I remember hearing things like once it is activated in steam you can play all you want without it, but I can't find a way to launch Fallout New Vegas now without it!

No, you have to run Steam. You can play in offline mode, but you still have to run Steam.

So every time I want to play I need to have steam and hit offline mode so my brother can play on his computer if we are sharing accounts?

I believe you can have Steam to always run in offline mode.

that's ghey, not really interested in having a steam account and was not happy about having to create an account after installing the game.