Second chapter. Wen't over this a couple times, so sorry if there are still some grammatical errors. If you review, and spotted some, let me know. Also, constructive criticism is always appreciated, especially when I go out on a limb like this. Kinda swimming in open waters with this story.
As always, enjoy!
edit: hotrockcandy beta'd this chapter for me, reads much smoother now! :)
It took awhile, he could see from up in the warm humid confines of his office. He could see them hoist her up under her limbs. The limp girl flopping in both the ghouls grasp several times.
He stood, body poised right in front of the dome window, watching their rough hands slip on her slick flesh. They struggled to get her through the now unlocked door and up the stairs that would eventually land them here, where he was.
His comrades sat where they'd been since he'd woken; sitting in chairs pulled up to his wide birthed desk, playing cards, smoking cigarettes and discussing what happened while he'd slept along with future plans for the night.
Right now they fell silent with just a glance from him, now exchanging cards with little chatter as he stood, watching the ghouls below dragging the smoothskin through the door and up the stairs. She didn't take too kindly to their persistent mistreatment and proved them both that she wasn't like every other girl they got in here. She had a good right hook on her too, he'd give her that.
With the dark red light of the common room, coupled with the distortion of the domes glass he could tell she was attractive. But, even though she was pretty - gorgeous even for a woman of the wastes - he had one rule, one that...most of the time no one broke: No smoothskin came in Abyss without his approval.
Those guards had taken a badly weighted chance by ignoring protocol.
If they were to ever rise up against the Brotherhood then they needed to stop letting in every pretty face that waltzed up the tunnel. Who knew when - not if - but when the hoods would send in a spy.
Cerberus stood still, even though minutes had passed since the ghouls and the girl had vanished from view.
He had gotten little sleep. Woken hours before he normally would just to escape the unpleasantness that was slowly becoming a regular nuisance. Normally, he never dreamt, even when he was at his most miserable or happiest. Yet now he found himself sinking into disbarring nightmares every time he managed to get an air of sleep.
He motioned with a hand clasped behind his back to the men at his desk. They picked up their conversations again, throwing caps and bullets into a pile between them all.
Cerberus kept at the window, watching a few armored ghouls walk to the vents for a smoke break. He still had yet to figure out which guards it were that let the smoothskin inside, but he would find out soon enough...still though, the thought irked him and he felt a foul mood coming on - not that he was considered a cheerful ghoul anyways.
He stood still a moment longer, savoring the light feeling of just his leather pants and under shirt. Before he left his office he'd need to don the rest of his leather armor, but for now he could enjoy the tickle of the air along his arms and through his shirt. It was all about the little things, the small pleasures that got a man by; specifically that got a ghoul by.
There had been something about the smoothskin, something familiar.
As soon as he thought about the wench he pushed her away. They were all the same, always would be and the last thing he needed to do was be rapt by one again. All he really needed was his abhorrence for the rest of humanity, a rage that almost every single ghoul in Abyss shared.
He smirked, surveying the crowd of ghouls that flooded the common room. It was the normal time that many left the bars for their upcoming shift, or flocked to the bar as their shift ended.
His fingers itched for his own gun, watching as the ghouls walked along with their meticulously cared for weapons, all shrouded in the red glow.
Happiness was a warm gun, particularly your gun.
He let everyone know it was all they needed: a plan, hate and their gun. The rest was just a bonus.
His door opened, breaking his train of thought, but he didn't move yet. Regardless of whether he admitted it or not - which he wouldn't - he was intrigued by the smoothskin...but he wouldn't turn from his observation too quickly. He didn't want anyone getting a whiff of his curiosity.
Staring down, but not truly looking, he heard footsteps bound closer. The footfalls he knew, so it was anything but a surprised when the familiar dark ghoul came into his peripherals.
Gwyn came up to his side, looking at him and to the ghouls crowded down below. His right-hand paused briefly before looking back up at him.
"She's here; still unconscious. Where do you want them to put her?" Gwyn's voice was always even and to the point, but Cerberus could hear a little waver at the end of his words.
"Just put her on the floor..." he honestly didn't care, as long as they didn't contaminate his bed with her.
Gwyb nodded his head once and then fell out of sight. Cerberus turned to the side, but gave the window a last lingering look as Gwyn told the ghouls to drop her. A soft thud told him they had done just that, and it was then that Cerberus tore himself from his window to look back at the scene his office had become.
"Hey, the smoothskin bought one of Aser's nudey mags." A ghoul spoke, a hint of amusement in his voice.
