Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tommy should have been able to guess most adults were liars.

The surface wasn't anything like what they'd described it to be back in the vault. He'd been up top a grand total of three days and he hadn't been mauled yet, hadn't been torn to pieces by any mutant ravagers, hadn't had his skin peeled off, or been melted into a radiated mess by the toxins that lingered in the environment. Nothing terrible had happened at all!

The worst he'd had to deal with so far was Technoblade's terrible fucking attitude.

And the sun was so much brighter than he expected after only reading about it in books his whole life, it burnt his eyes whenever he tilted his chin up. The air was fresh and endless, without that underlying smell of artificial oxygen recycling that was inescapable in the vault - that shit made every breath taste like plastic. He didn't feel locked up anymore, squeezed into a tiny space while standing in line at the canteen waiting for food distribution to start. Tommy hated that feeling more than anything, hated the tightening of his chest when he was trapped with nowhere to go.

Even as a little kid he couldn't imagine spending his entire life in the vault. But fear held him back, because stories about the surface were always so horrific. Turns out they were lies, or very exaggerated. Tommy loved it up top.

Technoblade wasn't much of a talker, though he tended to mumble to himself a lot. Tommy didn't mind that, he didn't have many people to talk with back home either. Only Wilbur, before he left. Before he got all weird and sullen and dumb. Tommy was more than willing to carry on conversations for the both of them, he was very interesting and had a lot to say anyway - and he'd even roped Techno into a few games of eye spy when he got bored.

His feet hurt, which was a bit of a pain in the ass, but Tommy was getting used to walking a lot. Techno didn't like taking too many breaks, and they were still a fair distance away from where they were supposed to split up. Tommy hadn't entirely decided what he would do once they got there. He had to think of a way to convince Techno to come with him, all the way to Vault-Tec or wherever Wilbur was hanging out. But talking to Techno was like talking to a brick wall sometimes.

"Stop."

Tommy stopped immediately, crouching lower to the ground while Technoblade did the same. They'd been through this routine a few times already. The first time, when Tommy didn't react fast enough, Techno had really chewed him out and threatened to send him back to Novac. He said Tommy not listening could get them killed. Apollo huddled down with him, though the dog clearly had no idea what was going on, tail wagging as if it were a game.

"Raiders?" Tommy asked in a whisper. There were increasingly more of them the further they went out from Novac, away from the military-controlled areas. Tommy had seen them from a distance, but they'd always managed to stay undetected and sneak past them. Large groups of people, sometimes on horseback and with more weapons than he could count.

Not that Tommy was scared of them or anything. Just… Techno was probably right that they didn't need the trouble.

Techno sighed and stood up again, shoulders raised. "Worse." Tommy didn't get a chance to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean. "They've already seen us so there's no point hiding. Stay behind me and keep your mouth shut, yeah? I'll take care of this."

Tommy rolled his eyes at him but obeyed, knowing Techno must have his reasons for asking that. But from what he could see these strangers were just three men. While they approached, Techno started walking to meet them in the middle. Tommy gripped his baseball bat a little tighter and followed, careful to linger a couple of steps behind like had been asked of him.

Ten feet across from each other both parties stopped.

"Technoblade! Man, we haven't seen you in ages, I was starting to think you were avoiding me." The guy who stepped forward was wearing a green poncho-type cloak with a big hood and a strange mask that was covering his entire face. Tommy didn't like his voice, melodious and with a drawl to it as if he was making fun of people with every word he said. The man gestured with his arms in an overexaggerated fashion.

"That's because I am," Techno said flatly, and the man laughed.

"Ouch. I thought we were friends."

"Whatever gave you that impression?" Techno didn't wait for him to answer, shifting the rifle on his back, fingers twitching in anticipation. "We're just passing through, Dream. Is that gonna be a problem?"

The masked man was named Dream? Kind of a stupid fucking name if you asked Tommy. Apollo growled, probably agreeing with him.

The two men behind hovered ominously. They were both dressed in white shirts and black pants, though one of them was blond and had spray-painted his leather and metal armor gold in a way that caught the light and made Tommy squint at the glare. The other had black hair and a dumb strip of cloth around his head.

Dream clicked his tongue, mock remorse dripping from his every word. "Well you see, normally I'd be more than happy to let you through, Techno. For old time's sake if nothing else. But my friends and I are actually here on business today."

"I figured." Techno sighed, dropping the rifle from his shoulder into his hands. Dream didn't react to this blatant display of hostility but the others pulled out their own guns, prepared for a fight. "Will you at least tell me who put out a bounty on me this time? I don't remember stepping on any toes recently."

They were bounty hunters? Tommy stepped up to kind of peek around Techno's shoulder. Dream's head moved and it was as if he could feel those eyes land on him from behind the mask, sending a shudder through him. A smile stretched out from the small section of Dream's face that was left visible, pearly white and unnervingly sharp teeth on display.

"Paranoid as always... But we're not actually here for you." Dream gestured with his hand at his friends, making the man with black hair kept out of his face by the white headband step up. "Grab the kid, but don't hurt him too badly. The customer's paying for undamaged goods only."

Tommy felt as if a solid rock had been dumped onto his stomach, moving to hide behind Techno's back on instinct. "What?"

Did that mean somebody put a bounty on him? How? Why? When? Tommy hadn't even been on the surface for a week, he didn't do anything.

In one swift motion, Techno brought up his rifle, took aim, and pulled the trigger. A sharp crack made Tommy flinch - he'd never actually been around a gun being fired before - and then a bullet found home in the ground mere inches in front of the black-haired man's raised foot.

"You're going to have to explain to me what you want with the kid," Techno demanded firmly.

"Wait, you didn't know? Oh my god, Techno, please don't tell me you didn't know?" Dream was chuckling a little, but when silence was his only answer he stopped, tone turning serious. "And here I was thinking you were just trying to claim the bounty for yourself. I'm almost disappointed."

"If I wanted to hunt people for sport I would have joined your merry band of losers when you begged me to," Techno said. "You know that's not my thing."

Dream scoffed but didn't appear too affected by the words. Or maybe he was trying to hide how much the rejection hurt. "Apparently your new friend is worth quite some money to the right people, so he's coming with us."

"Why? And to whom?" Techno asked calmly. Too calmly, Tommy could hear the underlying confusion plain as day. So that made two of them.

"Afraid I can't say. You should know better than anyone that we don't ask questions, we just do what's needed to get paid." Dream shrugged. "Hey, if you want we can take him in together and split the money. It'll be a bigger profit than whatever you got paid to escort him."

Tommy swallowed, glancing at Techno's face. Keeping his gun aimed between the three as if daring them to make a move, Techno seemed to be thinking over their options. They were outnumbered, and each of them had at least one gun compared to their single rifle. He'd never admit to it out loud, but a tiny part of Tommy was almost worried Techno was going to sell him out.

Then Techno turned his head towards him. "Run."

"What?!" Tommy got closer to him. "I'm not going to leave you-"

"I'll be fine." Techno kind of shouldered into him, urging him to move. "Run, Tommy. I'll catch up with you later." When he was still not showing any sign of listening, Techno yelled louder. "Now! Go!"

And Tommy did.

Shouts rang out from behind him, then more gunshots followed. Tommy's legs were shaking so bad, he almost tripped over his own feet several times. He wanted to go back. He wanted to turn around and stick at Techno's side and he wanted to be brave and strong and fucking useful like he'd never been to Wilbur but he couldn't because what if it was his fault Wilbur left in the first place and now it'd be his fault if Techno died and-

Somebody was running to catch up to him, he could hear them. And he could hear it wasn't Techno.

"Shit!" Tommy ran faster.

The cut he'd gotten a few days ago shouldn't be bothering him anymore, except it clearly disagreed with his decision to sprint and Tommy felt how the skin started tearing open again, pain radiating up and down his leg. He couldn't outrun whoever was after him for long, so he had to think of something better.

As if the universe itself was looking out for him, the burnt-out shell of a building came within view.

Not wasting any time to consider if he was stupidly getting himself cornered, Tommy ran into it. Outside in the open, he'd have no chance. At least this minimally increased his odds. All the interior walls were still up, turning the house into a maze of rooms he ducked between, trying not to fall into overturned and burned out furniture. He found a door to hide behind and clasped both hands over his mouth to muffle his own breathing like he'd seen people do in the old horror flicks Wilbur sometimes played on their black-and-white TV in the vault.

