She pushed her blade open with her thumb, admiring the smooth movement. There were few things that gave her pleasure anymore, but the way her knife opened from its safe compact origin was always satisfying. She drummed the knife against the thick leather padding on her thigh, a twitchy idiosyncrasy she developed while growing up in Vault 101. When restlessness sank into her bones and when anger billowed through-each of her hands became impatiently idle. They stirred and fiddled, searching desperately for release of the winding energy inside.
"Fuck, it's cold," she muttered. But that didn't stop her freezing fingers from working the blade rather than be shoved into her pocket. Charon followed like a shadow, eyes on everything but her. She was wandering again. Whether for the exercise or the kills, he wasn't sure. He didn't mind the wasteland hike, the seemingly unending journey. He just didn't like how she acted when it was over, scrubbing her blood-stained hands with Abraxo, grunting and scratching at them until they were raw and chapped. Even when her own blood seeped out of the tender skin pulled taut on her knuckles, she'd scrub. Her eyes would water and she wouldn't stop until her hands cramped and shook.
She had learned not too long after being forced out of the vault that cleaning blood from gloves was harder than from her own hands. Her pip-boy glove was shredded and only wires remained wrapped around her palm.
It had only been a week since she watched her father kill himself, screaming behind a glass wall in a cloud of radiation. A week since she'd told Dr. Li to go fuck herself and her Project Purity. Did her father really think he was some kind of hero-some kind of saint that would save the world with pure water? Was her existence so insignificant in his life that he could just abandon her in the vault? And as soon as she found him could just kill himself to be rid of her completely? Somewhere inside, she knew it wasn't about her, but she wasn't ready to hear that honesty just yet.
No, she wanted to vent the all-consuming rage that had ingrained in her skin. Let it gush out like a wound. It surprised her how little her wandering helped. In the vault, she was content to run out her frustrations, beat the punching bag in the gym for a while, fuck Wally Mack. But out in the wastes, the lack of walls were equal to her lack of containment. Her rage wasn't so easily found and released. It required a more extensive search and a more extensive extraction. It would jump around from nerve to nerve, limb to limb. By the time she'd kick her leg, it would already be bundling in her fists. It infuriated her, to say the least.
Charon tried to avoid the growing tension in her gait. Her arms trembled from something other than the weather. He watched her shake her head, grunting, gripping her knife a little too tight. She popped open the scabs on her knuckles, blood starting to drip and soak her fingers as she tapped her thigh. He was waiting for her to break apart, mangle herself from carelessness. Smoothskins were so fragile and weak. And this one in particular was pleading for the wasteland to beat her, destroy her, show her her place. He wanted to shake her and scream at her, because it wasn't just her ass on the line. He was being threatened as bad as she-he was contracted as her protector after all. But she glared at his warnings, so he resorted to grumbling instead.
This gray chilly day was different, though. She was parading herself, practically waving flags to call danger to her.
"You seem upset, smoothskin," he stated with solidified syllables.
He nearly flinched when she stopped and turned to him, knife too close to his face. Her lip twitched, but no words came out. Through her goggles, her brown eyes were bloodshot and swollen. Had she been crying?
She gasped, almost letting a word slip from her throat. The wind had loosened curls of hair from her thick braid. Her dry swollen lips were bleeding where she had apparently been chewing them. She was a pathetic mess. Maybe Charon was too old and too numb to understand grief anymore, but he couldn't let go of his disgust for her in that moment. Was killing herself (and him included) the only way she would deal with her father's death? The vaultie wasn't even brave enough to do it herself. She had to go out and find a firefight instead of just taking that fucking knife of hers to her chest.
Charon stared down at her, expressing his distaste with a tense furrow of exposed muscles in his face. He would have flared his nostrils if he still had a nose. She gripped his arm tight, digging her jagged nails into the muscular cords of his tricep. She tried to break the surface.
"What is it?" he warned.
Her thoughts drifted back to the Vault. She was jogging one morning, pissed off at Paul for coming clean to Wally about her cheating on him. But she and Wally weren't exactly together when she had hooked up with Paul. They had been in their "off" period in their wildly off and on relationship. The drama was petty compared to her new life on the outside, but ending on bad terms with Wally had really screwed her over. Half the vault were his relatives.