"Didn't think girls liked those..", another voice.
No one was betting on cards anymore, the small heap of caps, bullets and bobby pins completely ignored and forgotten. It was uncharacteristic of them to just leave their game like that.
"Only the weird ones, which are also the best ones," another voice that ended in a crusty chuckle.
Suddenly the scene of all his men surrounding the lump of smoothskin, looking down with cigarettes near falling from their lips and staring from her to the dirty magazine gripped in a ghoul's hands pissed him off.
"What the fuck do you all think this is? A pony show?" Most of the ghouls got his reference; almost half of the population were pre-war ghouls. They looked up immediately and backed up from the girl, making a way for him as Cerberus stepped forward. No one wanted to fuck with him, even if he wasn't the heartless leader many thought he was.
The girl had been laid on her back, arms close to her sides and legs only partially bent. Her hair; however, was splayed every which way, over her face, out along the floor, haloing her head and stuck in her clothes. She was a mess and he almost swore he could smell the dirt clinging to her. If he let her stay; his first order would be for her to bathe...immediately.
He gave her a quick once over, starting with the notion that it was just to judge her level of threat, but he stopped at her bare thigh...
Something...was not right...with that thigh...
Suddenly a surreal feeling encompassed him, as if the structure of his surroundings weren't so sound anymore...and it was all because of two sloppy crescent shaped scars. He'd given Harriet scars like that when they'd first...
His mind trailed off...back to a very hot…filthy trailer where he'd given into her. He could remember it like it was the other day. How her exposed legs felt in his hands when he squeezed her flesh; the moment when he plunged inside her, squeezing her thighs so hard his nails dug into the skin just from the sheer tightness of her.
That was it.
He couldn't hide the look of bemusement from his face. He remembered how she dotingly wiped the blood from her skin, even coaxed the little wounds to scar up just so he could leave a mark on her. It sounded fucked up when he thought about it, but that was just how she was...and he'd be a liar if he said it didn't make him love her then.
Quickly he planted a sneer on his face, not looking at the others around him. He knew they noticed something was off.
He reassured himself the scar could just be coincidence. He ignored them, if nothing else then to just get through until he could be alone...away from the involuntary critical eyes of his men.
"Move her hair out of her face." His voice was thick, but he managed to remove anything evident from his tone.
As far as everyone knew he'd never interacted with smoothskins unless he had to, not even just for trivial sexual release, and it needed to stay that way.
One of the ghouls who'd brought her in, a clumsy but enthusiastic younger ghoul named Eugene, leaned down and pulled some of the knotted strands from her face. The ghoul tried not to touch her, maybe even sensing Cerberus' affinity for the girl; Eugene was peculiar like that, knowing by just the smallest traces of body language what was going on.
Cerberus stood where he was, boots planted to secure his stance if the worst should show itself...and sure enough it did.
It was her.
Not a day older, maybe more unbreakable and mature looking but besides that...the same as he'd last seen her. It was careless of him to have thought he had seen the last of her.
When he'd left, he had plans of going as far away west as he could, but never made it far, and it looked like she hadn't made it that far either.
It took him a while to notice the awaiting silence that had filled the room. Gwyn was looking at him with pointed suspicion, where as the rest of the ghouls watched in what looked like puzzlement, glancing from the smoothskin to their leader. Had he let his facade drop that much? He lifted his mouth up, feeling how far the corners of his mouth had sunk.
Eugene still knelt down by her, looking up at him, probably the only mild mannered one that wasn't second guessing him just by the look on his face.
Quickly Cerberus leveled his shoulders, displacing an audible sound of tension from between the joints, as he stood to his full height. He stared at the seven ghouls before him, his eyes now deadpanned.
"Everyone is excused; the meeting can start again at nine. Make sure you all bring the maps, and tell Cora to check on the hounds..." He gestured with a tilt of his head to Gwyn.
When everyone just exchanged glances, Cerberus hunched his head down, shoulders broad as he emitted a low growl.
"Now."
They all took a step back, paused and turned to the door, filing out one at a time.
Gwyn was the last.
The dark ghoul turned, sparing Cerberus a glance. They locked eyes, a sort of cautious understanding passing between them. Gwyn had always been his second in command; an ex-slave like himself that'd been with him from the start, one that got things done and did it with a certain pitiless intellect. If Cerberus died, Gwyn would be the perfect one to finish righting the wrongs done to all of them. So Gwyn gave Cerberus a nod, stealing one last look to the crumpled smoothskin on the floor before disappearing behind the closing door.
