Megaton Dreaming

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

The sun cut through the damaged atmosphere over the subtropical desert with all its usual relentlessness, pouring through windows that had last seen glass two hundred years ago (if that) and shabby curtains to fall precisely into everyone's eyes as they slept. The room was full of battered, dried out mementos of another age, mostly toys and books, all cracked and crumbling. A slight humming came from somewhere underneath them, almost drowned out by a staticky radio playing Cole Porter. The air was still and heavy, touched with a scorched, chemical smell that hung over everything, a strangely inorganic smell that seemed to overpower any hint of living things. No hint of anything green, of sweat, even of decay, just that smoky, biting trace in the air. Someone with an unnaturally heavy step was moving in the house, and the sheet metal that made up most of the place softly squealed its protests. The very air hummed with a strange energy, like it was about to storm, though it was so dry it didn't seem like rain was the remotest possibility.

In other words, home. Indrani shifted in bed, head pillowed on her copy of The Wasteland Survival Guide, two ancient stuffed bears and Dogmeat curled beside her, and was perfectly content for a moment. Then she realized it was months, maybe a year, since she'd woken in her own bed, and she hauled herself upright, looking around hurriedly.

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[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

"I liked the sound of where you came from." She was really beginning to worry the more she thought about it. If this was permanent, she didn't like Todd's chances. "Hold on, let me check something." The room had a door, but it didn't look like it was often actually used. She stuck her head out. "Wadsworth?"

"Yes, madam?" The voice from somewhere down the hall was a little tinny and atonal, but for some reason had a heavy but very vaguely British accent.

"What's the date?"

"August 16, 2277."

"Thanks. Is that Fawkes downstairs?"

"Yes, madam."

She turned back to Todd. "Alright, that's... Basically when I left." She poked at her nose absently, broken on Verdana and still a bit smashed.

[catchingflies]

For the first time, Todd looks concerned, or maybe just nervous. He hasn't heard either of those names before, and the sound of that one voice kind of doesn't sound all that warm and fuzzy. Plus, he's kind of got that problem with adults being stupid and mean, back home... Verdana was a weird case, but now he's in the real world again. Sort of. Will that revert to type?

"Uh, who's Wadsworth? And Fawkes? And d'you think the Things came with us?" Because there's no mention of giant rat-hyena-monsters "downstairs", either.

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

What appeared to be a noisily floating, ponty metal octopus wandered into view. "That's Wadsworth. He's my butler. And for the Things, let's go look. Don't think I'd want them loose in town. People would freak." And they'd be susceptible to radiation, too. She didn't like to think of one of them getting too close to the bomb or even just Moira's shop. Wasteland animals were either so mutated they didn't mind or knew to stay away from concentrations of water and particularly glowy barrels. "If Fawkes is downstairs they might be communing, though. He'd like them."

[catchingflies]

"Whoah." Wadsworth at least looked cool. "He's, uh, not gonna be weird about me suddenly showing up, is he?" Though Todd did at least swing his feet over the side of the bed, because he did remember a few things about what Indrani had told him about her home, and he didn't want his Things to get into trouble, either.

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

"Wadsworth? Eh. He's an AI, and not all that great of one. He doesn't have a lot of opinions." Fawkes would probably have something to say. He was a bit protective of her sometimes. But he was also easily mollified. And he might make Todd feel at home, having someone even more different from the standard human than him. She didn't think about weather a supermutant (or, at that, a ghoul) would be pretty gruesome by Todd's standards. "Come on, let's check this out. Hey, big guy! Is that you?" Her voice rose to a yell and she headed out of the room, answered by a very deep, slightly growly voice that was hard to make out as it echoed up the stairs.

[catchingflies]

Todd, looking dubious, followed behind Indrani, rather in her wake-- a little confused by the fact that he hadn't had to put his shoes on. Apparently whoever dumped them here had done so with him fully clothed. Maybe if he was lucky, some of his other things would be here, too.

Or the Things. He'd be happy with just those, really.

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

The first floor of Indrani's house wasn't very different from the second, gray and dusty, full of scorched and broken furniture and haphazardly stacked gear. That it also contained a small andrewsarchus population didn't even seem that weird. She'd had stranger guests. Fawkes wasn't particularly strange, though, one of her favorite people in the Wasteland. That he was a eight-foot-tall, green-skinned monster who only generally suggested his human origins was only a big deal if you were a wuss. And after so long, he was a sight for sore eyes. He was also clearly communing with Thing One, which was pretty funny to watch. "Hey, big guy, you made more friends!"

