Author's note: I'm probably a bad person for writing this. Inspired by Patchwork, AKA Patches from Underworld. Enjoy!
Truth wanted nothing more than to go back home after taking baby Marie to her mother. The slave uprising was put down. So many dead that blood ran in the muddy gutters. It rained the day after Ashur's power was secured, but she thought the ground would never be clean. Her hands would never be clean. She'd down the right thing, she told herself. Marie would be with her family, and they'd treat her with love and care. Sandra would uncover the cure safely and maintain their society... somehow. Even if that meant continued cannibalism, the sacrifice of the slaves- for the greater good. There was nothing she could do for the slaves. Frankly, she felt that she'd done enough. Enough to ruin their already miserable lives. Slinging her railway rifle over one shoulder, she headed for the Wasteland.
"That place was the pits," she said into her empty mug in the Ninth Circle. Her third beer in an hour, and cigarettes stubbed out in the ashtray. People had been turning away from her on the road, saying she smelled. Figured the hours hunting trogs and getting sprayed with their gore and grime would have an effect on her. The sun was too damn bright, and her skin was pink beneath the thick sheet of grey dust.
"Another beer?" Ahzrukhal. He gasped in a rattling breath. "You look absolutely miserable. Tell Uncle all about it. Your misery makes a man like me very happy. And very, very wealthy."
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked over her shoulder. Charon, the enslaved thug, was watching her. He'd been watching her. Had been watching her when she walked in. She'd just come from the land of slaves, and here she was, in the presence of another one. Here was the chance to start over and make amends for her errors. If it had been an error. Fuck, she didn't even know if what she'd done was right or wrong, but no question about it, Charon should be free.
Free to go get himself killed like every other miserable bastard.
Her head rolled back to face the barkeep. "Hey. About your bodyguard, Charon. I wanna talk about his contract," she slurred.
Ahzrukhal had a blocky head and a greenish smile. "Is that so? I thought you had something against killing innocents."
Her stomach turned at the thought of more blood on her hands. "No. I'll give you a thousand caps for him. That'd be enough for the finest whore in Paradise Falls and all her friends." She counted out the money, flashing it in the light.
He seemed entranced and said slowly, "I suppose that could work... yes. Yes... here's the contract. And I'll take my payment in full. I'll give you the pleasure of informing Charon yourself."
Nervously, drunkenly, she did so. Sobering. This piece of paper meant he owned her- wait, uh, no, other way around. She owned him. Except she wasn't a slaver. She was going to tell him he was free to go and do whatever he wanted.
Charon was well armored, and taller than anyone she'd ever talked to. She wasn't intimidated. She'd logged over ten hours hunting Trogs, and she'd taken down a Behemoth. Granted, it was in an electrified cage...
"Hey," she started, but he gruffly interrupted with "Talk to-" which she interrupted right back "Whoa, whoa, hold up there. I got your contract right here." She waved it. "I'll be your new employer."
His stony face remained unchanged, but his voice was... astonished? Relieved? "You purchased my contract from Ahzrukhal? So, I am no longer in his service. That is good to know."
"Yeah, that doesn't mean you're my property-"
"Please, wait here. I must take care of something." He put a hand on her shoulder and walked by, heading on over to the bar. Certain words were exchanged and certain bullets, before she could do anything about it. There were screams. Ahzrukhal's head rolled into a corner, horrified and blood-spattered.
"Oh my god!" "He shot him." "We shouldn't fight..."
Truth was no longer drunk. "Whoa! What the fuck was that?" she sputtered when he, very nonchalantly, put his weapon away and said he was ready to leave.
He crossed his arms and calmly responded, "Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard. So long as he held my contract, I was honor bound to do as he commanded. But now you are my employer, which freed me to rid the world of that disgusting rat. And now, for good or ill, I serve you."
That was when she knew.
That was when she knew they would get along. She didn't know she wanted to fuck him until months later. (The polite term was "canoodle.") It was another month before she got the guts to tell him how she felt.
