October 24th, 2287
Red Rocket Fueling Station

After Meathead woke from the concrete ground, head on his forelegs, laying on his stomach, he shook his head and blinked. Tensing, he was undisguised and the garage door was open. Less than ten feet away was Nate, sitting by a small fire pit made from pebbles, rocks, and it was no larger than two feet wide. Small burning sticks and twigs, Nate sat crosslegged, facing the road with his back to the Red Rocket station. The blue jumpsuit and yellow leather number '111' stitched onto his back faced Meathead. In his hands was a sewing needle and black thread. stitching the leather and synthetic liner back together.

Hooves scraping against the ground as he pushed himself up, Meathead took one deliberately slow step after another, trying to approach Nate as quietly as possible. The only noises they could hear that morning was the faint push of wind across the road, and the flapping of birds wings.

"<Nate? How's the leg?>" Meathead said softly, not wanting to disturb Nate.

"Fine. Better. Stimpaks kinda undercut the scars and how we got them, when all it takes is one and the bones pop back into place, and then you're walking ten seconds after that." He was frustrated, the changeling could easily tell. His hands made quick jerks with the thread and needle, and there was a frown on his chin.

"<Does it feel okay?>"

Nate nodded, and then he shook his head, "Just...why...us?"

His eyes went out to the fusion coolant price sign. In his childhood, the last of gasoline was finally getting phased out in America, but still used in other countries.

The price of coolant had gone up from $110, to $119.00. No wonder the economy broke.

"There were...one hundred people in that vault...sixteen staffers...one doctor...one overseer... did anyone else have kids?" Nate asked, turning his head to face Meathead. He took a spot on the ground next to Nate's right and sat down.

"We survived, Meathead...why didn't everyone else too? Why only Nora's and mine?"

Meathead's head dropped, lip out.

"Those men were scientists...whoever took Shaun was a scientist... Not a mercenary...not a raider...not a cannibal...I hope...and God damn them if a cult took him. Brain washing psychopa-"

"<You need to stop rambling.>" Meathead said, trying to instill a sense of self-preservation into Nate.

Nate nodded and inhaled, cutting himself off and shaking his thoughts away. "Meathead...what are you?"

"<You want to know, now?>"

"No, now I want to know what you are." He said looking back at the changeling with a smile that stretched up high to his cheekbones.

"That's what I just sa-" Meathead stopped, catching Nate's grin and huff of air through his nose. "We're emotivores.

"Symbiotic parasites. We detect emotions and live off positive energy like love and happiness and...>" rolling his head down, the forewings on Meathead's elytron lifted up as his hind wings buzzed for a moment before settling back down over his shell, becoming seamless.

"<Stop that. What ever you're thinking. Yes. Now stop that.>"

"Meathead, I'm just trying to cope...and thinking about dirty jokes is the only way I know how." Nate nodded and blinked, looking over to his right to the dead mole rats still lying on the ground where they died by the entrance to the Red Rocket the day before. His voice dropped a tad, "And violence." Nate added.

Meathead rubbed his eyes with the back of his leg, "<We...changelings...always want to improve the mood of a situation. We used to...I don't know how many of us are left. I don't like being around hateful people. You...hate certain things...but you're not a hateful person. That man, Preston...he's very in tune with other people's emotions. He doesn't want to see a room full of sad sacks. And...if he does...he seems like the type of guy who would stick with it and keep on fighting no matter what to make things better. Like you.>"

"What type of person am I?"

"Hopeful, carefree, laid-back." Meathead blinked again and leaned in to meet Nate's eyes. "When we were standing on the elevator going down...You were this giant beacon of positivity...The bombs were going off. The skyline was brighter than the sun! And there you were, hugging his wife, biggest damn shit-eating grin that I couldn't believe, thinking 'Everything is going to be all right!'" Meathead circled around to stare Nate directly in the eyes.

"<How do you do it? How do you stay so positive when your entire world was on fire?>" Meathead swallowed, waiting for Nate's answer.

Nate looked away from Meathead down to the small fire. "I knew we were going to make it...and that we were going to be alright." He said, eyes scanning the tree line.

Meathead shook his head, "<That's what you said to Nora...>"

"Then I believed in my own words." Nate rubbed the side of his face, "I lied to myself and Nora...you...and there were plenty of other people looking at us. I said what needed to be said to keep everyone else from panicking."

Raising a hoof to scratch the back of his head, "<Well it worked. You...you made a lot of people feel safe.>"

Nate shrugged and then coughed once. "I closed my eyes after I saw the bomb go off...Grabbed her and Shaun, wrapped a hand under your neck and just kept on thinking, 'Everything is going to be all right'."

Meathead's head swung around, attracting Nate's attention. "But how can you think like that? How did you get to be so...positive? How were you smiling when the bombs fell?"

"I lived in a well off house, growing up. We were never that family whose car broke down in the middle of a roadtrip, we were the kids who tried to stop bullies at school."

"My father going off to war just after I was born was a family calling."

"To go out into the world, meet the natives and kill them....And then there was Alaska. That was different. That was fighting on the home turf. Other then that, we were always ready. Always prepared. I never really worried about any of those things because no matter what, even if it was something short and stupid like... like getting the wrong seat on a plane. We were the ones who always got through. The ones who if we were inconvenienced...I don't know, the world gave back."

