pulling out skillets in various sizes from her cabinets, but he was already carrying so much it hardly phased him. Instead, Beckett just munched on his ill-gotten Sugar Bombs and absentmindedly cased the joint.
He could see why she worried over the place when she wasn’t home. Twila had a lot of stuff. A lot of shiny, no doubt expensive, stuff. The intact TV alone would be worth a small fortune if it actually worked.
Not that he was going to steal it. Wasn’t even going to try to steal it. He might not have the finer points of being a good person down yet, but he knew stealing from your accidental benefactor wasn’t a straight and narrow kinda thing to do. It’s just a lifetime of bad habits and old ways didn’t go away overnight. He’d been raiding places just like this, taking shit he didn’t need from people just like her since he was a kid. He’d even run with men who would’ve had a collar on her about three seconds after she’d answered her door unarmed and defenseless. Would’ve had her pinned to the very table he was sitting at shortly thereafter to test out the new merchandise.
He’d never personally done that, but he’d stripped entire settlements bare while his buddies had their fun. Heard the screaming and crying and begging for mercy and just didn’t give a flying fuck about any of it. Didn’t even question it. It was a dog eat dog world out here after all, and if people really wanted to keep their daughters and sisters and wives safe, they oughta build better defenses.
That was just how the old him had operated. Nearly half his life was spent being a plague on humanity, or at the very least plague-adjacent. Though running with Edwin’s crew back in the day, who were arguably the most decent men he’d known since his father, hadn’t been quite so bad. They’d mostly scavenged or stole from other raiders. Edwin had old-fashioned rules about how to behave yourself around innocent women and children. Rules Beckett had once scoffed at, sure, but rules that Edwin’s terrifying niece, Ronny, made sure were enforced with an iron fist. He’d toed the company line even if he’d thought it was a little extra and pointless.
Then he’d started getting serious about taking chems. Went from recreational to downright professional overnight. Got a little reckless and rebellious and fell in with the worst crowd imaginable.
The truth was, he honestly didn’t know what the hell he’d done for the last few years. His memory was pretty hazy, especially while he’d been addicted to those spiked chems and he was actually thankful for that small blessing since what he did remember gave him nightmares. He was already a natural degenerate. He couldn’t imagine being on Psycho or Buffout had helped any of that.
But now he was here. Sober, or sober-ish. Sitting pretty in Miss Twila’s humble abode that may as well have been a palace compared to literally any other place he’d ever parked his ass at. Getting to eat fresh Sugar Bombs that didn’t make his gums bleed like the regular kind did and already a part of the neighborhood. Somehow.
Actually, that was kinda… weird. She was weird. Pretty in a pinup magazine way on the outside, sure, but something strange had to be going on inside, right? Maybe it was just growing up in the vault that had messed her up? Made her hopelessly naïve and kinda gullible. He’d never seen someone be compassionate on a suicidal level until her.
Now that he was really thinking about it, if all the Vault Dwellers were like her, it would definitely help to explain why there were so many dead ones all over the place. Seemed like you couldn’t walk more than a half mile in any direction without stumbling over a body covered in that distinctive blue and dazzling gold.
Vault 76 had opened back in October and she’d said her dad had died in late January, so maybe he’d been the one keeping her alive? He’d built this cabin, so odds were he’d built the turrets, too. If that were the case, how much time could she possibly have left now that her protector was gone? Dwellers seemed to have pretty early expiration dates from what he’d seen and heard. Just too boned up on saving the world to remember to keep themselves alive. They trusted too easy, helped people for free in most cases, and constantly threw themselves into harm’s way to save strangers.
In other words, flat out crazy. Just like he’d said.
“Hey, can I ask you somethin’?”
She distractedly glanced back at him and nodded, “Sure. Shoot.”
“Why'd you break me out of Rollins, anyway? You don't know me. I could be a bloodthirsty maniac, an axe-wielding ex-con... a door-to-door salesman!”
She giggled at that last part and he liked the sound of it a little too much, “I dunno. I just try to help out where I can. Heard them talkin’ about you on the radio and I thought, Somebody should probably do somethin’ about that. Then I remembered that I’m somebody, so there you go.”
Yup, completely, totally, two bricks short of a load, crazy. “A do-gooder, huh? Alright, I can work with that. I've met some of your kind before.” And usually ripped them off. “I don't get it, but, uh... whatever turns you on, I guess.” Fuck. Why’d he have to say it that way? Now he was stuck wondering what actually did turn her on.
An irritated tsk left her, “You make me sound like a goddamn Pioneer Scout or somethin’. Maybe I was just bored, okay?”
He chuckled, “Oh yeah? Then I'll consider myself lucky that busting me out of there was entertaining enough for you to stick around, firecracker.”
“Yeah, well, no one is so rich as to throw away a friend, right?”
“Ah, poetic. Charming.” He put a bit of an accent on the word just to hear her laugh again. “Y'know, one of the first people I ever robbed was a wandering poet. She came to our camp when I was a kid…”
Twila came over with two heaping plates and set them down before going back for condiments. “It’s not poetry, it’s a proverb.”