The sound of heavy footfalls let him know his pursuer had entered the house after him.

Tommy pressed himself closer to the wall, barely daring to blink. All his muscles were tensed up from how hard he was trying to keep still, terrified of making a noise that would give his position away. He could hear them moving through the house slowly.

The wooden staircase creaked, maybe they were going upstairs?

His heartbeat was loud enough he could hear it in his fucking head, pounding, pounding, pounding. Very carefully, Tommy leaned forward to try and peep through the door's crack. Nobody was there. He could either stay put and risk the person searching the house finding him, or he could try and escape. Make it back to Techno maybe. Shuffling his feet because he didn't want to make any noise, Tommy slipped through the opening. He should try to make a run for it.

"Gotcha!"

A hand closed around his wrist, the grip tight like a vice. Tommy jolted but there was nowhere to go as Dream pushed him up against the wall.

"Let go of me, you ass!" Tommy yelled. He had dropped his baseball bat to the floor when Dream grabbed him but he wasn't above fighting the fucker barehanded. He lashed out, knuckles splitting open on the plastic of Dream's mask when Tommy punched him in the face. The mask was shoved to the side by the action and Tommy's eyes widened as he saw what was hidden beneath.

Dream's entire face looked like Techno's jaw did, all rotted away and fucked up. The flesh had gashes in it that exposed tissue and bone beneath, and Dream's cheeks were sunken into hollow gaps. It made Tommy want to puke. Dream's unnaturally bright green eyes narrowed.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he hissed, though the statement was horribly undercut by the way he curled his fist into the fabric of Tommy's shirt, lifting him off his feet and squeezing his wrist painfully. "But you're lucky they asked me to bring you back alive."

"Fuck off!" Shoving Dream against his shoulders was about as useful as trying to shove over a brick wall. The straps of Tommy's backpack were sliding off but he didn't care, kicking his feet instead and clawing at the hand holding him even though it was in vain. Where Dream's sleeve hiked up, it revealed more ugly rotten flesh. When his bag slipped down onto the ground Tommy barely noticed.

Until Dream turned to see what he'd dropped and grinned.

"Look at that, you brought little vault souvenirs when you came up top? You won't need those where you're going so I'll be sure to sell them for a pretty penny, hm?" He was talking about Tommy's discs, which had spilled out of his bag when it fell. Dream nudged them with his foot, crinkling the carton covers beneath his boots. Putting his dirty shoes on Tommy's discs.

For a split second, all Tommy saw was red.

Letting go of Dream's wrist, he reached for the knife tucked into his belt instead. With zero hesitation he pulled it out and plunged it into the side of Dream's neck, forcing it as deep as his strength would allow him to.

Everything happened very fast after that. A flood of blood covered Tommy's hands, his arms. He'd pulled the knife out again without thinking and Dream was using his own fingers to try and stop the flow but it was too much, spilling everywhere. He was screaming. Tommy was dropped onto his ass and barely had time to grab his stuff and pull it into his lap to protect it from Dream's wrath. The man was towering over him, every inch of his body betraying how absolutely livid he was and Tommy was still holding his knife, clutching it like a fucking lifeline, thinking that he'd had a good run but this was it for him. He was about to die.

He'd still rather die than allow Dream to lay a finger on any of his things or Wilbur's things.

"Tommy!"

The door to the house was thrown open with enough force to hit the wall, followed by the hurried noise of Techno searching every room and Apollo barking. Just like that Dream was gone – he must have run off as soon as he didn't hold the advantage anymore, or maybe he didn't want to fight Techno. Fucking coward.

Tommy exhaled shakily and finally lowered the knife, unsure why he felt like sobbing suddenly.

"Tommy?" Techno found him and rushed towards him, dropping onto his knees. His hands prodded at Tommy's shoulders to inspect him. "Are you alright, did you get hurt?"

"I'm fine," he said, numb. Techno was tugging on his sleeves to check for injuries and Tommy pulled his arms away. "I'm fine," he repeated louder. "It's not my blood."

Techno nodded, not asking whose it was then. He probably already knew.

"Did I..." Tommy took a sharp breath and rubbed at his face, ignoring the sticky sensation of blood on his cheeks too. "Did I kill him?"

"What?"

"Dream, I-" Tommy motioned awkwardly, unable to say it out loud so he pantomimed stabbing himself instead. He'd never taken the life of another person, had never even thought about it being a possibility.

It horrified him. Though Tommy could at least recognize he'd met with one of the few humans who probably deserved it.

"Oh. No, you didn't. Dream won't go down that easily, trust me I've tried. They all tucked tail, we won't see them for a while," Techno said.

Tommy didn't know whether to feel sick or relieved so he settled on a bit of both.

When Technoblade continued his voice was a lot graver. "Tommy, if you know why they're after you, I need you to tell me right now."

Tommy frowned up at him, muscles tensing. "I don't."

Not taking his answer at face value, Techno continued. "What happened before you met me? When you came out of your vault, did you meet anyone? Speak to anyone? You need to be certain, this is important. You could get us killed."

"I already told you about it, you're not a good listener man-"

Techno grabbed both of his shoulders, shaking him. It kind of hurt. "I'm serious, Tommy. No lies. If you want me to trust you, if you want this to work between us, there can be no lying."

"I'm not lying!" Tommy snapped, a bit more harshly than he intended. "I don't fucking know! I really don't!" He put both hands on Techno's wrists, but then didn't feel like pushing him off so he left them there instead, fingers pressed to skin. "I swear you are the first person I saw, I don't-" His voice hitched, but he was stubborn enough not to cry and bit his bottom lip instead. "I don't fucking know why anybody would be after me, Techno."

Maybe that was the part that scared him. Somebody out there on the surface paid three guys to catch Tommy and he had no fucking idea why. That was terrifying to him.

Techno wasn't shaking him anymore, but didn't let go either. He just held on to Tommy. His eyebrows pinched together. "Do you think it has something to do with Wilbur? He came to the surface before you, right? Maybe he pissed people off."

"I... maybe? I suppose it could." Tommy didn't think Wilbur would do something like that, but he also had no clue why Wilbur left the vault.

"Okay." Techno nodded and sat back, acting as if this was helpful information while it really fucking wasn't and he probably was only trying to seem nice or some shit. Tommy felt all wired and jittery, but he did his best to exhale and look at Techno properly.

"You're bleeding," he observed out loud, noticing the stain of blood spreading against Techno's upper arm.

Technoblade barely glanced at it. "Just a scratch, a bullet grazed me. They really should spend some time practicing their aim." He finally let go.

"Who were they?" Tommy asked, wiping his hands on his pants and staining them red.

"Bounty hunters," Techno said, helping him up. Tommy's legs were about as steady as gelatin at the moment, but he could probably walk. At least for a little while.

"Yeah, no shit Sherlock." As was to be expected from a surface walker, the reference did not seem to register for Technoblade, who blinked at him. "I'm asking how you know them."

"I wouldn't say I know them," Techno dodged the question with all the grace of a newborn fawn stumbling over itself while learning to walk - so none at all. Tommy laughed in disbelief.

"What did you just say? 'If you want this to work between us, there can be no lying'? You're such a hypocrite!"

"Don't use my own words against me," Techno complained, clearly annoyed. Which meant Tommy was definitely going to use his own words against him more often. "And I don't know them. Just Dream. We have... history, I guess you would call it."

"Like what, you used to be friends or something?"

Techno half-laughed at that. "Eh, debatable. But we were stuck in a real nasty place together a long time ago, so that's where we met. We parted ways after getting out and since then I usually only run into him when there's a bounty on my head."

Tommy bent down to pick up his backpack, taking extra care with the discs. "And that happens a lot?"

"A lot more often than I'd like, yeah." Techno looked around. Outside, the sun was already setting. "Let's talk about this later. We can probably stay in here for the night, maybe in another room though." He nodded at the blood pooling at their feet.

Tommy felt exhausted, so he wasn't about to complain. It would shelter them from the elements, and while Tommy did miss sleeping in an actual bed, the wooden floor would still be more comfortable than the wasteland ground. Not that it'd matter. With the blood still warm and half-dried on his hands, Tommy knew he wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.

"Pick a good spot," Techno said, dropping his backpack into Tommy's arms. "I'll gather up some stuff for a fire."

"I can help," Tommy said, suddenly viscerally put off by the idea of being alone. But Techno shook his head.

"They might be keeping an eye on us," he said.