Nate tisked, and tilted his head. "I knew everything was going to be alright because I knew that we were seconds...fucking seconds," His fingers flexed straight out, "Away from getting into the Vault. We were going to get in right under the wire and we we're going to make it..." Nate unfolded his legs, extending them to the right, away from the fire. "I was never in the Scouts, but we were always prepared."

"My dad made it back. My grand dad made it back, his dad made it back, even brothers and cousins...we were the well adjusted ones whenever something bad happened."

"<You're kind of an asshole when you're not busy or focusing on things.>"

"Yeah...can't turn it off..." He bounced his head back and forth, "...Always not quite good enough, could look a little better... attention for detail and high standards."

"<Well, it worked. We...survived...now what?>"

Meathead looked up at Nate, Nate frowned and pushed off his hands and stood up. "I don't know, Meathead! Is that your name? Do you go back to being my dog? Do you run off? Do I treat you like a human being? DO you want to be treated like a human being? What do you want? Tell me what you want and I will get it, Meathead. I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do. I don't want to see you run off because you were my dog! Are my dog. Fuck! I don't know!" Pressing his palms to his face, covering both eyes and exhaling loudly, "I just..." His hands dropped to his side.

"I wanted to protect the things I love. So I joined the military. I wanted someone to love, and Nora and I found each other. We wanted a house. Okay? I got a house. I wanted a wife. I found Nora. I wanted to protect them, I knew I couldn't protect them while I was away, so I got you! Dog-you! I wanted all those things because they last, Meathead! How long have you been my dog?"

His voice shook, standing tall and
chest out, his hands were shaking.

"<You ordered the German Shepard from a breeder in Georgia. All I needed to do was act like a dog...and that was it. I barked like a dog, growled like a dog, ate like a dog...and you kept on treating me like a human. You fed me more than just dogfood and petted me, and made sure I was washed. You took me on walks, fed me chicken treaties, and a cheeseburger every once and a while...>" Meathead rose to all four legs, standing at a meter and a half tall, he came up to Nate's pectorals. A spiral of green flames rose up from around Meathead, and when it vanished, the German Shepard was there, but now much shorter.

"<I liked being your dog, because you didn't treat me like a dog. You treated me like everyone else." Meathead wiped his eyes with the back of his paw. "All I had to do was stay quiet, and I got all the love I ever needed.>"

"<I want to keep being your dog. Dogs...don't have to be angry or sad or talk...they just need to be there for people. That's what you want right? You just want...trust to last?>

Nate nodded and wiped his own eyes, and nodded. "Yeah. Yep." He rubbed his leg, sporting a sewn seam down to his ankle.

"<Do you want to talk about it?>

Nate shook his head. "Talking it over a drink sounds better."

"<Alright? Where to?>"

"Are you going to keep talking? Or only talk to me?"

"<Just you. I don't trust people like the way you do...> Meathead looked away and down to his left. "<It was more of a tradition to not reveal ourselves.>"

"What changed?"

Meathead looked up, then sweeping his head from the right up the road, leading towards Sanctuary Hills, past Nate to the left towards Concord, "<Time.>" Meathead's shoulders dropped, "<...I know as much as you do about the world now...Everyone we know is on ice, dead or...kidnapped.>"

"Tough times we're living in." Nate said, using one boot to kick out the flame and scatter the rocks and ashes.

Meathead barked and wagged his tail. taking a few steps ahead of Nate, he turned right out of the parking lot towards Concord, then noticed his owner was walking the other direction.

"<Where are you going? I thought we were looking for Shaun!>"

"I need new pants! Also, to get drunk before having to face another one of those deathclaws. Whatever it was. It was smart. It tried prying off the helmet first thing when it got a hold of me. Definitely fuck that thing and whatever backwards ass creature it crawled out of! Whoever took Shaun, took them decades ago. We were frozen; again after they took him."

Meathead's jaw dropped a little, "<How? What makes you say that?!>" He said, turning to chase after Nate up the dry cracked pavement road.

"Remember all the spiderwebs and the dust in the Vault? No one's been inside that place for a long, long...long time. He's probably an old man by now. I been around the world enough, and I've seen buildings that were bombed out from the inside, while the outside was still standing. Those old buildings that haven't had a soul in them for a hundred years get a stagnant air to them. No one's been inside the Vault at least fifty years." Nate's eyes teared up, the bitter taste of unsweetened, burnt black coffee filled his mouth.

Meathead flexed his paws out, feeling the emotional shift in Nate change from wanderlust, to solemn kinship like one might
have for an ill-relative ready to pass.

<Nate, you don't feel okay.>"

"I feel like I lost everything, Meathead...and yeah. I did lose my dog. and I now I have you... I just want to see if anything else from my old life is still standing. Thank you for being by my side in this. If you want to be my friend, then come on and let's go." Nate sounded like he was repeating something someone told him. That the only words he could say, were one's he heard before.

Next Chapter: Ch. 7 Drumlin Diner Estimated time remaining: 36 Hours, 16 Minutes