#this is way longer than aby of the other whumptiber stuff haha

[x688plsloveme]

Whumptober Day 6 - Alt Prompt 1 - “Wake Up” (Butch)

“ake up! Wake. Up! C'mon Katie!”

Katie groggily opens her eyes, immediately seeing Butch’s worried face and hearing emergency alarms in the distance. Panic shoots through her like lighting, causing her to sit up to fast and become dizzy. When her vision refocuses, she sees Butch standing above her looking mildly irritated. He heaves a sigh of relief when he sees that she’s finally awake and hurries to explain everything. “Kates. Listen to me. Your father and sister are gone, they left the vault, and the overseer’s gone crazy over it! He’s locked Amata up, and I heard the guards talking about tracking you down. You need to leave the vault." He looks imploringly in her eyes. She's never seen him look like this before. "And you need to leave now.”

That woke her up quick. She looks at him disbelievingly and asks him, “You’re not pranking me again, are you?” She could see his sincerity, but she still couldn't believe what she was hearing...

He sighs and leans into her space even more. He knows there are people coming for her and he needs to get her out of here. “Listen, everyone knows I like joking around, but I would never play with something like this. Just-!" He takes a breath and calms down. "Just listen to the alarms and you tell me.”

Katie hears the commotion outside her room-the ear splitting alarms and voices shouting for everyone to stay inside. She massages her temples and mumbles, “Lord preserve me...”

She nods without looking at her friend and starts gathering supplies. Her favourite vault suit, her first aid kit, the cap she got from Stanely, and her stack of comic books. “Alright Butch. What’s the plan?” She sees him get a bit nervous and pull something out of his jacket and holds it out to her. She sees what it is and sucks in her breath in surprise. “I smuggled this gun out when we were being taught how to use the shooting range last year." He holds it out to her. "Take it.”

Katie hesitates but grabs the weapon before she can think too much of the implications of it. She knows she could never kill any of the people in the vault, but she doesn’t know what could be outside. The redhead takes one more sweep of the room and spots her bb gun. Memories of practicing with Jonas and Butch in secret makes her smile. Then her father's kind smile as her handed it to her all those years ago flashes by. And finally she wonders why her sister and him left. She grips the gun tight and makes a silent vow to find out no matter what. She steels herself and looks at Butch with a new determination in her eyes.

“Alright. What now?”

He can't keep her gaze with how serious it is and tries to distract himself with fiddling with his switchblade but still catches her question. “We gotta get to Amata and Jonas. One of em will know how to get outta here.”

"Well then let's hurry." The two nod at each other. Butch grabs her hand without thinking too much other than that he knows they'll need to stick together and they run out into the halls. Normally, Katie would be embarrassed with her childhood friend and crush grabbing her hand like that, but now is not the time to be thinking of that kind of stuff. She has to focus on getting out of here and finding her family.

When they make their way over to Officer Kendall, he’s already distracted by radroaches, and the two are able to slip past unnoticed. They are stop dead when they hear a scream that comes from Butch’s home.

"Ma!"

Neither of them thinks twice before sprinting in to help. They find Ellen getting attacked by several roaches while calling out for her son and it doesn’t take long for them to be dispatched thanks to her trusty bb gun. Butch had left the room to get medical supplies since they both knew how terrified he was of roaches. When he comes back he's overjoyed to see his mother relatively unharmed. “I didn’t know you were such a good shot pipsqueak! If you weren’t here I probably would’ve chickened out and she’d be a gonner. I really owe you one.” He is close to tears with relief and hugs Katie tight. Seeing that he should probably stay with his mom to check for any more injuries and calm her down, he pulls away and smiles at his friend apologetically. “I think you’ll have to go on without me for now Kates. Don’t worry, I’ll catch up.”

The redhead nods in understanding. She knows how much Butch cares for his mother. She also knows she’ll be more than fine alone. She’s always been the most sneaky out of all the vault kids, so there’s no way she’s gonna be caught by anyone and they both know it. That doesn’t mean she’s not nervous about going ahead on her own though, she just hopes that Butch will end up catching up before she has to leave for good.

She goes to leave before she's stopped by Butch grabbing her arm and turning her around. Her eyes widen when she sees him holding out his Tunnel Snakes jacket out to her. The usual bravado is gone from his face and is replaced with an unfamiliar sheepish look. His head is slightly bowed so he looks up at her through the hair dangling in front of his face and smiles.

"I told you I'd get you one eventually, right?"