Which only served to make Tommy feel more uncomfortable. He nodded tightly, watching Techno turn around and whistle for Apollo. The dog barked happily and followed its owner. That was good. Apollo could probably smell Dream's nasty stench from a mile away, he would alert Techno if the bounty hunters came by again.

Tommy walked around the house for a bit, trying to find a nice place to camp. They needed a room that had all the walls intact and the ceiling too, preferably one with multiple exits. He settled on the kitchen, because there was a barely damaged table they could use as extra cover. If Techno threw his tent over it, maybe it would almost be like the pillow forts Tommy and Wilbur used to make back at home. The fridge door had come off the hinges, leaning against the counter. A few magnets were still attached to the metal outside.

Tommy picked one up, turning it over in his hand. It was some sort of animal. Tommy thought it was called a cow, he'd been taught about them during his lessons. Most lactose products in the vault were lab-produced, but cows also made milk somehow. Kind of gross, in an interesting way.

He put the magnet in his pocket and set about unpacking their stuff.

By the time Techno came back, Tommy was quite proud of the little hidey hole he had created. It was almost like a cave. He even stole the less dirty-looking cushions from a couch to make it. Techno didn't comment, simply hummed his approval and grabbed some food before heading outside, where they'd be making the fire to cook it. Tommy grimaced a bit at the dried meat cubes that Techno was skewering onto a tin metal rod. Vault rations weren't the best, but Techno's cooking might possibly be worse. Tommy missed the bread Niki made for them that had run out yesterday.

"You should clean yourself up," Techno told him, holding out a bottle with a bright yellow tape around the bottom half. Tommy realized why Techno had gone through the trouble of marking it so when he screwed open the top and immediately got hit by the scent of chems burning his nostrils.

He gagged. "Fuck, man, what's in this thing, pure acid?"

"I wouldn't suggest drinking it," Techno said with a vague smile. "But no. Cleaning solution. Try to keep it away from open cuts."

"You're going to make me start missing vault showers," Tommy muttered. And that was saying a lot, since those were restricted to three minutes every other day, getting pelted by cold recycled water from plumbing that could never get the pressure right. Though Tommy knew he should be grateful, there were plenty of vaults where the water installations had failed years ago. He couldn't imagine the smell.

"Clean water is too valuable up here to waste on washing," Techno said. "You get used to it."

Tommy carefully upturned the bottle over his arm, using his hands to spread the lightly foaming white fluid all over. The color quickly changed into a pink tinge, almost similar to Techno's hair. Tommy kept rubbing until his skin stung with it.

"So, is it later yet?" he asked.

Techno, who was busy cleaning the bullet graze with a small wipe, looked at him. "Heh?"

"You and Dream. You said we could talk about it later."

"I already told you everything there is to know," Techno said.

"No lying, remember?" Tommy shook the cleaning solution off. "How did you two meet?"

With a deep sigh, Techno picked up a bandage. "When I was younger, I ended up in this place called The Pit. Real cozy town, definitely not named that for any suspicious reasons." Tommy chuckled at the sarcasm. "There's an arena there. I fought in it and so did Dream."

"Like prizefighting?" Tommy asked. He'd read about it in a novel once.

Techno took a moment too long before answering for it to be believable. "Something like that," he settled on, shrugging.

"And you escaped together?"

"More like we happened to escape at the same time. Some stuff went down, a riot. We covered each other's backs for a while."

Tommy pressed his lips together, poking at the fire with a stick. The way Techno was talking about it confused him, since he said before they weren't friends. But they did work together at some point. And Dream clearly thought there was a chance Techno would give Tommy up for money.

But he hadn't. He hadn't done that.

"If they try something again, I'll deal with it," Techno said. He meant for it to be reassuring, though Tommy wasn't exactly keen on running into them anymore. He kept thinking about those green eyes, the bruises on his wrist.

What the fuck did that guy even want from him?

"Meat should be done," Techno said. He picked up a skewer and waved it around to let it cool down. Apollo barked and put his front legs in Techno's lap, tail wagging a mile a minute. Techno laughed, pulling off a cube to feed it to him. Then he popped one into his own mouth and started chewing, only to hunch over.

"Techno?" Tommy asked, alarmed.

Techno didn't respond, chest heaving as if trying to hold something back. Tommy thought he was choking and his mind was already running fast-paced through the vault's mandatory first aid training. Would he have to do the Heimlich maneuver? Tommy had never tried it before, but he knew how it worked in theory. However, by the time he stood up, Techno had already spit out the meat cube and then some more, puking into the grass between his feet.

"Ah, fuck," Tommy cursed, now also trying not to step in the vomit. Not that his shoes could get any dirtier, but whatever. Techno grasped his own knees, gasping for breath. "Are you okay?" Tommy asked. A dumb question because the answer was obviously not.

"Can you…" Techno started, the sentence dragging out into a wheeze. With his arm, he was reaching towards his pack, which he'd brought outside with him when they made the fire. Tommy quickly went to grab it and brought it over.

Techno fumbled with the clasps so Tommy undid them for him. "What do you need?" he asked.

"Yellow bag," Techno managed to force out. Tommy shifted through loose ammo, cans, and other crap to find a small plastic bag tucked away in the bottom of the stash. He pulled it out, holding it up when he noticed a long piece of tube trailed from the bottom.

An IV bag. And it was partly filled with a strange deep yellow liquid.

"What is this?" he asked automatically, before realizing Techno wouldn't be able to answer in his current state. His concentration was fully on grabbing the end of the tube, sliding out the needle hidden inside. He hesitated, probably considering if he should disinfect his skin or something before literally injecting shit straight into his veins, but apparently Techno didn't think it was worth it. He simply slid the needle into his inner elbow with practiced ease, turning the valve so the medicine could enter his bloodstream. Tommy hissed in sympathy, even if Techno didn't have much of a reaction himself. Tommy held the bag up high for him, vaguely aware that was what one needed to do when giving an IV.

He waited a few minutes for Techno's hyperventilation to stop before he spoke.

"What the fuck was that?"

"RadAway," Techno said. Tommy turned the bag over, seeing that it was indeed the name crudely scrawled onto the label with a black marker. "It's medicine against radiation sickness."

"Like Rad-X?" Tommy asked. He'd heard about that stuff. He was actually thinking he should get his hands on some, he'd need it if he wanted to track Wilbur.

"No, Rad-X is preventative. It stops your body from absorbing radiation in the first place," Techno explained, still struggling somewhat with the words. "RadAway is what keeps me from getting sick."

"But you're a ghoul," Tommy said.

"Part ghoul," Techno corrected. "And that means I still get all the fun symptoms of radiation sickness. I just suffer from them constantly if I don't mitigate them with chems."

A vivid image came to mind for Tommy then. He didn't see his mother die. She was taken to the infirmary days before, and no visitors were allowed on the quarantine levels. His father just came to their room one day and matter-of-factly told him his mother succumbed to her sickness. And Tommy, six years old, a little confused why she'd been sent down there in the first place since she didn't seem that ill to him, was scolded as to not ask too many questions.

When his father died three years later, he did so in the middle of the night cycle, hunched over on the bathroom floor with a fever. Tommy informed the overseer himself.

"You should take your meds properly if you start puking without them," Tommy said sternly. Techno closed the valve on the IV bag.

"I'm rationing. I don't have a ton left over, so half doses are better than none. I can cope."

"Cope with what?"

Techno hissed through his teeth as he pulled the needle out, going about rolling the tube back up. "Nausea, vertigo, headaches… It doesn't get much worse than that unless I skip too many doses."

"We should get you more RadAway then," Tommy said. The bag only had a third left in it.

"I'm always on the lookout," Techno said. "You don't exactly find these lying around." Less shaky than before, he pulled his pack towards him and stowed the medicine away. "Sometimes you can find them in vaults or settlements, but I don't go into them often. Not sure if you noticed, Tommy, people aren't jumping for joy to see me."

"Because you're part ghoul?" Tommy guessed. Techno did say he had a bad rep because of it.

"They think I'll be feral."

Tommy frowned. "You're not though."

"Doesn't matter to them," Techno answered. He pushed his pack away with a grunt, kicking some sand over his vomit to cover it up. "Eat before the meat gets burnt."

Tommy went to sit back down again. "Is Dream a ghoul too?" When Techno stared at him in surprise at the question, Tommy shrugged. "I knocked his freaky mask off. He was all rotten under there."

