First Kiss

Chapter 1/1

"What... what happened out there?" I said as I awoke from the haze of my sedated stupor. I found myself laying stiffly in bed in my Megaton home, barely able to move, due partly to pains from wounds, and partly to medication I was given for said pain before I completely regained consciousness. Butch was standing on the other side of the room fiddling with bandages and gauze, wrapping some of it around his own small wounds.

"Holy shit.." he started as he leaned his back against a wall to rest. He looked over at me, lying in a bed all bandaged up, and began to speak again; "Shortstack over here actually made it out alive. Congrats, kid, you're a bonafide tough-as-nails sonuvabitch. Didn't actually think you'd make it out alive.. but here we are, huh?"

"Yeah... I guess so." I replied to his statements of congratulations with a twinge of confusion. "But I'm still unclear as to what happened outside or how i ended up here. all i remember... is this blast. I think i blacked out from there on out."

"Yup." Butch said as he tossed some unused gauze onto a tabletray nearby. He paced to another side of the room before continuing. "I'm surprised i was even conscious long enough to drag our sorry assess back here."

"Care to fill me in?" I asked, and he replied with a simple "Sure". As it turns out, a rogue group of sentry bots had gone absolutely berserk on us when we were on our way up to the nuka cola plant, started firing missiles at us left and right. Apparently one blast hit me so bad i konked out, and not only that, but i was bleeding out pretty bad from my left leg.

"That's when i decided it was time to get the hell outta there and drag us back up to megaton. i was bleedin' pretty bad myself, but nowhere near as bad as you." He paused to look at the fresh wounds on myself, then continued. "I think we both passed out near the entrance, i couldnt take the walking much longer, and so Lucas carried us both back home. I woke up, took care of you, 'n now we're here."

I looked up disconcertingly at him from where i was laying and spoke; "Is that so... well, did you cautorize the wound?"

"'Course i cautorized the wound, what do you take me for, a fuckin' idiot?" he retorted nonchalantly.

"No, dumbass, not mine. I'm talking about the one I'm looking at right now." I said referencing the deep and bloodied gash on his forearm.

"Oh, uh... not yet, no. Figured I would worry about you first, then take care of myself after, since i wasn't dead-center in the middle of the blast." Butch stared at the floor trying to act all stoic as usual. "Y'know, it's no big deal, really."

"Well.. thank you anyway."

"Like I said, no big deal."

The room was silent for a few moments until i shuffled to sit upright. "Well, how 'bout i help you out now. I think I'm okay enough to do some of my own heavy lifting." I said, even if that was a lie. I guess I figured that after all he had done for me, the least I could do was return the favor. "C'mere, let me see some of those scratches." Butch shrugged and reluctantly sat on the edge of the bed where i was sitting, his back exposed to me so i could inspect. "Some of these are pretty bad..." I said as I grazed my fingertips over some of the lighter knicks on his backside.

"Yeah, no shit, pipsqueak." he said as he winced at some of the touches. "Could you maybe be a little more careful there?"

"Sorry." I started. "But you're sure i was really worse? like, really sure?"

"Oh, definitely." he said with confidence "I'd say you were severely concussed from a spat like that."

"Ohh, Butch is busting out his big vocabulary." I teased and could already sense the scowl growing on his face without even looking. "Must've really been that serious then. Alright, I'm no genius like my pops before me was, but if I picked up anything as the child of a doctor, I'd say we're gonna have to disinfect. Happen to have any rubbing alcohol on that tray?"