She could have jogged in the gym, could have avoided the guards on patrol, she could have not jogged at all. But she must have wanted a fight because her feet took her down to the lower levels, knowing full well that Stevie Mack, Wally's older brother, would be down there.
She regretted her decision as soon as she saw Stevie around the corner. His eyes went dark when he caught sight of her, a sick smile on his lips. He blocked her path with his arms out.
"You think you can just fuck around on my brother and not deal with the consequences?" he asked. She rolled her eyes and tried to make her way around him. He twisted her wrist and pulled her back.
"Go away, Stevie. Leave me alone."
"That's Officer Mack, you cunt." The force with which he shoved her against the wall finally allowed fear to wake her up. Tell her that she had made a really dumb choice. A fight with Susie, Wally's sister, would have made more sense. But no, she had to go with Stevie, the sadistic fuck too high on power.
She was two years into her training as a little league coach, which was less about sports and more about fitness. But lifting weights, running, kicking a sand bag—they didn't prepare her for a real fight. Because when Stevie punched her in the stomach, she nearly vomited. She choked on nothing, gasping for air while her diaphragm was too stunned to function. With a foggy focus, she pulled his ankle hard enough to bring him down. Another mistake, because all he did was get angrier. The floor was surprisingly cold, she learned after he slammed her face into it with a smack. It caused her to bite her cheek, filling her mouth with a warm copper taste.
It must have been a bad day to confront him, because he pinned her, her arms crushed beneath her own body. He breathed deep, collecting himself and calming his thoughts. Pain. Pain and fear encompassed her as he pushed a finger into her side. One hand muffled her screams while the other searched her bones for the next pressure point. It was nauseating. The flourescent lights only made her sicker. In the blur of her tears, it reminded her of her father and the washed out lights of his clinic. Only this time he was paying attention and giving her what she deserved.
His fingers sent dull shocks to her body, channeling through her bones. Coughs and groans barely escaped the hand on her mouth. He punctuated a lesson with each press of his finger, warning her to stay away from Wally and the rest of his family. She still didn't understand why he had put so much effort into hurting her. He was particularly off that day and she was particularly fucked because of it.
She was disappointed and grateful when Stevie finally stopped and kicked her one last time before returning to patrol.
"Go wash that blood out of your mouth and keep it clean."
She knew what he meant. But she had wanted a fight, not a one-sided shitshow. It took ten minutes until her body stopped shaking uncontrollably and her breathing found a steady pace.
She eyed Charon with her hands still digging into his arm. It wouldn't be a threat on his life, just a little poke and prod to get him going. Maybe he would understand what she wanted. Just a little round of fisticuffs to set her body free. To prove it, she closed her knife and put it back in her pocket. She let her backpack fall—a sudden breeze chilling her back.
He didn't move. He kept his arms to his side as she disarmed. This little vaultie was turning to him of all people. He refused to be the outlet of her frustrations. She had been playing too loose with his contract anyway. She never had as much control as she thought.
It took three seconds to throw her down and secure her in a half-nelson, his hand pushing her face to the ground. His other arm gripped hers, nearly pulling it from the socket. He agonized her neck and shoulders, not bothering to hold back his strength. She groaned low and heavy while her body rippled. Loose dirt flew in with a sharp gasp of breath.
"Do not even try it, smoothskin. I am not your fucking therapist," he growled directly in her ear, making sure she heard it through the sputtering coughs.
She tugged her arm, broke his leverage, and scrambled from beneath him. He rose slowly and watched her remove her goggles. She looked desperate with mud smudged on her olive skin, dirt lining her teeth. Wiping her aggravated eyes did nothing to improve her appearance.
"Fuck you, Charon," she choked out.
"I'm not the one trying to get us both killed."
"I'm not trying to get us killed, asshole."
He grunted because words would have been a waste of breath for the circular conversation she was starting. The little vaultie was always pushing her limits, always trying to find a rise out of people. And she was somehow getting away with it and even getting praised as a wasteland savior. It was bullshit. Complete bullshit. This irradiated world was not that easy to live in and he was waiting for her to learn that before he had to teach her himself.
A/N: Welp, I'm going for it. My second Charon-fic, which I've already decided is much better than my first (especially considering that it was my first fanfic ever). I was going to use this for a kinkmeme fill, but now I'm not sure where it's going. Reviews, please!