Chapter Text
A small child cried in pain. A small child cried out in the rubble of a small building and the word never listened. The world had gone deaf to the screams of a small child. Since the bombs had fallen, it was commonplace. The nameless child looked up with wide eyes at a mother who never should have been a mother, high on more chems than the child could count to.
She took a knife to him and cut him for each hit she took. The child couldn't understand and maybe the child never would. He couldn't understand why she'd hurt him. He couldn't understand why the hand that fed him hurt him.
So the child stayed hidden, abused and used as a personal toy, aching to be one of the children who he saw from a small hole in the rubble, children with parents who appeared to love them.
The child knew pain. The child knew anger and yet he still craved for the fake abusive affection, the love she claimed to harbor.
The child grieved for a childhood he'd lost, a childhood he couldn't understand. The child wished for a name, a family, and yet, all the child got was a mother with chems on her lips and strangers around her hips and the child grieved, grieved for something he'd never understand.
The child - the child ran away in search of something better, something new. He ran and he ached. He ached and he ran till he couldn't anymore and he fell flat on the floor.
He cried but no tears fell from his face. The child was tough, but he was not fearless. He whimpered as radroaches attacked him. He was too weak to fight them and they attacked him in swarms. He whimpered, covering his face after one cut a deep gash with its mouth parts.
He wanted to escape the pain, but he'd walked into more. He screamed, although his lungs ached and he couldn't make much sound. He'd take his mother over this. The chems. The strangers. Anything.
The child knew he was going to die. He was going to die from the bugs. He cried. He cried and he couldn't stop.
He barely noticed when the bugs were squished and pushed off him, but he noticed as he was picked up. Blood ran over his eyes and his vision was blurry with tears. He didn't know who'd got him, but he felt calmed suddenly. The person didn't smell like his mother and the chest he was nestled against was flat. He felt protected and warm. He snuggled into the stranger's arms, being carried somewhere.
As he fell asleep, he wondered if he was going to die. He wondered if the stranger would take him back to his mother, if he was just another of her strangers. But the child - the child had just tasted a blast of home. And the child knew he wanted that forever.
He lied to the stranger, claiming the death of his mother, and he was kept by him. The child made his home and was given a name - Washington. He had lied to the stranger, but he had found his home.
The child, now called Washington, was happy for a while, but he grew bitter at the childhood he had lost. He grew bitter at his inability to understand things that everyone else seemed to know.
He began to read eventually, helped by the person he had claimed as a parent. He sat next to him on cold nights and weary days, reading about a life before the bombs fell, a life where children were rescued and people were safe, a life where no one had to fight and the heroes were small and brave. The child grieved for this world, this world he would never know.
The child slept warm, safe, sometimes alone and sometimes next to the person who had claimed him, his new parent, when nightmares of his youth plagued him. He felt happy for a while. Secure, away from the abuse and the pain and the drugs. He had his dog tags to remind him of his name, remind him he was wanted. He had a name and he had a home. He was as happy as he could be. For now at least.
He should have known it was too good to be true, the child thought. He was now more of a teen. His mother had found him again and he hurt. He didn't cry. He knew she didn't like that and he didn't want to thirst. He screamed inside his head for his dad to save him, the once stranger who loved him more than the woman in front of him ever had.
She realised he was her son eventually and she decided she wanted too have a bit of fun with him before she sold him on. She yelled at him, told him to admit he was nothing, that he had no name, but the child knew it was all he had in this world. “Washington Alexander Noble,” he choked. He said it over and over. A defiance. A lifeline. He was Washington Alexander Noble and he knew his dad would save him.
He didn't admit to her he'd lost hope. He knew she'd throw him away then. Useless. She broke one of his adult teeth in a fit of rage, and the last of his baby ones. The customers who came to use him complained that he couldn't do as good of a job for them without them. He felt broken. Would his dad even want him when he came back? His skin itched, unclean. He urged to untie his hands and claw his skin away, but he couldn't.
The customers didn't like how feisty he was. The returners brought drugs after he'd kicked and screamed at them before. They calmed him. They made him feel happy - separate. They reminded him of home in a way. He performed their tasks for them and didn't feel disgusted. He felt calm and protected. Part of him knew that couldn't be further from the truth, but the other half…
He craved for them to come back. He craved for the substance they were giving him. He didn't care what they did as long as the drug was given to him. He became more eager, more popular, and gained more of the drug as his clientele grew. He was satisfied.
They brought less of the drug as time went on. Some brought food and some brought just themselves and a dose of pain and guilt. He was as angry as his mother was pleased by him, claiming that he'd make something good one day, that he'd be a good sell, a good income. She refused him the drug, taunting him. He grew aggressive as she kept it away. He needed it. He needed it. It was all he needed.
He began to lose himself under the haze of drugs. She asked him his name one day and he couldn't remember. He knew it, but he couldn't remember. She'd grabbed him by the hair and pulled him close to her mouth. He could smell the sharp tang of whiskey on her. “That's right," she whispered in his ear. “You're no one. No one cares.” She threw him into the cell and left. It was ages before someone else came with the drug and he let out broken cries. No one was coming for him. No one cared.
Some of the people who came to use him forced him to drink alcohol, preferring the hands and breath of the drunken child. The child gained a taste for it, anything like it. It made him forget. It made him feel better. He liked it. Some people left bottles in his cell and he drank them gratefully, to the point of passing out. There was nothing worth remembering anymore.
She took his pendant, his dog tags, one day. He struggled to remember why, but he knew they were important. He fought for a first time in a long time. He bit and he thrashed. He wished he wasn't tied down. He wanted to attack her for everything she'd done for him. She'd taken everything. He'd lost everything.
His dad crashed through the door and his mother met a swift end with a bullet through her forehead, courtesy of Ronnie. He clung to his dad once he untied him, glad to hear his heartbeat. His voice. He was aware of him speaking, but he didn't know what he was saying. It didn't matter. His dad released the rest of the children and some of the adults who'd been kidnapped. He escorted them to Diamond City, away from the hellhole. The child fell asleep in his dad's arms. He was home, he knew, and yet he craved for the rush of drugs and the feeling of elevation. He needed it, but he didn't know how to get it. He needed it. The child grieved for the loss of the cage. The drug.
The child was given a blue canister. Addictol, he was told. He took it and the world became better, he thought. More vivid. He remembered who he was - Washington Alexander Noble. But he wasn't who he remembered. He was quiet now. He'd had his innocence stolen from him. He mourned for the loss. He didn't know if he still had the right to be called the General's son. He was nothing as well, though, no one, and he wondered when the others would see.