“Oh.” He’d never seen anyone with a literal armful of jams and jellies before and chuckled as she almost succeeded in dumping them all over the table.
“Yup.” She finally sat down and picked up her fork before pausing, staring at him.
It took him a second to realize she was waiting for him to take a bite first. Kinda had his back up a little, but this was probably a manners thing. She didn’t seem like the type to invite someone to breakfast just to poison their tato hash. His theory was confirmed the second he ate a piece of smoked mirelurk and gave her a thumbs up. She immediately dug in and ate with a speed and tenacity that kind of astounded him. Napkin in her lap and holding her fork like a princess might, sure, but still managing to shovel it in.
She finally stopped eating just long enough to gulp down some coffee and ask, “You really met a traveling poetess?”
“Poetess?”
“It’s a lady poet.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, I did. She recited some poems from the old days, some commercial jingles, as she called them. I thought they were nice.”
Her head tilted, “Jingles? Like, Fancy Lads, the best in town. That Fancy Lad really gets around.”
“Hey, yeah!”
She snickered, “Okay. Poetess. Sure. So what happened?”
“When she fell asleep, I went through her satchel and stole all her mentats for my brother. And... that was that. We left before she woke up. I dunno where she went.”
Her eyes narrowed, “She didn’t have brown hair and green eyes, did she? Maybe have a guitar strapped to her back?”
“Uh, no. Why?”
“Just curious. So why’d your brother want mentats?”
He shrugged, “I dunno. He just did, so I got ‘em.”
“Where’s he at now?”
“He’s uh…” He shook his head and stared at his plate. “That’s not really a story for breakfast time, I don’t think.”
“Okay.”
She’d already finished and was nursing what had to be at least her third cup of coffee. Seemingly indifferent to his avoiding her completely innocuous question while she watched the light outside change from lavender to pink as the sun rose. He felt awkward as shit right now. She was just so obviously a good person and it made him feel even dirtier than he already was. Not to mention, ever since she’d come over and touched him, he’d been painfully aware of two things.
One, he had gone way, way too long without non-combative human contact and two, he positively stank and she didn’t. She didn’t even have the regular everyday funk most people did. Of course not. Such a thing was no doubt unthinkable for her ladyship. No, nothing but flowers and… fuck, he didn’t even know, would do. Something sweet that lingered in the air after her and somehow went straight from his nostrils to his dick. He had no idea what the fuck that was, but it was nice.
Everything here in the Kingdom of Twila was nice, was the thing. If he hadn’t already gotten all the chems out of his system, he’d be sure this was all some sort of dreamy trip. A safe, sturdy place in a picturesque spot to crash at complete with a beautiful girl who not only seemed to think he was funny and interesting but could also cook and was happy to feed him? It was fucking nirvana or something.
“So…”
He pulled himself out of his shame spiral long enough to look up, “So?”
“Since you’re gonna be, y’know, living here and all… can we just go ahead and build the bar the way I drew it? Because I really think you’ll appreciate my ideas better once we get it all set up.” She pouted at him and threw those insidious puppy dog eyes his way again, “I spent a whole hour last night workin’ on it.”
Beckett did his best to resist and gave her a wry look, “A whole hour, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, I’ve been workin’ on it for a few years but wow, one whole hour?”
The pouting intensified and he knew he’d lost even before she batted her eyelashes, “But it was a hard hour, Mr. Beckett. Honest it was.”
“Uh…” Fuck, now he was thinking about all kinds of shit he didn't have a right to. He jerked his eyes away from that goddamn mouth and shrugged, “Just… just Beckett is fine.”
“Okay. And you don’t have to call me Miss Twila, either. Just Twila works.”
“Cool. Is that like a… like a family name or –”
“Yup. I was named after my granny and my grandma. Twila Mae Adkins.”
“Twila Mae. Oh. Yeah, that’s… that’s pretty.”
“Thanks. So… yes to my design? I didn’t wanna mention it before, ‘cause it always comes off like braggin’ no matter how hard you try, but I am technically a civil engineer. Got a degree and everything. Plus, my mama was an architect. I know how to design stuff. It’s just in my blood.”
“Oh. Oh, well, that… well, that changes things, doesn’t it? I had no idea I was talking to an expert.”
“M’hmm.”
“Okay, well… I mean, you’re definitely gonna have to hold my hand through this building process and all, but –”
“Oh, I’ve already got that taken care of. Don’t worry about it.”
“You… you do?”
“M’hmm.”
“Miss Twila –”
“Just Twila.”
“-- I can’t just stand aside and watch you break your back building this… uh…” His mind started to drift again, this time along the delicious idea of her all sweaty and dirty, maybe in a pair of overalls and nothing else, happily hammering away at her project while he watched the way it made everything fun on her jiggle and –
“Oh, I’m not buildin’ it. Are you crazy? I don’t build things, I design things. The robots build everything.”
He blinked a few times until he caught up with reality, “I’m sorry, what? The robots? What robots?”
“Daddy’s robots. I keep ‘em in back of the tool shed.”
“Daddy’s robots?! Your dad built robots?”
“Yes.”
“From scratch?”
“Sometimes, yes.”
“That is so cool!”
She smiled, “Yeah. I guess it kinda was.”