Let’s face facts, leaving all the companions in Fallout 4 together in one place is just asking for constant firefights, fist fights, and hair pulling (Deacon’s a dirty fighter) – so, of course, I do it all the time. Here’s a little play about how all them sitting down to share a meal would go.

*

[Setting: interior and partial exterior of dilapidated home. Lone table with chairs piled around it.]

Cait: Oi, what’s for breakfast? I’m properly starving over here.

Codsworth: Mum, I’ve just put the kettle on and have sliced up a small fruit tray for you. The porridge is just about set and a rasher of bacon is on the griddle.

Cait: What are you on about?

MacCready: The bucket of bolts means it’s thrown a pot of radiated water onto the fire and ground up all the tato blossoms it could find into this soupy muck.

Cait: I ain’t having with that shit. Give me some real food. I’m hungry enough to go ghoul.

Hancock: You know, I could help with that.

Danse: Attempt to eat any of us and I will fill your filthy freak head with bullets.

Hancock: Dishing up what you can’t take again there tin can? I’d like to see you bat that fat lip around outside of your power armor.

Piper: I don’t think he ever takes it off, not even to sleep. Is that healthy, to spend so much time inside all that metal?

Valentine: I never had much trouble, but then I don’t sleep neither.

Danse: You’re all being insubordinate.

MacCready: The tin can’s mad we aren’t jumping to attention. Yes, Sir. No, Sir. Know what I think. I bet he can’t get it up outside of his metal suit.

Danse: That’s none of your…

Curie: Oh, does Messier Danse suffer from a debilitating vertical malfunction? I could consult with some of ze wandering scientists and…

Preston: No, it’s a joke. An inside joke that I don’t want to explain…ever.

Curie: Ah, jokes. Yes, zay are very important for the mental health of your subjects. I know one. A vault-tec employee walks into a bar and says “Owe, I didn’t tell ze Mr. Handy to install a bar there.”

Preston: That was a…good try.

Cait: I don’t give a bloody rats arse about your jokes or Danse’s stick problem.

Danse: I do not have any…

Cait: Just get me some god damn food already!

Strong: Here! Strong deliver! [Meat collapses onto the table, rattling it]

MacCready: Is that…half a brahmin? Where the sh…where’d you get it?

Strong: Strong find food! Eat!

Piper: It’s raw, and blood is oozing all over the table. The hide’s still on! Ugh, and are those maggots on the skin?

Valentine: I’ve never been happier to be a synth.

Hancock: Looks fine to me.

Piper: Not all of us smooth skins enjoy the taste of dead meat first thing in the morning.

Hancock: Don’t knock it until you try it.

Deacon: Pretty sure that’s a caravan strap dangling off the back there.

Preston: Strong…

Strong: Yes!

Preston: Where exactly did you find this meat?

Strong: Outside! Fresh! Tasty! Strong give his kingdom for a brahmin!

MacCready: You stupid, fu…idiot. You killed the caravan’s brahmin?

Strong: Weren’t using it! Strong eat!

Preston: You can’t just rip the caravan’s pack animals in half, Strong.

Strong: Why not?

Preston: It’s not nice.

Piper: Or sanitary.

Strong: Strong not find milk of human kindness? Oh…What if Strong put it back?

Hancock: Now that’d be something to see.

Valentine: Afraid that ain’t gonna work, big guy.

MacCready: The caravan’s gonna be pissed, and probably looking for answers.

Deacon: Well, if anyone asks we can say Super mutants did it.

Piper: A very big, very foul smelling super mutant.

Cait: If yer all done being complete arses, can we get to some real breakfast? My gut doesn’t get fed and I’ll be needing to punch something hard.

Hancock: I volunteer Danse.

Danse: You don’t have the right, freak.

Hancock: Right, smight. My odds are on the firecracker laying him out in the fifth round.

Valentine: Five rounds seems generous, I’d give her three. The lady doesn’t mess around.

Danse: This is–

MacCready: I’ve got to give it to Danse.

Danse: Thank you.

MacCready: His type always cheat when you’re not looking.

Danse: I would never!

Deacon: See, I’d put it at a draw. Both of them punch the other out with one final blow and then boom, out of nowhere, a deathclaw…in a vertibird.

Piper: Have you ever tried speaking one sentence that wasn’t a complete lie?

Deacon: I was hoping to get my start in the newspaper business.

Piper: What are you implying, Deacon?

Deacon: Didn’t think I was subtle enough to be implying.