"Yeah, he is." Techno didn't try to eat again, content to feed the rest of his meat to Apollo. "In other words, don't feel too bad about stabbing him some more next time. He's a full ghoul so it won't kill him."

"How come you only partly turned anyway?" Tommy asked.

"Guess I'm just built different."

Tommy squinted at him, almost making another remark about not lying to each other. Techno held up his hand before he could.

"Seriously, I have no clue."

Dissatisfied, Tommy picked up a skewer. "Yeah, whatever."

He was too tired to argue, despite not really believing Techno didn't know. How can you become part monster and not find out why? Seemed pretty fucking weird to him.

He'd worry about it tomorrow though, when he also had time to worry about finding Rad-X and whether Dream was still stalking them and where the hell Wilbur went off to and why anybody would put a bounty out on his head.

The adults in Tommy's vault were right. The surface definitely sucked.

Techno wouldn't say he missed Tommy's constant chatter, but he'd forgotten how eerily quiet it could get without somebody talking his ear off while he walked.

He was used to the silence. Actually, to be honest, it was probably less preferable to walk around making a bunch of noise. It could draw unwanted attention and get them noticed by somebody dangerous, or it could prevent them from hearing a threat sneaking up on them. Deathclaws weren't exactly subtle, but humans could be. So Techno knew the silence was better, safer.

However, the silence was also extremely uncharacteristic for Tommy - which concerned Techno. Somehow, in so little time, Techno had gotten used to Tommy being all happy and chatty all the time. And Tommy not being like that almost made Techno feel bad for him, or at the very least it made him uncomfortable.

"Are we there yet?" Tommy asked while kicking at a rock, the first words he'd spoken in almost three hours. Apollo bounded ahead to go after it, but couldn't get it into his mouth to pick it up and slobbered all over it instead, licking at the gravel.

"Snowchester? Nah, that's days away," Techno answered. He didn't even need to consult the map for that.

Tommy did a weird thing with his face that was half-frown and half-pout. "Okay, that's… that's good. And then we split up, right? You're going to go off doing your scavenger things, and I'll just… I- whatever." He kicked another rock. Techno rolled his eyes at the sour attitude.

Okay, fine, Techno could imagine it wasn't the greatest feeling in the world to know you had people who wanted to hunt you down. But Techno had lived with that for years, and he was fine. Tommy could cope. He needed to keep his head in the game before they both died.

"It's a good idea to come up with a plan of what you'll do after," Techno said carefully.

"I know that," Tommy bit out, more annoyed.

"What was your plan before you ran into me?" Techno asked. "You couldn't have left the vault not knowing what you were going to do next."

Hesitantly, Tommy glanced at him while continuing to walk. Techno groaned.

"Seriously? Anybody else could have been out there when you came up. You got insanely lucky."

"Not really, since you're going to abandon me anyway," Tommy said.

"I'm not abandoning you, I'm doing my agreed part," Techno said. He readjusted the bag on his shoulders as they trudged uphill. To avoid any more unpleasant encounters, they were not taking the roads but rather traversing straight through the wasteland. Though sometimes it was hard to see where old roads were. Techno could see some asphalt up ahead.

"I kind of hoped you'd have changed your mind by now," Tommy admitted.

"Changed my mind about taking you all the way to vault-tec?" Techno asked. Tommy nodded. "Not very likely."

Tommy wiped the sweat from his brow, also exhausted from the climb. "You're not a little curious?"

"About where your brother ran off to?"

"About why Dream and his fucking friends are trying to kidnap me! Since it's probably connected and all."

"They're after you because somebody paid them to," Techno said. "It's that simple." Tommy scowled and was about to say something else before Techno cut him off. "And no, I'm not curious."

"Ugh, fine, be a jerk." Tommy kicked another rock.

Subtly, Techno smiled. Getting Tommy fired up about something was better than the tense silence. He just also genuinely didn't want to get involved. Techno had survived this long by keeping his nose out of other people's business. He wasn't about to change that formula.

They finally came to the top of the hill and Techno pulled out his binoculars to survey their surroundings, but Tommy grabbed his sleeve, pulling his arm down before he could even look at anything. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at a piece of metal gleaming in the sunlight. Techno squinted, swallowing down some quip about how he would have been able to tell Tommy if the kid hadn't interrupted his surveying.

"I think it's a playground," Techno said after a moment.

The play equipment was rusted and warped, had definitely seen better days, but a few pieces were left standing. Techno was often flabbergasted at what seemingly random stuff had survived the nuclear war. He found an intact fridge, a couple buildings that definitely should have collapsed, and on one notable occasion a completely functioning car wash. Apollo had enjoyed that discovery.

"Damn," Tommy said with a wide grin. "I've never seen one." He started to skip down the hill, mood instantly lifted. Sometimes, Techno could make heads nor tails of that guy.

"They didn't have underground playgrounds in your vault?" Techno called after him, following Tommy down.

"No?" Tommy said. "That would be ridiculous."

"Mine had one," Techno said.

Tommy came to such a sudden stop he almost toppled over, feet digging into the sand. He waited for Techno to catch up before continuing at a slower pace, walking side by side. "I thought you didn't live in a vault?" he asked suspiciously. They did have that whole talk about mutual honesty.

"I didn't. But my parents told me about the one they were born in. And I visited it once."

"Oh…" Tommy seemed a little disappointed at the answer. Maybe he'd almost hoped to catch Techno in a lie somehow.

"Most vaults look different on the inside, in my experience," Techno added. He didn't know why, but he'd been in about a dozen vaults across the country over the years, and while the layouts could sometimes be roughly similar, they were never exact copies. A little strange considering they were all made by the same company.

There could be a completely plausible reason, though. Maybe the ground composition or population density of the area altered how the vaults were built?

They came to the edge of the playground and Techno watched Tommy take it in. A truly pathetic patch of once-childlike joy that was reduced to a paltry pile of rubble by the bombs, with a few things left standing. Tommy laughed, as if he was so glad to see it. As if he was impressed by it.

"This is amazing. Kids came out and played on these?" he asked.

"I guess," Techno said.

"I bet it was a lot of fun. Maybe there was a whole park here." He looked around, but they couldn't really decipher if there had been anything else or not. Tommy started to walk towards a seesaw. "Do you know how this one works?"

"Yeah, you just sit on it," Techno said, continuing to follow him.

Tommy sat down on the lowered end, shifting his hips back and forth a bit. Obviously, nothing happened. "Now what?" he asked.

"Now I do this." Techno used his hand to press down on the empty seat, lowering it while Tommy shot up. Tommy squeaked in surprise, gripping the metal tight lest he fall off.

"Oh, you need to sit down too," Tommy realized, eyes widening. "So we can go up and down." Techno was keeping the other end down with his foot.

"I'm not sitting on this," he said firmly.

"Why not?" Tommy asked, leaning back. The shifting of his weight almost made Techno want to lift his foot away. Gravity would make quick work of Tommy… In his defense, it would be extremely funny.

"I don't want to get my pants dirty," Techno said.

Apollo barked and put his front paws on the middle of the seesaw, uncomprehending why they were so occupied with it but wanting to play along regardless. His claws scrambled against the bar, except the front part of his body fell off when he dragged up his hind legs. Techno laughed, making a grab for the dog's collar before the silly thing hurt itself.

"It doesn't seem safe either. You're going to get tetanus or something," Techno said, pulling Apollo away from the rusty metal.

"I won't. I've had all my shots," Tommy said proudly.

"You know what tetanus is but not a seesaw?" Techno asked. Tommy was getting a bit too squirmy for his tastes, and he grabbed the seat again while taking his foot away, so Tommy's end could come down and he could hop off.

Tommy shrugged as an answer, already walking towards another piece of playground equipment. A swing set. On the first seat, one of the chains was broken, leaving the swing itself to lie on the ground in a pathetic coil. The other swing had two unbroken chains.

"This is the thing people push each other on, right?" Tommy asked, flopping down on the canvas seat. Looking at it a bit closer, Techno actually wondered if the playground wasn't constructed after the war. Possibly nomads camped out there before and fastened up something quick to entertain their kids. It wouldn't be the first or last time traces of other survivors were repurposed by new travelers.

"Yeah," Techno said. Tommy was staring at him expectantly. "What?"

"So are you going to push me or what?"

"You're insufferable," Techno said. But he did walk to stand behind Tommy.

The thing was, the silence had truly become suffocating. And Tommy's constant jumpiness was equal parts concerning and annoying. If humoring the teen for a while so he could play pretend on some crappy old playground would make him feel better about being hunted for sport, Techno would take it.