He barely finishes his sentence before Katie grabs him into a crushing hug. She wipes her eyes and takes the jacket. "Thank you so much, I'll keep it safe I promise." He rolls his eyes and laughs, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. He looks more worried than anything. "It's your safety I'm worried about here Kates. That'll help you out with the roaches more than that flimsy vault suit will anyway." He grabs her hand one more time and squeezes it before letting go. He looks like he wants to say something else but thinks better of it. "We'll meet up at the entrance okay? Stay safe."

The pair split as Butch goes to tend to his mother and Katie soldiers on to find Amata and Jonas.

A ton of close calls and a lot of hugging between her and her favourite vault robot, mechanic, and security officer later, sees Katie sneaking closer and closer towards the overseer's office. She stops when she sees a very familiar body on the ground.

"Jonas!" She rushes to his side and immediate tries to administer stimpacks to her barely alive surrogate brother before she's stopped by him grabbing her.

"Katie...sweetheart-" He coughs up blood midsentence but still manages to smile. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you darlin'.

"Jonas I have stimpacks please-" She can't keep the tears in this time, they all rush out like a dam has finally been breached. Her hand trembles as he grabs it to stop her from wasting the stimpacks.

"Shh kiddo shh. Not even those will- ugh! Ah... N-not even those will help now so listen to me carefully. I have a tape that your dad entrusted to me. He told me to give it to you so you'd know that he and your sister are safe but..."

He uses the last of his strength to hug his favourite person in the world. He can die happy knowing that her and her family will get out of this hellhole and live. "It doesn't l-look like I'm gonna be able to watch it with you..." His grip slackens and she starts panicking even more. His voice is faint when he says, "I love you so so much Katie....never...forget..that..."

"Jonas? Jonas!! Please God no why! Why him!? why...." She allows herself another moment of grief before shakily getting up with the tape and Jonas' glasses in hand. She pockets both and after a final quiet goodbye to the person that helped raise her in so many ways and leaves.

It doesn't take her long to hear voices from down the hall where the vaults "jail" is. She sneaks closer to better hear what's happening.

"I told you! I don't know anything!" That's Amata's voice. Now she knows why Butch was the only one to wake her up. She was being held here.

"Now be reasonable, Amata. Officer Mack may enjoy this, but I don't. Just tell us where to find your friend so we can talk to her." The overseer. Aka Alphonse Almodovar. Ugh. A prick through and through. His cold calculating voice always sent a chill down my spine.

"I only sent Butch to her because I was worried. What does she have to do with any of this anyway?"

"Probably nothing. Which is why you need to tell me where she is, so I can talk to her." He pauses for a moment listening to her cries and sighs. "One more time."

"Yes sir." "Is that officer Mack..?"

Katie only has a second to wonder what that means before she hears a loud slap followed by Amata's scream. That's it. She's heard enough. She knew that bastard was no good, but to go so far as to hurt his own daughter? Complete and utter trash.

Katie gets the gun out and turns the safety off without a second thought before barging into the room. The Overseer and Mack turn to look at her. She aims the gun at Mack and he scoffs though she can see the wariness in his eyes. "Like you'll do anything with that. Do it, I dare you." Amata slips away while everyone is focused on the gun and Katie smiles sweetly.

"Well, since you asked so nicely." She lowers her gun slightly and shoots the man in the foot. He yells and falls to the floor. She makes sure to knock him out for good measure. "Not surprised that it came to that, but at least Amata will be safe," she thinks and before she turns to leave, she glances back at The Overseer.

"Oh and one more thing. Never lay a hand on my friend again or you'll regret it." He seems to understand, so Katie rushes out to look for Amata.

She finds the girl crying in her room, so Katie goes to sit next to her friend and lays a comforting hand on her. "I know you're not alright, so I won't ask, but will a hug make you feel better?" Amata laughs bitterly a bit but does accept the hug.

"Thanks girl. You always know how to make me feel better. I guess I should tell you why I was in there in the first place."

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

"No. It's important and I want you to know." She looks Katie in the eyes so she knows she's serious. At her friend's understanding nod, she continues. "I'll make this quick. So Butch probably already told you that your father and sister left the vault. Apparently your dad was going to leave without either of you, but she overheard him and Jonas and wanted in. Jonas...God. Jonas didn't-"

She sees her friend's face and stops. "Oh god Katie you didn't..." At her friend's nod her face crumples even more. "I'm so sorry."

All the memories she's had with him over the years suddenly come flying back all over again and she can't stop the tears. He was with her longer than anyone and to have him so suddenly ripped out of her life...she couldn't put words to the anguish she was feeling in the moment if she tried. It was now Amata's turn to hug her friend.

"I know it's a lot, but you have to still get out and find your family. There's a tunnel in my father's office that will lead you to the exit. I have the key, you just need the the terminal passcode. I'll stay back and try to calm down my father and throw any security off your scent." She pauses to give her friend one last hug. This is probably going to be the last time they see each other in a long time. "Please be safe Katie."