The day after that, when they got back to Megaton, back to her ramshackle two-story-box-on-stilts home, with the sun sinking past the city walls in a wash of gold and, yeah, more smog clouds, he started it. She set her pack down, put her gun down on the hat rack, and stretched. He cleared his throat.
"I don't have to sleep on the couch," he said.
She blinked at him. "What?"
"If you want, I could get in your bed and wait for you."
"Is this because of what I said, Charon?" she asked carefully, looking for expression in his light brown eyes.
"Yes. Do you wish to share a bed with me?"
"You mean, um, sexually?" Her throat went dry. This was actually happening? "Hang on. I've said this before, Charon, and I meant it, but you're my friend, not my slave. You don't have to do anything unless you want to. And I have to pee."
She ran to the bathroom. She'd been holding it all day.
Charon knocked on the door. "I do wish to. Is there anything I can do...?" An open question. It was a weight off her conscience that he wanted to, that he wanted her, and this was actually going to happen. Truth had gone over it in her mind, but the details were fuzzy. So her dad was a doctor. So she knew internal anatomy like the back of her hand. She was still a nervous virgin about to do it with a ghoul.
Was there something wrong with her, that she wanted him? Everyone held their noses around ghouls. She didn't think they smelled any worse than the rest of humankind; it only became obvious when up close and personal. Sitting next to him, or at the end of the day, when sweat and sun brought out their natural stink.
She washed her hands, clipped the nails, let down her hair, and rubbed her body with a handful of soap flakes and water. She opened the door. "Maybe wash, make sure you smell okay," she suggested, hoping his feelings wouldn't be hurt.
He didn't take it personally. "Sure." He didn't close the door before starting to strip down, and she turned away, blushing and fascinated all at once. He had no skin at all, yet he showed no signs that the air pained him. Worried she wouldn't be able to resist the growing urge to peek at what he was packing, she strolled upstairs with forced casuality. Her bed was covered in teddy bears. She pushed them aside and pulled back the blanket.
"Here goes nothing," she said to herself. She took off her halter top and low-rise pants. Naked. Pretty damn close, anyway. Hoo boy. She slid under the covers and waited. She was so tired that her eyes closed and she dozed off. She woke up when his weight joined hers on the mattress, and his arms encircled her.
Charon smelled like soap and gunpowder. She brought him closer. "You're still naked," she mumbled with surprise. He didn't feel as warm as bodies were supposed to. Weren't bodies meant to be hot?
He grumbled a stern affirmative. "I will kiss you now."
It was weirdly nice, considering he had no lips. His rough hands grabbed at her hair. They shifted together, and... and a few minutes later, nothing had happened. To his downstairs region. She pressed closer. "Something wrong?" she asked, tearing away from his questing mouth. He kissed her cheek.
"Hm. This is unusual." He sat up and examined himself. Now that the blanket was off, she examined him, too, and felt her face get hot. She could kill, kidnap, and extort, but look at a naked man- er, ghoul? That was apparently too much.
"Charon, you know I haven't done this before, so I don't know what I should be doing," she said, laying a hand on his knee. He looked at her, and self-consciously she placed her other arm over her chest.
"I had suspected as much. It has been some time for me," he replied gravely.
"How long?"
He thought deeply, without breaking eye contact. "Centuries. For all intents and purposes, my experience is nothin'. Ghouls have restricted bloodflow. I can't get it to..." He looked at the hand on his knee, the sun-freckled human hand, undamaged by radiation but weathered by the elements, young and scarred. Like the rest of her. "Huh. I have an idea."
Charon guided her hand to his weapon and helped her, in her uncertainty and constant questioning if she was doing it right or hurting him, set a rhythm until she could do it herself. He perked up and blood flowed where it was supposed to. Fascinated, she didn't stop, and his head hit the wall, his eyes closed. He strained to keep them open, to watch her, but whatever sensations she was inflicting on him were causing him to flinch. He grunted for her to keep going, and she did.
At which point his dick fell off in her hand. Dumbfounded, she stared at it. She had a dick in her hand. What the everloving fuck. That was not normal.
He slowly opened his eyes. She held her hand out. "Um... you dropped this," she said.