Title: Battle Zone
Character Pairings: F!Lone Wanderer/Charon
Genre: Romance/Drama
Rating: T-MA+
Warnings: Explicit Profanity/Vulgarity, Gore, Sexual Content
Disclaimers: I own nothing Fallout 3.
Summary: 30 prompts from the "30 Bad Attitudes" Livejournal community concerning the past, present, and future events of Miss Vault 101 and her battle-hardened ghoul companion.
Recommendation(s):
Page Width: Keep story's width at "3/4"; adjustment settings are at the top-right corner of the site, where the different font styles and sizes are located. "3/4" is the original width that this story was written in.
Light/Dark: This chapter is best read on the light background setting because it deals with nighttime and dark thoughts.
Author's Note: This is the first "story" I've started in over three years now, so forgive me as I try to work out my rusty elbows and get into character with Charon. All feedback and critiques are, as always, welcomed!
Prompt: Why Do I Even Bother?
Son of a fuck!
He snarled something animalistic when a bullet sliced through the leather armor of his shoulder pad and out the back of his shoulder. Molten pain exploded outward in its wake but it never slowed his arm as he swung the butt of his shotgun like a heathen and made a fatal impact with the side of the charging Raider's skull, the combat knife that was close to plunging into his chest instantly thrown from her hand.
At least, he assumed it was fatal. The satisfying crunch of bone and the consequential crumpling of the body was not unfamiliar from his two hundred years of combat experience.
But he didn't have the common leisure to check as he was already moving with the sheer momentum of the swing of the gun, using it to propel him forward toward the female smoothskin cowering and holding her head protectively behind a huge slab of concrete jutting upward.
Why do I even bother telling her shit? he thought, pissed off and now bleeding, as he ducked and dodged the onslaught of flying, ill-aimed bullets that screeched past his head and limbs, and used the concrete rubble and other debris as cover.
His balance was suddenly thrown when the ruined asphalt beneath his booted feet lurched violently after a frag grenade was ptched at him from behind one of the dozen long-abandoned, rust-devoured vehicles and detonated somewhere a few hundred feet away.
He stumbled to the side when he lost his footing, his wounded shoulder protesting heatedly when he reacted out of reflex and caught himself with the wrong hand. The pain that shot up and down his arm only made him angrier and for one instance in time, he seriously considered grabbing her by the scruff of that dirty Vault 101 jacket and just throwing her at the Raiders. Would serve her right for ignoring his hand signals and getting arrogant with that little SMG she'd acquired two days prior.
When he was close enough, he saw that she was being safeguarded by the radiation-burnt remnants of what looked like a blue Corvega. He spat out her name and the second she looked up, those eyes so full of green and pure terror, he chucked his shotgun at her. She scrambled quickly, her arms snapping out and catching it before clutching it protectively to her chest.
He slammed the gloved hand of his uninjured arm down on the hood and vaulted himself across the width of the vehicle, landing heavily next to her behind the shield of concrete.
"C-Charon, I'm so sorry!" she instantly started, shuffling closer to him as he crouched down, grimacing when a bullet ricocheted off the side of the slab and caused tiny pieces of concrete to pelt the side of his face. "I didn't know what I was doing! God, I'm so, so sorry! What do we do? I promise I'll listen this time! I won't ever -"
He turned his head to her then. And whatever she saw in his eyes must have been more terrifying than what was going on around them because she snapped her mouth closed mid-sentence and shied away from him, seeming to clutch his shotgun now out of self-protection.
Turning away again, he snatched a frag grenade from his belt, the pin separating with a sharp 'schink' , and he stood quickly before hurling it, the intent of his target not being the cluster of Raiders zig-zagging around the toppled and overturned vehicles, but the City Liner bus that sat off to the side and in their path.
He went to his knees when the grenade activated, rocking the foundation of what was left of the destroyed overpass, and he simultaneously grabbed the back of Miss Vault 101's neck - intentionally more aggressively than necessary - and forced her face down before shielding her with the solid weight and breadth of his larger body.
He hid his face against the rough cloth of the Vault jacket as the Domino Effect was triggered. The force of the bus exploding caught the surrounding vehicles, causing their own gas tanks to react.
A strangled cry of panic escaped smoothskin as the overpass violently shuddered and groaned ominously beneath their knees in the wake of the igniting cars. He subconsciously drew her tighter against him, the conditioning of his contract - to protect and preserve the life of the current employer - seizing him.
But the overpass held strong as the interval between exploding gas tanks slowed and eventually ceased, the air replaced by the much quieter sound of crackling and sizzling flames as they lazily roasted the steel carcasses.
Grunting, the pain in his shoulder pulsing, he reached under the quivering and whimpering smoothskin and grabbed his shotgun, forcibly yanking it from her subconscious vice grip before getting to his feet.
Smoothly and casually reloading the single-barreled weapon, he pivoted himself around the concrete slab and began surveying the area for any survivors.
But he already knew that there weren't.
He just needed to put some space between him and the half-cocked, dangerously reckless girl who happened to also possess his fucking contract.
He needed time to breathe or he was going to be sorely put to not instill the fear of Satan himself in his fresh-skinned employer.