Tommy was already using his legs to propel himself slightly forward and backward. Techno gave him a firm push, stepping back to avoid being hit in the face on the opposite swing.

"Is it everything you ever wanted it to be?" Techno asked flatly.

Either Tommy didn't pick up on his sarcasm or the wind rushing in his ears had made him misunderstand the question, because he nodded eagerly. "Yeah, this is cool."

"You're a bit too old to be the demographic for a playground," Techno said.

"The demo-what?"

Techno gave him another firm push, sending Tommy carreen higher. Tommy yelled, which then also made Apollo bark where he was jumping up to try and catch the trailing shoelaces of Tommy's sneakers. Techno looked around, because this certainly wasn't anywhere in the realm of safe anymore. A group of raiders could hear them easily.

Nothing, though. Nothing but wasteland, hilly terrain, a few burnt-out cars that Techno would be scavenging if he hadn't signed up for this impromptu escort mission.

"A vault!" Tommy screamed suddenly. Techno turned so rapidly that the swing seat almost slammed into his face because Tommy had jumped off at the highest point. He landed with a pronounced oomf and a buckling of his ankles that Techno thought looked a bit painful. Not that Tommy reacted.

He was pointing ahead, into the distance.

"I swear, I saw a fucking vault entrance. It's hidden by some rocks and shit, but when I went up I could see the sign," Tommy said, grinning proudly at his discovery.

"Are you sure?" Techno asked. He'd been in this area once or twice and never spotted a vault before.

"I'm sure," Tommy insisted. And Tommy would have no reason to lie about that anyway. "Should we check it out?"

"Maybe," Techno said.

Vaults were always risky. Some of them were still in use and had defensive measures against outsiders. Vault dwellers seemed to think they lived in small utopias compared to the surface, so they believed wastelanders would want to invade. Even an old vault that got abandoned years ago could be unsafe, loaded with military technology like protectrons.

"They might have your medicine though," Tommy said.

Techno shifted. He wasn't used to others knowing about his radiation sickness and the things he did to ward off symptoms. Niki was basically the only one who knew the extent of it. As a result, he also wasn't used to others worrying that he could get ill.

"If it hasn't been looted already," he said. But he could tell from the look on Tommy's face that he really wanted to check it out. As long as they kept their wits about them, it should be fine.

"We won't know until we check," Tommy said.

Techno nodded. "I suppose it's worth the small detour."

Finding the vault after Tommy had only caught a glimpse of it from afar was easier said than done. Tommy said he saw some rocks, but that was describing practically half of the terrain this far out. Rocks and sand, a few dried-up shrubs desperately clinging to life. The Great War had decimated most of the ecosystem.

"There's something over here." Tommy pulled away some branches.

Time had made the blue and yellow logo of Vault-Tec fade into almost nothing. The sign was askew, and the arrow too hard to make out.

"Nice find," Techno said, which made Tommy smile. He searched the direct area around the sign until he found the hatch in the ground, covered in sand. Techno needed to unbury it first. Kneeling, he slid his fingers around the edges when he was done.

"This is the entrance?" Tommy looked at it in confusion. "The exit to my vault looked nothing like that."

"Most vaults have multiple entrances and exits in case one gets blocked," Techno said. "Besides, I already said they're not all the same."

"It's tiny."

"And it's already been cracked open," Techno said. He could feel that the seal was gone, the screws on the hatch lifting up a few inches since it didn't have to accommodate an airtight environment anymore. After the war, somebody either exited or entered through this thing. But obviously that didn't mean the vault was empty.

Techno opened the hatch with a turn of the cog that sat on top. He peered into the darkness for a moment before grabbing his flashlight and tossing it at Tommy.

"Be careful," he warned, then slid himself down through the entrance.

Tommy scrambled to follow him, bumping into Techno as he clambered into the too small tunnel. Up top, Apollo sat down and whined, casting a shadow into the hole.

"Stay," Techno told him. Apollo made another soft noise but did lie down. He never wanted to follow Techno underground.

"What if somebody comes by while we're down here?" Tommy asked. He'd grown very attached to Apollo in just the week they'd been travelling together.

"Nobody will pay a stray any mind," Techno said. He took a step into the tunnel, feeling the incline under his feet. He'd given Tommy the flashlight because, as a part ghoul, his own eyes were a bit better adjusted to the darkness. Not fully though.

"Man, it's dark," Tommy said a moment later, stating the obvious. Techno chuckled.

"Yeah, that's what no windows will do to a place." He used his hand to feel the walls on either side, making sure they couldn't miss any doors or passageways. Eventually, they reached the end of the maintenance way. Since that's what Techno assumed this was. A proper hallway used for people in daily vault life wouldn't be so narrow.

He tried the handle.

The door opened, and instantly, Techno was blinded by the lights coming to life. He hissed when the harsh fluorescent made his eyes sting. A deep hum filled the air, and pressed against him so closely they were practically touching, Techno could feel Tommy tense up.

"Are there people?" he asked, trying to glance around Techno.

But Techno relaxed and stepped into the room. "Nah, just the emergency generator kicking in."

The lights were motion-activated, and so was the oxygen flow that sluggishly pumped stale air around the vault network. Techno could feel his breathing get a little less strained compared to the tunnel, but not by much. The air wasn't 'fresh' to put it mildly. Fine for a couple of hours, then they should get out. Searching this place shouldn't take too long anyway.

"It looks abandoned, but keep your eyes peeled," Techno said. Opening the nearest cabinet, he started rifling through stuff quickly. He'd done this a million times before.

"What does your medicine look like?" Tommy asked, pulling on a drawer.

"You saw it the other day? It's a bright yellow bag that says RadAway, can't miss it." Techno closed the cabinet again. "You won't find any in here though, this is a pantry."

"Oh…" Tommy dropped a random fork.

"They might have a proper medbay or something." Techno stepped out of the pantry and into the kitchen. Emergency exits were usually in covert places. The kitchen was a mess, with items left lying around in disarray. From where Techno could look into the canteen, he could see furniture overturned. Maybe the vault dwellers left in a hurry.

"Should we split up?" Tommy asked, also looking around.

Techno hesitated. He wasn't too fond of that idea. Tommy hadn't done anything too stupid yet, but he was obviously green at everything that came with surviving outside of a safe, controlled environment. So far he'd dodged all bullets - both the proverbial ones and the literal ones. Techno didn't think that would last forever.

On the other hand, this vault was pretty sizable, and Techno didn't want to waste too much time. Maybe letting Tommy check a few empty rooms out by himself would be fine. What's the worst that could happen?

"Don't touch anything that looks suspicious," Techno said. "Leave all the doors open, scream if you need me, okay?"

"Yeah, I'm not stupid." Tommy turned and thudded off, as if the warning was a slight to his person. Maybe it was. Techno wouldn't need to caution another wastelander against doing something foolish. It was common sense.

He had a bad feeling about this.

But Techno pushed it aside, left alone in the room as Tommy's footsteps echoed away from him. Scavenging through vaults was simple. The highest priority was chems and medications, found in medbays and sometimes the Overseer quarters. Any kind of machinery room could be interesting for mechanical parts. Food was the lowest priority. Most vaults had their own food source through underground farming and chemical labs that produced artificial nutrients. When the vault became defunct, so would those food sources. Maybe they'd left a few cans lying around somewhere, but it was a long shot.

Techno just had to stick to his usual routines. Tommy's presence shouldn't change anything.

He started methodically going room to room, heading in the opposite direction. Every place was briefly looked over, only searched if the first observation would betray it holding something valuable inside. Techno soon found several offices. Looked like Tommy had gone off towards the living areas, which should be less interesting to scavenge, but at least Techno didn't have to worry about the teen accidentally turning on some kind of old vault self-destruct protocol.

After a bit, Techno did find the medbay. Predictably, the place had been ransacked before whoever lived there left. No RadAway, and no Rad-X either. If they couldn't find anything else useful, this detour had been for nothing aside from satisfying Tommy's curiosity of seeing another vault.

"Techno!" Tommy's call came from down the hallway. Techno popped his head out of the room he was currently searching.

"Yeah?"

"Do we need dog toys for Apollo?"

"What?!"

"I guess they had dogs in here or something? They have animal cages and stuff lying around."

Strange. Techno hadn't ever been to a vault where they had animals before. Keeping anything else alive aside from the overcrowded population would be a waste to most.

