the story in which Alex Seattle Geer is right for hating enclosed spaces,

[doubletap]

and Neil Park is blamed for his knowledge of vaults.

---

Terminal Entries:

1st Floor, Vault Entry-Room Computer:
- Data Entry 1: Year 20XX, Month XX; There's no escape.
- Holotape Entry 1: Y#4@ SDhig^8705 H98 [data corrupted]; This is hell and I want out of it.

1st Floor, Cafeteria Luncheon:
- Holotape Entry 2: Private Recording; I've had better?

1st Floor, Cafeteria Supply Room:
- Inventory List: Inventory List; A list of food....
- Data Entry 2: Shift Notes; Maybe I should tear the walls down.

1st Floor, Broken Cave:
- Data Entry 3: Preparations; Everything's fine.
- Data Entry 4: Near the End; I'll tell you the truth, but I won't give up my soul.
- Data Entry 5: Finally, the End is at Hand.; This is far enough.

1st Floor, Office:
- Data Entry 6: Vault-Wide Public Service Announcement; Get back to work everyone.
- Data Entry 7: Locked Administrative Reply; You're reaching for straws.

1st Floor, Administrative Secretary's Office:
- Data Entry 8: Drama Hoes; It is sort of funny that people aren't able to lie, though.
- Holotape Entry 3: Bill Self-Log; Byron's access still works everywhere.

Comments

[goodfight]

Contact pulls at his attention, but ultimately, it is the conversation Neil fixates on.

Good people. A concept he could get fully behind but was never given the chance. He nods once in acknowledgment. "Gotta ask," the man continues. "How did you manage to assemble a group like that?"

[doubletap]

Here, Alex smiles, a mix of affection and self-abasement. "At the beginning of all of this... Hoover Dam, help the Mojave, Legion vs NCR vs House vs everyone in the middle... I didn't give fuck all about anything. I wanted to pound the guy into sand who shot me and the rest could go to hell. There wasn't any plan. I wasn't looking for any people.

"I helped Boone kill the lady responsible for his wife and child's death--that finished, I felt like he would just off himself and be done with it, so I cajoled him into coming along. With Arcade, we bantered for an hour, then I challenged him to come with and he sorta stuck, and kept being a decent moral rail for everybody. Veronica invited herself along, and when everything with the BoS and the Followers went down, she had no where else to go. Cass I helped out, and to her that meant we were besties forever. Grandma needed a better life. Rex needed a new lease on life. Raul thought he owed me for saving him, so he's been paying it off by working at the 38. And ED-E is ED-E."

Alex sighs out, something long and heavy. "...People stick sometimes. Become family."

[goodfight]

The commonality in each encounter, in the reason each individual eventually stuck around, is Alex Seattle Geer. He helped, he pushed, he provided. Is it any wonder that they regard themselves as his, even if none of them would admit it outright?

But would Alex even accept that truth, the critical fact that he himself is the reason they're family? Neil...doesn't think so.

Instead, he settles for the next best thing. "They care for you," he begins quietly. "Just as much as you care for them. That much is certain. To me, at least."

[doubletap]

Neil is quiet, truthful. And Alex smiles quietly at him. "If I could be so lucky."

[goodfight]

"You are lucky," Neil starts instantly, "in some respects. What I've seen..."

Of the handful of them. ED-E, Raul, Rex, Arcade, and Boone. "They care, and it ain't just lip service. I would know." About caring in word but not in deed. About being so unlucky. "People like that are not gonna leave you when shit hits the proverbial fan."

Or throw you away in the name of progress.

[doubletap]

He replies, repeats. "I am lucky."

But Alex reaches, touches Neil's hand and where he would hesitate otherwise, does not here, and entwines their fingers together.

Raises that hand to his mouth. "You care, and you aren't going to leave me."

[goodfight]

Alex entwines their fingers together as they never would outside this vault, as though the act is perfectly normal. Where Neil might have flushed and flustered at the mere sight, however, the young man settles into a kind of melancholy, his dark eyes holding a degree of pain.

They are coming together toward something, and Neil doesn't know where that is. He only knows this truth. "That's right," he murmurs. "I am not going to leave you."

[doubletap]

Alex squeezes Neil's hand, keeping it as his own. "And neither will I," he speaks quietly, and realizes that this might be the first he's said it perfectly clear. "I won't leave you behind."