Katie wipes her tears and composes herself as best she can. "Thanks Amata. You be safe too. Your father seems a little unstable at the moment." The girls laugh and smile at each other before going their separate ways.

Before she knows it, our lovely protagonist is at the terminal that holds the vaults most secret information. It doesn't take long to hack into it, heck her father's only a doctor and his was way harder to break into. She skims some info but mostly just downloads it all to her pipboy to read through later. Her eyes catch on a picture of what looks like a giant metal wall and she sees the caption talking about how it's a short walk away from the vault. And the date that shows that they discovered this only 25 years ago. Her mind reels at the realization that the propaganda that was shoved down all their throats since childhood isn't exactly true. But she also knows she can't dwell on it too long so she stores away that information in the back of her mind and opens the tunnel that Amata told her about.

Descending it is scarier than she thought it would be, but she gets by with only seeing a few radroaches along the way.

Finally she reaches the entrance to the vault and while she states at the giant steel door that separates her from the wasteland outside, she's slightly overwhelmed. She gets knocked out of her daze when someone grabs her arm. She goes to hit them in the face until she sees who it is.

"Kates it's me! Butch-man! Don't damage the goods!" She stares at him with a blank face and he starts to get worried until her face suddenly falls and she throws her arms around him once again.

"Butch I'm so glad you're alive! I wouldn't know what to do if I lost another person dear to me." Tears are falling down her face for the upteenth time that day and now the greaser is more worried than ever. He pulls away to look at her properly and asks, "What's wrong? What happened to you, you don't look injured or anything..?" He trails off when he sees her face and all she has to do is mouth the word Jonas for him to pull her back into his embrace.

They stay like that until Katie stops crying, knowing that they'll have a few minutes with all the locked, heavy-duty doors in-between them and the guards. When she's completely spent she clears her mind of everything and pulls away completely. He makes sure to keep his hand on her arm however.

"I am glad that you are safe Kates." He gives her a bittersweet smile. "Now go on and find your family." There he goes again giving her that look from earlier like he wants to say something but is too scared to say it. She can't wait around to find out though the guards will be there soon and she doesn't want to put either of them in danger.

"Y-yeah. I guess I'll just go now." She goes to the console to open the door and sees that Butch is looking around like he still has something to say. The door's open now though, so she goes to step toward it and right before she steps past the door she hears a mumbled, "fuck it," and is shoved up against the wall to her left and immediately feels the pressure of one of her best friend's lips on hers. It doesn't take her long to relax into it as she shuts her eyes and grasps the front of his vault suit while he holds her close.

Their eyes flutter open at the same time and she sees his eyes soften at seeing the same emotion he's feeling reflected back at him and kisses her on the cheek. He doesn't move when he speaks. "I've wanted to do that for a long time doll. Sorry for being so sudden, but I felt like if I didn't do it now, I might not get the chance to and that didn't sit right with me."

The girl of his dreams smiles genuinely sweetly up at him and takes his hands. "This isn't the last time you'll see me Butch. I'll be back and I'll take you with me and we can go on adventures and leave the memories of this place behind together. But before that. I want you to help Amata here, Lord knows she'll have enough trouble as is with her father..."

Butch let's go of her hands and steps back. "Of course! I get it. Go and make a name for yourself. Find your family and I'll stay here to fix this mess so you won't have to worry about us for awhile yet. Just promise you'll come back for me. You know you'll get bored without me there to annoy you." He winks at his last statement and Katie rolls her eyes.

"Yes, yes, you're annoying. Got it." He feigns offense and they both chuckle. They gaze into each other's eyes until they hear voices from outside one of the doors. With one last peck, Katie sprints past the door and heads towards the door at the end of the cave she's found herself in. Before the vault door closes, she hears Butch say one last thing to her. "You better come back safe and sound Kates! Nothing better happen to you! I mean it!"

Even in a serious situation like this, she can't help but giggle. That man could make any situation humourous. She's so lucky to have caught his eye. Now all she needs to do is come back to him and hope that they're both alive then. But first comes her family. She looks straight ahead at the wooden door, takes a deep breath to brace herself, and steps out into her new life.

Finally got it done whew. That took me so long I really hope this posts well

#whumptober 2019 #altno.1 #wake up #butch deloria #my ocs #katie #catherine #he calls her kates cause ofc he'd have a nickname for her #this is way longer than aby of the other whumptiber stuff haha #which is probably why it took so much out of me and i didnt finsoh it until 9 months later #i cant help it tho #i love butch #i also live how painfully obvious it is on who my favourite characters are #fallout 3 #fallout 3 companions #amata amalvador #alphonse almadovar