"What are these?" he asked in a deep, thunderous voice that made the floor rattle a little.

"Weird, but pretty cute. Don't mind us, having a weird morning. Did you drink all my Nuka-cola again?"

"Your body is not as radiation-resistant as mine."

"So what I'm getting is yeah, you definitely drank my Nuka-cola."

[catchingflies]

For a moment, Todd stared at the big ogre-looking mutant, but after a beat of realizing that apparently he wasn't the only mutant here-- no wonder Indrani never did have problem with how he looked or anything, he wasn't anywhere near that obvious-- he then also realizes that the Things are there. "Heeeeey, look who showed up!" he grinned, and bounded over, right onto One's back, half-burying himself in rough fur. The three pups honked up at him, but at least didn't try to climb up after him. Thing One gave a coughing bark of slightly nervous-sounding welcome, brush of a tail wagging.

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

Indrani paused in her quest for snacks to watch. Aw. And she could tell the big guy was amused too, though reading expressions on a supermutant face with its overdeveloped muscles and permanent grimace was a tough skill to acquire. No surprise. Charon, for instance, would probably pretend not to be charmed, but who did Fawkes have to impress?

"You hungry?" she asked Todd, finally taking the few steps that led to the kitchen, which was in the same room as everything else but around a bit of a corner. The open plan would have been a lovely design had it not been utterly dilapidated and built out of old airplanes.

[catchingflies]

Todd spent a few minutes just scratching Thing One all up and down his neck, grinning with more affection than he was really aware he was showing. At Indrani's question, he glanced over at her, looked a little embarrassed to find he'd been being watched this whole time-- and not just by Indrani, but by the big green stranger, too-- and said, "Uh, sure. What you got to eat around here? You used to go on about radioactive bugs and stuff."

He slid off One's back to land amidst Three, Four, and Five, and then they all piled up on him. He wound up buried under three andrewsarchus cubs almost immediately.

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

She snickered just watching him for a minute, and then spent another moment appreciating Fawkes trying to look dignified and Dogmeat attempting to join in, and then stuck her head in the fridge. Good, she had some punga fruit. She was going to have to really stock up. Lucky they liked her pretty well over on Lookout Point. And hopefully it would work as well for Todd as for her. If she could get him eating the stuff, it might counteract the background radiation in everything else, and at least the water was good with Project Purity running. "I have some mirelurk claws and most of a bloatfly in here. Take your pick."

[catchingflies]

Emerging at last from under the furballs and looking quite rumpled, Todd hopped over, looking over his shoulder at Fawkes en route. Said furballs trailed after him, though Thing One stayed where he was, next to the bigger mutant. "Might as well stick with what I know. Gimme the bug. What's a mirelurk, anyway?"

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

Since the fridge could hardly be said to work or anything, it was just a couple of shelves easily sealed off from the rest of the room, and the packet she passed him was pretty limp and unappealing, even by Todd's standards. "Mirelurk?" she asked archly. "The rest of this." Since the claw was intact, she pulled it free and playfully menaced him with it. It was roughly the shape of a crab's claw but bigger than Indrani's head and jet black.

[catchingflies]

He ducked instinctively, but then gave a snort and peered at what she'd handed him, instead. "Is that even food?" Whether he meant the package in his own hands he had half-unwrapped already, or the claw she was waving at him, was entirely up in the air. "And what's with the big guy over there? And the robot? You never told me you had roomies."

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

"Sure it's food," she said defensively. "The eggs are better, but claw meat's okay." To demonstrate, she set the claw down on the scorched, rusty table that served for a counter and whacked it with the nearest heavy object, which turned out to be a crowbar. The tip cracked reluctantly and she pried off the broken bit to slurp up the meat. "Fawkes doesn't really live here," she explained around her mouthful. "He lives down by Underworld. Too human around here for him. But he does stop by. So does Charon. Don't really know where he goes when he's not around. And Gob and Moira are here sometimes. But it's pretty much just me living here. The robot is, y'know, a robot."

[catchingflies]

Kind of like lobster. Not that Todd had ever actually eaten lobster, but he'd seen people do it through windows before. He finished unwrapping his own, whatever it actually was. "Too human? What, is it like mutant-ville in that Underworld place?" Which pretty much meant he wanted to see it. Would it be like Magneto's dreamworld, or more like living with the Brotherhood? Would they figure out he was one, too?