"Don't grab more than you can carry," Techno called back. He heard a muffled answer, then Tommy throwing something closed with a thud. He went into the next room.

This must have been the Overseer's office. One wall was completely covered in screens, currently all turned off. There were papers on the desk, the wall, a corkboard with little strings that attached pictures with words. Techno couldn't read all of them. Or he could read, he just didn't know what the words meant. Except for one that definitely stood out.

Experiment.

He picked up a few of the papers, looking at the room numbers and the notes that were taken in accordance with each living unit. They were complete nonsense to him.

What the heck had been going on in this vault? Was this normal?

Techno looked at the screens, at the moment each a blank square of nothing. Curious, he flicked a few buttons and watched the still operating ones come to life. Not all of them, maybe the wiring had broken down on some. But even with the few that did still function, the view of a dozen different living units made a tense feeling drop into Techno's gut.

They were… watching their residents. Techno supposed that could make sense for security and stuff. Except he couldn't quite get himself to believe that was all this was about.

He saw Tommy on the screen, searching through a room. Maybe it was the one he mentioned before with the animal cages, since it had a few in them, and a kennel sort of area. Techno watched as Tommy messed with the spring lock on one.

He also saw the wire that ran from it up into the ceiling.

Techno was already out of the room by the time he heard Tommy screaming. He didn't have to see the trap snap shut, or the damage it could do to the vulnerable flesh of Tommy's fingers. How could Techno have been this stupid? How could he not have thought about the fact that once a vault gets abandoned, some stragglers usually are left behind. And they built traps to protect themselves from looters.

After all the vaults he searched, Techno barely thought to mention it. He knew the signs to look out for. Tommy wouldn't.

By the time Techno made it to Tommy, he was already sitting on the floor with his back pressed against the wall. He was holding his wrist in his right hand, while staring at the three remaining fingers on his left hand.

The other two were stuck in the trap's spring lock system, torn clean through when the device snapped shut.

Tommy wasn't making any noise anymore. His chest was moving, rapid little bursts like he was hyperventilating without making a sound. Techno knew this was bad. Tommy had lost a lot of blood, splattered all along the tiled floor, and while it wasn't enough to kill him it would certainly make him go into shock if Techno didn't do anything soon.

"Tommy?" Techno knelt beside him and pushed his pack off his shoulder, digging through it. He kept some first aid stuff on him. Amputations were new, though. Techno had never dealt with one before.

"It-" Tommy tried to say, but his lips trembled and he was pale, and Techno had a sense Tommy was about to puke. So he shook his head.

"Don't talk. Listen to me. Keep pressure on this." He started to wrap the stumps in cloth. "We'll figure something out."

"Figure what out?" Tommy asked slowly. Yeah, definitely shock.

"Did you find anything useful?" Techno asked, trying to distract him.

"Toys for Apollo."

Techno snorted. Not exactly what he would call useful.

"That's great, Tommy." With a firm grip on Tommy's elbow, Techno helped him upright. "I know where to go." Not that Techno was too thrilled about it, but desperate times would call for desperate measures.

After all, Pandora had a strict policy of shooting first and asking questions later.

That was not the reason Techno hated that settlement. No, his grievances were more personal in nature. If he had a choice in the matter, Techno wouldn't have gone back there willingly in a million years.

However, Pandora was also the one place Techno could think of that would help Tommy's current situation. They had a lot of experience with this sort of issue.

Techno hoped the sight of another person leaning on him, clearly in bad health, would be enough for Sam not to open fire at the sight of him.

Tommy woke up in a lot of fucking pain.

Most of it seemed to be centered around his hand, little spasms of it that traveled up Tommy's wrist into his shoulder, and back down too. But there was plenty of hurt to go around. His throat. His chest. His leg. All of it. All of him.

He hadn't been in this much pain since he was a kid and they'd opened him up to take out one of his organs.

Tommy forgot which one it was. A useless one. One he didn't need and which actually would kill him if they left it inside him, so that decision was easily made. Tommy was better off without it. But fuck, had it hurt afterward. His father was still alive back then, and had let Tommy skip all his mandatory classes so he could lie on the couch while curled into a ball of absolute agony.

And Tommy wished he could do that again. But nope, the surface had shown itself time and time again to be cruel and more vindictive than his vault ever was - almost enough so that Tommy missed the vault more than he missed Wilbur - because as soon as he became aware enough of his body that he cracked his eyes open on instinct and a miserable groan passed his lips, a hand fell on his shoulder.

The noise Tommy was making got louder, and was only pushed down a little when the touch didn't get more forceful, simply lingering.

"Settle down," a voice said, presumably belonging to the same person whose hand it was. "You're okay. You're safe."

Tommy's entire face twisted together in annoyance. This person was hushing him as if he were a little child. And Tommy didn't like that one bit. "Wha-" The single word he tried to force out tapered off into a strangled yelp when his throat convulsed around the syllable. He felt more parched than the damn wasteland.

"Settle down," the voice repeated. "We don't have much here, but we gave you a stimpack. Don't push yourself, let the chems do their job."

At long last, Tommy managed to force his eyelids into a squinty little sliver, and looked more properly at the man standing next to his bedside. Tall, cropped hair, wearing makeshift armor and an oxygen mask that obscured his lower face. Tommy's head felt too light and too heavy at the same time, making it hard to think, but he knew he didn't know this man.

"Who the fuck are you?" he said.

"My name is Sam." Sam adjusted his mask as he sat down, making certain the tube wouldn't twist around or pull loose with the changed position. "I'm the leader in this settlement."

"What settlement?"

"Pandora."

Tommy didn't know what that place was. He didn't know how he got there or- Or what happened. He didn't remember.

"Where's Techno?" he asked.

Sam's face did this weird thing, where it almost felt as if his eye twitched without his consent. He adjusted his mask a second time, lowering it to hang around his neck. "He's here too. You should not worry about him for now, focus on yourself."

Techno was here in Pandora? Okay, good. That must mean he brought Tommy to this place. But why?

"What happened?" Tommy asked next.

This time, a smile ghosted over Sam's face instead. "That's what I'm trying to find out by talking to you."

Tommy frowned. "Ask Techno," he said. "We're traveling together and-"

The memory washed back over him then. The vault they found out in the wasteland, the one Tommy saw from on the swing set. They went in to explore. They went in because Techno needed medicine, but also because Tommy was curious and he wanted to see what the inside was like. They split up - they shouldn't have, Tommy could see how stupid that was in hindsight - and there were all these weird things, cages and little dividers and one-way glass, unlike anything he'd known back home. Tommy was confused by that.

His fingers moved, eyes drawn down there to his left hand. He got it stuck in something, didn't he? The entire thing was bandaged up, thick and wrapped in so many layers it was more like a round stump sitting on the end of his arm. He inhaled shakily.

"Look at me," Sam said, touching his shoulder again. "Hey, Tommy? Look at me." He said the name with some uncertainty, probably because he heard it from Techno, not from Tommy's own mouth. But Tommy did make an effort to redirect his attention. "Your hand is in rough shape, you lost a few fingers. Nothing we can't fix up, okay? Answer my questions for now."

Tommy nodded, mouth dry and feeling like gravel. Sam was… weird. There was a kindness in him, he didn't seem threatening or make Tommy feel in danger, unlike some of the other people he'd met on the surface. At the same time, there was something hard about him. Something that reminded Tommy of Techno. The people in Tommy's vault weren't like that.

"Techno told me you're a vault dweller?" Sam said. Tommy nodded again. "How long ago did you leave your vault?"

"I don't fucking know, a month or two?" Tommy tipped his head back against the pillow, trying to ignore the crests of pain still washing over him. They were pushed down by something else, the stimpak, probably. Not enough to completely numb him, though.

"Do you know what your vault number was?" Sam wanted to know.

Tommy shouldn't. They never mentioned vault numbers when he was still living there, only that there were other vaults out there in the world. But when he left, he looked back before closing the hatch behind him, and noticed the numbers etched deeply into the metal. "Vault eighty something? I think."

Sam sat back a bit, thinking it over. Maybe he knew where Tommy's home was based on the number?

Tommy coughed, chest aching. Sam took a glass from the bedside table and leaned over. "You need to drink. Dehydration is best avoided." He helped Tommy sit up, strong hands offering support for his back so he could stay upright while he held the glass and tried not to spill. The hand he injured was Tommy's non-dominant hand, thank fuck. He didn't know what he would do if he'd gotten his right hand fucked up.

