Another Unoriginal Oneshot Book

Ira et Patientia

AN: "Quick" miniseries for you all. Planning on seven chapters before we get back to the action. Part of what I had planned for it is endangered by something going on in my own life (writing it would hit too close to home), so I'll have to wait and see if the plan is still in motion. I figured if I was able to post a chapter I might as well, so this is what I've got. Leon is a character from Nuka Break, which is free on YouTube if you want more context for him.

Los Angeles, NCR, 2239
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A shrill scream floated in from the battlement, somewhere on the other side of the fort. A woman sat on a bench against an interior wall, holding her six-year-old son on her lap. The boy's half-brother sat to her left, frowning blankly into the same page he'd been frowning at ten minutes ago. The sounds of gunfire interrupted his focus.

"What are you reading, Eddie?" Diane asked, trying to fill the vacuum that suspended everything and everyone within these four stone walls.

Edward closed the book over his thumb, looking at the cover as if he'd forgotten. "Lord of the Flies."

"What's your story about?" asked Leon. He situated himself sideways on his mother's lap in order to look down at the pages. They didn't tell him much he could understand.

"You wouldn't like this one," said Edward flatly.

An explosion, closer to this side of the barricade, rocked the ground. Leon screamed and threw his hands over his eyes. Diane corralled him with loving arms.

"Eddie, how about you tell us a story?" she asked under her breath. "Come on, now. Just one."

Edward frowned harder. Leon was a needy little thing, and a constant inconvenience ever since Edward had been seven years old. He shouldn't have been Edward's problem at all, but their mother hadn't had much of a choice since his dad disappeared. At least Edward's father had had the good grace to die instead of running out on them.

He couldn't quite recall the raider attack that had killed the man. Maybe he had a faint image, but blurred together with all the other attacks he'd lived through, it didn't stick out as memorable. Raiders, these animals, were a constant threat in this region of California, and there always seemed to be more of them. Edward hoped to learn to fight soon, if only so his mother wouldn't run into some other man's arms for protection, and create another bratty half-sibling in the process.

Not that Leon was terrible, as far as six-year-olds went. Just whiny, sometimes weirdly intense, and always begging for a new story. His hair was thick and jet black where Edward's was fair and curly. Leon dreamed big. Edward made plans. Leon followed their mother around like a lost puppy. Edward was half-ready to move out, with or without her.

"Tell me one you haven't said before," Leon pressed, grabbing at his brother's elbow. "A good one."

Edward ripped his arm away. "If I had a good one, I'd have told it to you already."

"Think of one!" the child demanded. Gunfire hit the other side of the wall near where they sat. A toddler began howling, and Leon, overstimulated, punched Edward's arm.

"Ow! What is the matter with you?" Edward brought his book down on the kid's head with a sharp pop. "Either he's evolved about ten thousand steps backwards, or he inhaled too much fluid when he was born."

"Edward," whispered Diane, closing her eyes. Any attempt to civilize her boys left her overwhelmed. Edward may have felt bad, but it meant he had free range to do what he pleased most of the time.

Leon tightened his lips and glared. "Tell me tell me tell me tell me TELL ME TELL ME TELL M-"

"SHUT UP." As if Edward didn't already have a headache from the explosions. "Okay, I've got one I haven't told you. I read it a long time ago, but I'll try to remember."