[goodfight]

It takes a moment to think, to breathe, to remember this is the truth and not a dream, and Neil smiles, his lower lip trembling. "Guess that makes me pretty damn lucky," he gives. "Having someone like you."

[doubletap]

Alex grins a bit lopsided. "Well, say that after you finish with your questions. You might change your mind."

[goodfight]

Neil cannot help the laugh that follows. "Unless you're actually my childhood bully underneath that mass--" He pokes at Alex's chest. "--I sincerely doubt I'll change my mind."

[doubletap]

Alex feels strangely complimented by Neil referring to Alex's chest as a mass and keeps the smile, even as curiosity takes over. "You had a childhood bully?"

[goodfight]

At the continuance of what was honestly a slip, Neil frowns, countenance reeking of unease and disquiet. "Oh, geez," he starts nervously. "Five-year-old me was a runt. Used to say and do things that didn't make a lick of sense to anyone. Dad put up with it, Amata put up with it, but the rest of my class... Not so much."

He suddenly scoffs, as if disgusted by the memories. "Especially Butch DeLoria and his fuckbuddy-in-closed-doors Wally Mack," he continues, annoyed.

[doubletap]

He means to tease. Means to ask more. Instead he leans in, tone almost intimate. "Wish I knew you. I'd have liked you."

[goodfight]

If Alex aimed to distract, it is working 100%. Neil shifts to watch the other man, pupils widening. "...Kid me would have probably driven you insane," he mutters, flustered.

[doubletap]

He isn't quite sure what's causing the reaction in Neil, but he's not mad at it. Alex grins easily. "Kid you sounds awesome. We could have had adventures."

[goodfight]

They could have had adventures. It's a nice statement to cover the slip of quiet misery that was his childhood, and to that thought, Neil grins back. "We could have loosened the bolts in the pipes and flooded an entire level," he returns. "Or dug a tunnel right into a molerat's burrow."

[doubletap]

Alex snorts before giving a groan. "A molerat's better than a tunneler at least...."

[goodfight]

Ah. That is perhaps yet another question. Neil watches Alex, eyes seeking for reactions. "I had a question about those, actually," he says quietly. "About tunnelers."

[doubletap]

And there is that quick bright rush of fear, replaced with something firmer. "...They're from a place called the Divide. And I'll tell you about that... Later."

Please don't ask.

"But Tunnelers... The people who lived in the towns in the Divide, pre-war, they went down in the ground when the bombs hit. And they stayed there all this time. They're something between your Trogs and the Spore Carriers from Vault 22. Except fierce enough, quick enough, and more than fucking strong enough to down a western Deathclaw in two hits max. They come in groups, out of the ground, surge up and surround, and being trapped with them in the dark is enough to think it's over."

All of it.

"And due to events, they're awake now. Aware that there's more than just their underground. I was warned they'd be spreading. Didn't know they already started."

[goodfight]

Unless you're bullheaded with a skull as thick as a vault door, you couldn't miss that expression, that telling fear. But Alex says he will speak about the Divide later, and Neil isn't that much of an asshole to force an account from another. Instead, he accepts the explanation offered and moves on to the more obvious point.

"I see," Neil replies, more to himself than anyone else. "You used that flare gun on them. Had me throw the flashbangs over the grenades. They have a sensitivity to light, correct?"

[doubletap]

"That's pretty much their only weakness," he gives. "And it's not much of one as you have to constantly use them or they'll come back. They have a queen in place, and I think the rest just drag anything moving back to her."

Down into the dark.

[goodfight]

Neil automatically squeezes the hand in his before chancing a reply. "You know what you want to do with them?"

Because as it is, the future looks pretty damn bleak.

[doubletap]

The hand in his own makes him able to laugh, nervous and helpless. "Not at all. I was hoping I'd die before they started leaving the Divide. Or that they would just go back to sleep. It's just another thing--"

And just. Fuck.

"--I'm responsible for."

[goodfight]

There is weight behind that laughter, death behind his answer. Neil looks on, mind stewing over both.

"I would ask why," he finally says, "but I'd rather wait for your story. Now, though, just remember you don't have to take this on by yourself."

Alex has his family, after all. And Neil.