Once he lay back down, Sam's expression got more serious. "Techno said there are bounty hunters out for you?"

The reminder made Tommy tense. He'd really rather not think about it. "Yes?"

"Do you know why?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"Are you sure?" Sam pressed, and Tommy scowled at him.

"I said I don't fucking know, okay?" he bit out. And then felt a little bad, because Sam had been decent to him, so Tommy should at least try to return the favor. Especially as Sam sighed and sat back a bit to explain.

"As the leader of Pandora, everybody in this town is my responsibility. Bringing you inside was a risk if there are dangerous people after you."

"I-" Tommy started, faltered. "I really don't know. It might have to do with my brother."

"The one you're trying to find?" Sam asked. Seemed like Techno really told him pretty much everything.

"Wilbur," Tommy said. "He left our vault."

A beat of silence, Sam standing up. "Okay." He ruffled a hand through his own hair, looking tired. Drained.

"W-where's Techno?" Tommy asked. He tried looking around the room, the pain and exhaustion still preventing him from getting up or anything. But the space was small and crammed, packed tight with shelves and boxes. The cot Tommy was on felt more like an afterthought, shoved into a corner with a heap of blankets haphazardly thrown down on it. Nothing like the infirmary back in his vault.

"He's around," Sam said, which Tommy felt was annoyingly vague. "Get some rest, I'll have our doctor come take a look at your hand soon."

Sam closed the door behind him with a heavy thud. Tommy swore he could hear the lock turn before he fell back asleep.

Pandora's doctor was one of the coolest people Tommy had ever met.

Tommy knew that staring was rude, but he couldn't help himself. The guy's arm was entirely made out of metal! What the fuck!

"Can you move your other fingers?" Ponk asked.

And that was effective in dampening Tommy's joy. He glanced down, before quickly looking back up. His hand was… It wasn't pretty. His pinkie and ring finger were gone, almost down to the flesh of his palm. The wounds had been cleaned and sutured up while he was unconscious, tiny little nubs, and Tommy barely felt anything thanks to the small dose of Med-X Ponk had given him. But the mere sight of his hand was enough to nauseate him.

"We need to know if there's nerve damage," Ponk said calmly. They were almost a head shorter than Sam, dark skin and eyes, though their hair was starkly white-ish in color. Chems, Tommy assumed. Some of the people in the vault did that too to dye it, like Niki.

Tommy concentrated, doing his best to move his fingers. All three of them obeyed without issue, and even the little nubs quivered slightly at the effort.

"Good," Ponk said, smiling. "Means we can make you some new ones."

"New fingers?" Tommy asked, raising his chin.

"Prosthetics," Ponk replied.

"Like your arm?"

He didn't know if that was rude, either. He'd never met anybody with a fake arm before, especially not a cool metal one. Ponk knocked their fist against it, the noise almost similar to the vault door or something. So fucking cool.

"Not exactly. This is a salvaged part of an automatron. That's how I can control it using my Pip-Boy." Ponk showed him the device on their other wrist. Tommy had seen Pip-Boys before, a bunch of the adults in his vault used to have them. However, there weren't enough to go around for everybody, so Tommy hadn't thought twice about owning one unless he went into a specific job that was allowed to have them for their assigned tasks. And that'd require being a lot better at evaluations than Tommy was, actually.

"So you can move it?" Tommy asked, amazed.

Ponk nodded, and to demonstrate, slowly raised the metallic arm in an almost wave. Tommy tried not to gape at it open-mouthed. "It took a lot of fiddling and practice," Ponk said. "And again, only possible because the engineering was already there. Sam helped."

"What kind of fingers will I get?"

Ponk snorted. "Just normal prosthetics, I'm afraid. You can pick the color if you want."

Decidedly less cool than a robot arm, but Tommy would settle for it.

"Do you want to go outside?" Ponk asked then.

That also made Tommy perk up. He'd been in Pandora for a few days, always in the little cramped room. The only people who visited him were Sam, to bring him food and talk to him and keep him company, and Ponk, to give him wound care. But Tommy wasn't tired anymore and felt a lot better, and even without the Med-X he'd been feeling the pain less and less. So he was ready to get out.

And he really, really wanted to see Techno.

"Yes please," he said, making Ponk chuckle at his tone.

Sam and Ponk hadn't given him a straight answer about where Techno was, except that he was in Pandora and he was fine and hadn't left - something Tommy had been somewhat worried about because he knew Techno wasn't entirely stoked to have Tommy tagging along to begin with. But Tommy couldn't wrap his head around why Techno hadn't visited him yet? Maybe he was busy doing mercenary stuff. Or scavenging stuff. Or whatever Techno's job description was, he seemed to do a lot of things.

"Moving around will do you good. You're going to wilt to nothing in here," Ponk commented good-naturedly. They opened the door, and Tommy practically jumped up from the cot to follow them. The little room he'd been staying at was a sort of pantry. Sam explained they'd kept him there rather than the proper medical bay Pandora did have, because they hadn't known if Tommy could be trusted or not. Tommy tried not to be offended by that. He realized the surface was just kinda like that. Everybody was paranoid constantly.

When Tommy stepped outside, he immediately was hit with an intense wave of heat.

Pandora didn't look anything like Novac, the only other settlement Tommy had ever been to. Novac was constructed out of the leftovers of pre-war stuff, buildings and roads you could still kinda tell what they were before the bombs fell. Pandora looked as if it were built from the ground up out of trash. Sheets of metal, tattered tarps and ropes, mismatched bricks, all shoved together to make little houses and stuff, with staircases and several levels. A huge wall ran around the entire settlement. But the heat was the worst part. The sun sat high in the sky, cloudless and endless.

"Fuck," Tommy said, rubbing the back of his uninjured hand against his forehead. Ponk laughed.

"You get used to it." They wrapped the scarf they were wearing around their shoulder, maybe to protect that metal from soaking in the burning heat too. "Sam says the fact that it gets so warm in this part of the wasteland helps to keep us safe."

"How?" Tommy asked.

"Raiders don't really come out this far. Nothing to scavenge around here, and the temperature discourages passing through. Nobody comes to Pandora unless they're coming to Pandora, you know." Their voice was upbeat. "Come on, I'll show you around."

Pandora was a lot smaller than Novac, too. Maybe a few dozen people, including kids. Ponk said they had some animals and farms underground, which is where most of their food came from because they didn't trade with other settlements. Water also sat deep in the ground. They had a system that pumped it to the surface.

"Sam built most of it," Ponk explained. "Not the buildings. I mean the technology. He used to be an overseer, and was trained in engineering."

"He's a vault dweller too?" For some reason, this surprised Tommy.

"Came up top about ten years ago. He doesn't like to talk about it," Ponk added that last part with a shrug. "The only people who bother heading all the way out here now are people who need help."

At that very moment, Tommy spotted that the person walking past them had a metal arm too. His eyes grew wide.

"Holy shit, you did it twice?!"

Ponk seemed confused for a moment, but then laughed again and shook their head. "That's a normal prosthetic, nothing fancy about it."

"But you gave somebody an arm!" Tommy insisted. He didn't care if this one couldn't move on its own or whatever, the fact that Ponk was making limbs out of nothing was impressive enough.

"It's my specialty," Ponk said, not bragging, though clearly a little proud. "I'm trained in medical aids. That's why I say people come out here if they need help."

So if people lost a body part, they could come to Pandora to get a replacement? Tommy frowned at that. It was cool, yes, but also a little weird. Everything he'd learned about the surface was getting all scrambled again.

"Did Techno know?" he asked, not missing how Ponk's smile got a little more strained at the mention of Techno.

"He's been here before with an old friend," Ponk answered, "so yes."

That must mean Techno brought Tommy to Pandora specifically because he lost his fingers, and Techno knew Ponk would be able to fix him. "Where is he?"

"He's with Sam right now," Ponk said. "Are you hungry? We could get something to eat, get your strength up. And then look at colors for your shiny new digits."

Haltingly, Tommy nodded. He couldn't place it, but he definitely got the sense that something bad was going on. Pandora seemed like a good place, small and cozy. They hated strangers, yet helped people who needed prosthetics. They weren't selfish, like his vault had made all surface settlements out to be. They weren't selfless either.

They kind of just… were.