Curie: Zis is most exciting. I shall have to consult my data matrices on the fight mechanics and calculate a most likely outcome…Yes, after analyzing all possible metrics I believe Cait would be triumphant.

Hancock: Ha! The lady agrees with me.

Danse: A doddering pile of pre-war tech is hardly credible.

MacCready: Danse just discredited the entire Brotherhood. That’s got to be grounds for a discharge there.

Danse: You are all highly out of line. If it weren’t for my sworn duty, why I’d–

Valentine: Get your ass smacked around by Cait?

Danse: I have suffered enough of your barbs, synth! You’re little more than scraps of old alarm clocks and coffee pots slapped together to form a face.

Hancock: Ouch, he’s got your number there, Nick.

Danse: And the filthy ghoul is even worse. Hiding behind a facade of charm and claiming to serve the people while filling the Commonwealth with addictive chems.

Hancock: It ain’t a bad way to live.

Danse: Until you finally turn feral and one of us properly puts you down.

MacCready: I doubt you’d wait for him to get peckish.

Danse: Ah, yes, the hired gun. How could I forget what little you bring to the table? For all we know you are already in the Institute’s back pocket or could be for enough caps.

Deacon: Someone’s asking to have all his fusion cores swiped and replaced with tin cans.

Danse: You are worth even less than the bumbling Mr. Handy. When the Brotherhood finds every synth you’ve placed we will cut them down as the danger they are.

Deacon: Just keep talking there tin head, maybe one day you’ll believe your own shit.

Preston: People, could we all please settle down. There’s no reason to go tearing at each other’s throats.

Cait: I. Need. Food! AH!!!! [Punches wildly]

Hancock: Shit, never expected her to lay out Codsworth like that. Hey, you okay?

Codsworth: Yes, Mum. Just experiencing some minor NUKA-COLA: A refreshing nukalear taste! Glitches. Hamsters. All should be rain as spain in the morning.

Valentine: Okay, this is all fun and games but we shouldn’t…

Strong: STRONG PUNCH!

Cait: I been wanting to have a go at the big guy for awhile now. Let’s see how this ends!

Strong: Strong smash? [Cait lays into him]

Danse: I will not stand for this insobordinat- [Hancock whacks him in the back of the head with a tv tray]

Hancock: Gimme another one, MacCready.

Danse: You will wish you’d never crawled out of the radioactive muck, freak.

Hancock: Having to look at your oozing brahmin face already did me in.

Preston: Maybe I should head back to the Minutemen…

Piper: I’m staying. Ghoul vs Brotherhood: Fight of the wasteland? Could be a great story.

MacCready: Right, makes for perfect as-…wiping material there.

Piper: You think you’re one to talk?

MacCready: Oh no, did I make the plucky reporter sad? Gonna write a little article about me?

Deacon: Like they were gonna let you into Diamond City anyway.

Valentine: You could lone him one of your little dress ups, Deacon.

Deacon: Ugh, the wig’ll come back smelling like wet merc and cheese.

MacCready: Ouch, look how much of a sh…care I give.

Piper: You’ll be flattened by the power of the press. Just you see.

MacCready: Right, I’m real sure.

[Strong grabs the table and hurls it through the air]

Strong: No talking! More Fighting!

Piper: Couldn’t have said it better myself. [Piper hauls off to punch MacCready]

MacCready: Have to be faster than- [Piper lands a blow] Fu…dge! You’re going down!

[Danse bats Hancock away. Deacon and Valentine grab both of his arms]

Curie: Does zis happen often?

Codsworth: I believe we call this a Tuesday, Mum.

Curie: Oh, delightful. I shall observe and categorize each attack. Yes, keep your hands up. That is best.

[Cait leaps onto Strong‘s back, shattering the ceiling fan]

[Hancock grabs a broken fan blade and chucks it at Danse‘s head]

[MacCready dodges Piper. She stumbles into the porridge pot]

Piper: You bastard? Do you know how hard it is to get leather clean?

MacCready: Why don’t you write about it?

Danse: You will meet whatever unholy demon created you, ghoul.

Hancock: Someone’s all talk and no execution today. Bring it, tin can.

Preston: I just wanted some breakfast.

Valentine: At least it comes with a great show. Whoa!

[Cait chucks Strong through the window, breaking the last bit of glass in the house]

[Far away the Sole Survivor watches as Strong rises from his fall and returns for more. A few warning shots break out in the house, ricocheting across the wasteland]

Sole Survivor: This is why I only take Dogmeat.

Dogmeat: Bark.