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

Todd's packet contained several slabs of pale, rubbery meat such as one might find inside a very large arthropod back home, but the size of steaks. Indrani kept gnawing at her mirelurk, talking blithely with her mouth full. "Mostly ghouls, but they get along okay with supermutants. Their doors are human sized, though, so it isn't any more convenient for him that way." She shrugged. "Besides Megaton it's, like, the nicest town, though. Everyone's sweet and helpful."

[catchingflies]

Manners weren't something Todd tended to worry a whole lot about, so it didn't bother him any, her talking with her mouth full. He prodded at the "bug" meat, then shrugged and shot out his tongue to scoop a whole slab of it up and swallow it down. At least he rarely actually tasted anything he ate. "You're gonna hafta show me around, I guess. If we're gonna be here a while, or anything. Wonder how we even got back... think Salvation just mixed up where I belonged?"

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

"That's as good a theory as any." Maybe one she should hope for. If the error was discovered, she might be able to get Todd back where he belonged. "We can walk around town, sure. That's fine. Don't go outside Megaton without me, though, okay?" She was being a lot fussier than usual, but Todd wasn't ready for the Wasteland, and there was no ship to bring him back if something happened. "Uh, not that there's all that much here. It's a lot smaller than anything back on Verdana. There's a bar, and a couple food places, and the doc's, and the Church of the Atom, and Moira's, and besides that it's just houses and some workshops."

[catchingflies]

"I don't need to be babysat," Todd pouted at her, a little bit. "'Sides, I've got Thing, if it's all that bad out there. ... how bad is it out there?" Sure, he'd heard her stories, but he'd figured they were embellished, and even so, she hadn't ever really told him about anything much worse than what you could run into on accident outside Poseidon.

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

She paused, debating internally for a moment, and tried to put it in a way that wouldn't sting his ego. "Okay, Thing and you with a gun could probably take out a lot of the big monster threats. I wouldn't worry about you and a coyote or a mole rat, maybe even a mirelurk or a yao guai, once you got a little practice in. But that's not the only problem. FEV monsters don't play fair. There are people out there who'll try to kill you, and I don't went you to have to try to kill them back." Trying to deal with being upset in a way she usually wasn't, she put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into a hug. "Also traps and explosives and feral ghouls and stuff," she added, not very good at tender moments.

[catchingflies]

It was still appreciated, awkward or not. Todd looked over at her in mild surprise, but then slithered an arm around her, back. His tone was less reluctant than the words might have sounded, otherwise: "Okay, okay, I'll be careful and stick with you. I don't really wanna try to kill anybody, either." Animals were one thing, especially when you were doing it to feed your beloved pets, but people? Even horrible, evil people trying to kill him first? If it were anyone back at the Brotherhood who suggested it, he might have tried to act like it wouldn't bother him, but this was Indrani. He really didn't know if he could do something like that. He might just be more inclined to run away than even try.

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

She gave him an extra tight squeeze for being a good boy. "Thanks. I promise I won't let you get too bored." Though they had no video games. Hmm. "I'll take you on a tour of town once you're done eating, and maybe we'll get drinks and some iguana kabobs from Gob tonight. Let me get you out some walking around money, just in case..." She turned to a half-collapsed cabinet and dug through it as she kept talking. "And we'll get you some of your own guns. Moira should have stuff in. Here." She tossed him a sock that looked more like it was full of garbage than money. There were a few crumpled bills that looked more or less like cash back home, but it was mostly old fashioned bottle caps, a few loose cigarettes, and one large and menacing looking tooth. "I'll put on the radio, see if there's anything fun going on." She was a little manic.

[catchingflies]

"Guess you're excited to be home, huh?" All of that sounded okay to Todd, though, so he didn't protest, he just kind of grinned at her. But then he couldn't help but peek into the sock curiously. "They, uh, use bottle caps as money here?" Cigarettes he could kind of see, didn't he see a movie once where that kind of thing worked for getting favors and stuff? But the bottle caps-- and the tooth-- were definitely weird.

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

"Around here, and it travels pretty well," she said, fiddling with the dial. The radio began to play what was to Todd decidedly golden oldies, some scratchy old blues from the fifties back on his earth. "Portable, sturdy, and there's a more or less limited supply. Barter works too, and most people'll take prewar money. Ooh, I should have you read the Survival Guide..." Still a little bit manic, definitely.