Man, all of this was so confusing. He wondered, not for the first time, if Wilbur was going through similar things. If the surface was as much of a mystery to him as it was to Tommy, as much of a surprise. If he'd-

If he'd also gotten hurt.

The thought made a heavy feeling pool in the pit of Tommy's stomach.

Was Wilbur traveling alone? Did he find somebody, like how Tommy had found Techno, with more experience to help him get around? In his letter, he'd practically begged Tommy not to follow him, and Tommy had anyway. What if that had been a mistake? Wilbur probably knew how dangerous it was. But that also meant he'd be more prepared, hopefully?

Tommy didn't know. He felt like he didn't know a ton about anything anymore since leaving his fault, and it annoyed him.

Hopefully, he could see Techno soon.

"Tommy?" Sam's voice pulled him from his thoughts. "Good to see you up and about."

"Thanks," Tommy said. "Ponk showed me around earlier." He was leaning against a railing right outside Sam's house.

"Yeah? And what do you think?"

"It's pretty amazing."

The pantry with the cot turned out not to be just any pantry. It was literally Sam's pantry, in Sam's house. Well, Tommy supposed that if Sam was worried about him being a potential danger to Pandora, keeping him that close so he could keep an eye on him made sense. With Ponk confirming he could get around without collapsing, Tommy had been granted free range of the settlement anyway. He could go wherever he wanted, except the underground bits.

He'd done that, explored Pandora. Made comparisons to the vault. Kids up there still went to school, people still had jobs. Everything worked more or less the same, at least within the walls of a settlement, with the main difference that Pandora wasn't as protected as a vault could ever be. Deathclaws, raiders, all kinds of things roamed the wastelands. If they attacked, these people had no choice but to fight.

"You're free to stay, if you want," Sam said suddenly. Tommy's fingers clenched against the railing. Well, his remaining ones. He'd picked out a metallic gold paint with Ponk earlier, for his prosthetics. But it would be a few days before Tommy could wear those.

"I can't," he said. "I need to go find Wilbur."

Sam did his best to offer a smile. "I understand."

"Besides, Techno isn't the settling-down type."

A surprised noise came from Sam, though he tilted his head away to cover it. "You can say that again."

"Where is he?"

"Tommy-"

"I know you're, like, hiding him from me or something. Why?" Tommy's voice was sharper. He narrowed his eyes at Sam a little.

Adults always did this. They thought that since Tommy was a kid, he couldn't handle the truth. That they had to lie in order to protect him from stuff. But that simply meant they were still lying. Tommy didn't care why. His father did it when his mother got sick, and he kept pretending she would come back any minute. Wilbur did it when he kept smiling and saying he'd stick around with Tommy forever. And Techno did it too, initially, pretending like he wouldn't leave Tommy behind if Niki hadn't changed his mind.

All they ever did was lie to him. Tommy was so sick of it.

Sam looked at him, really looked at him. He sighed. "Techno has been arrested."

"What?! Why?!"

Sam put his hand on Tommy's wrist, pressing it down against the railing slightly. Not painful. Reassuring? But Tommy didn't like it.

"I know you think he's been helping you." Sam saw something on his face that made him grin sheepishly. "No, I know Techno has been helping you. But he's not who you think he is."

"Like hell he isn't!" Tommy wrenched his arm free. "Where is he?"

"Tommy-"

"Where is he?"

Searching his face, Sam finally relented. Probably realized Tommy was way too fucking stubborn to give up on something like this. The man turned curtly, gesturing for Tommy to follow him.

Tommy's heart fluttered with a strange mix of dread and relief. The second one was mostly because part of him had grown scared that Techno was avoiding him on purpose. But his being detained made so much more sense. He ran after Sam, watching the man fiddle with the mask again. In Sam's pack, strapped to his hip, the tube ended in a metal cylinder. Ponk mentioned that during the time he built Pandora, Sam damaged his lungs pretty badly. He needed the extra oxygen to survive.

"Why did you arrest him?" Tommy asked. Sam looked at him over his shoulder.

"It's complicated," he started. Tommy's glare made him look ahead again. "Last time Techno was here, he brought along a refugee under false pretenses. They were after somebody within our walls."

"Techno was bounty hunting?" Tommy asked.

It didn't come as a complete surprise. Techno and Dream used to be friends, and Dream was a bounty hunter too. Techno mentioned that he took a lot of different jobs before, only recently deciding that scavenging was his preferred way to earn caps. But still… he lied to Sam and Ponk to sneak into Pandora, what, just to catch somebody?

"He wasn't hired to chase anybody specifically. An important item was stolen from another settlement, it's a long story. The person who it belonged to would do anything to get it back. And plenty of people knew that." Sam threw the lever on the elevator, gears sprinting to life so an iron chain could lower them into the ground. "So the thief had a lot of hunters after him."

The elevator descended, the noise it made terrible, loud. Tommy tried not to wince.

"And the thief came here?" he asked.

"They'd heard about Pandora and figured it was a good place to lay low." Sam barely contained a smile. "Guess they didn't take Techno into account."

"I don't get it, what does that have to do with you arresting Techno now?"

With a lurch, they reached the bottom. Sam's hand on his shoulder steadied Tommy, he hadn't expected the sudden stop.

"While in Pandora, Techno broke our rules. And then he fled before he could be held accountable."

The statement was made so straightforward. As if there was no denying it. Tommy couldn't argue with the fact that Techno might have been in the wrong back then, but it didn't make sense to him that they'd arrest Techno for it so much time later. And what was the plan, exactly? When people committed a crime in the vault, the overseer would decide what to do with them. Either kick them out if they posed a threat, or if the crime wasn't that serious, some lighter punishment, such as manual labor or solitary confinement. Though all of that was pretty rare. People mostly behaved. If Sam wanted to kick Techno out, Tommy could just leave, too. That was the plan anyway.

"This is Pandora's vault," Sam said.

They'd left the elevator and walked away from the sounds, the farms and the water deposit. Down a long, drafty hallway. A large gray door set into the wall, and that was the one Sam had indicated, even as they walked past that one too.

"It's not a real vault, is it?" Tommy asked. He could tell from the entrance. Though made of metal, it didn't look anything like his own vault or the one they visited with Techno.

"No," Sam said. "It's a safeguard. In case something goes wrong. It has enough room and supplies to last us for a few years. The elevator shaft can be hermetically sealed to keep intruders out."

"Gnarly," Tommy replied. Sam chuckled.

"There isn't a lot I wouldn't do to keep everybody in our town safe," Sam said gravely. "I want you to understand that, Tommy. It's my job."

"I know."

An overseer's job was always to protect their people. But from real danger, real threats. Bad guys. Techno wasn't a bad guy.

The hallway ended in another metal door, this one rusty and with creaking hinges. Sam used a keycard to unlock it. Then he pushed it open and led Tommy down it, past a row of iron bars. Holding cells like the ones shown in a few of the picture books Tommy read when he was little.

In the last one, Tommy finally saw Techno again.

He looked bad, terrible honestly. A wavering reflection of how Tommy had felt when he woke up, curled up pathetically on the cot. A blanket tangled around his legs, not looking very deliberate in its placement and more like he'd had a fight with it and lost. He was shaking despite the compressing heat that saturated the air this deep underground.

"He's sick because he hasn't had his medication in a while," Sam said. "We have some RadAway, but not enough to go around, so-"

"You should have given it to him," Tommy said, anger simmering below, deep down his throat. What the actual fuck.

"He's a criminal," Sam repeated, like before. Like it was the only thing that mattered. "Look, we'll figure out a way to give him a trial, and then maybe he can-"

"You're so full of fucking shit!"

"I'm sorry he deceived you, Tommy."

Tommy turned on Sam, pissed, so fucking pissed he barely recognized himself when he gave Sam a push. And he didn't know what that would accomplish, Sam barely took two steps back, before Tommy was jabbing a finger in his chest.

"Have you considered maybe you're the one who's wrong about him! He's not- He's not like that, Sam, he-"

Tommy wasn't sure what he was going to say. That Techno was kind, had taken him along to chase Wilbur down even if it probably was a bad fucking idea, Tommy wasn't stupid enough not to recognize that. That Techno was sacrificing his own time and safety to help Tommy out. That Techno could have abandoned him half a dozen times already, could have given him up for money, could have let him bleed out in that vault. That Techno has made a deliberate choice to go to a place that hated him because he wanted Tommy to have new fingers.

All of that. He could have said all of that.

But he didn't get a chance to, because then the lights shut off, and an alarm started blaring.