When the door sealed, the red light flickering on above its frame, Cerberus was left alone. Besides Harriet on the floor he was all that remained. The clock read six oh'two; plenty of time to wait for her to awaken.
Just looking at her made some old breathless feeling catch in his throat, especially when he noticed the absence of one finger on her hand.
He opted to look elsewhere.
Already he felt bad, and she wasn't even awake yet. Already he was beginning to regret discharging everyone so he could be left alone with her.
Maybe he should move her to his cot. If she woke up on the floor, what would she think? Well, either way her mood wouldn't be joyful, but he realized that waking up on a bed as opposed to the cold floor was probably better.
When he came to agreement he was still left with how to move her. If she found out he'd touched her while she was asleep, how would she react? Probably not well...They hadn't parted on good terms; hateful ones in fact. The last thing she'd want would be his hands on any part of her. He could on the other hand, lie and tell her that Eugene and his partner Carter were the ones to do it, but they already had too many lies marking their history and to add new ones, however small, made him feel perverted.
So he circled her, much like a hawk over a dead carcass, staking out the most yeiling corner of skin.
She was out cold.
He stepped with his feet to the side, never turning away from her, examining every little thing that had changed. Though the more he looked, the more he felt like he was sitting down in that swivel chair all those years ago, panting and out of breath from what he'd witnessed. She'd told him it wasn't what it'd looked liked...wasn't what he'd thought.
He stopped, standing just a foot from the right side of her body, the side that was twisted away from him.
The memory came back like a punch to the face.
He was right back there, watching her dirty tear stained face, hoping she was being truthful but knowing that it was her word against a dead man's.
If he closed his eyes he could still smell the iron tang of spilled blood. He had killed that man, the trader, the one that was between her legs when he'd found them. She'd told him she hadn't wanted it, that he'd caught her off guard...but he'd never known her to be one to get caught so easily, especially by some skinny trader that already had a habit of hanging around her too often.
Sometimes the looks on her face, when he himself settled between her legs, were up for grabs. She could either be in the throes of ecstasy or distressing pain, they looked the same. So when she'd begged him to trust her; ask himself if he truly thought she'd do something like that to him...his mind said yes. Why not? It was too good to be true to have her want only him, sooner or later, she had to have craved flesh as smooth as hers right?
It wasn't like he could ask the trader, even if he had been alive, the bastard would have lied as much as she.
He had told her he believed her then, but nothing had been the same. He hadn't known how violated women acted, so her reluctance over his advances bemused him...frustrated him. She'd awakened a primal urgency inside him, one that she'd started denying him after that incident, and for once the slaughter of humans didn't release the tension. She'd programmed him to only heal by her will alone. He'd come to depend on her for what little sanity he had.
The sickness after that had been the worst of it; the vomiting and the fever, how helpless he'd felt to protect her. He couldn't have even kept the man who'd caused it away, let alone the child that had started growing inside her.
He'd left her when she'd started to show, after her belly had swollen past her armors capacity.
One night, he just left her, still half asleep in Rivet City. At the time he'd felt nothing but anger, and relief after he'd left the creaking ship...and since now...
Since now...now that he was standing over her, actually seeing that she was alive and alone, made his heart ache. It was the same ache he felt when he had convinced himself she didn't love him anymore. He wasn't anyone that deserved it; her love, and he definitely didn't deserve it now...yet she'd given it to him then and he'd gotten soft; let his guard down.
He was a ghoul, a man, and as much as he didn't want to admit it he loved her...maybe even more than she loved him.
But that afternoon all those years ago, when he saw her mouth parted and eyes half closed underneath that man, something in him died again; the part that only had eyes for her.
So he stood still, stiff as any living breathing thing could while the worst of their shared memories resurfaced. He relived that time: his shame, guilt, anger...and heartache. All the while she lay on the floor, breath moving her chest up and down in steady motions.
She looked beautiful just as he remembered...
...and it was then that Cerberus felt like Charon again.
Things started to focus only after she'd regained consciousness for a minute or so. Her eyes still hadn't opened, almost unable to with the pulsing inside her skull.
She'd been choked unconscious before, and it was the same thing every time she awoke from such an assault. The feeling was akin to a rush of water filling her head, except with her understanding of medicine it was more than likely just leftover pressure from when the ghoul had released her after she'd passed out; when all the oxygen refreshed her starving brain at once.
Red pulsed in front of her tight eyes. Wherever she was, the room was brighter than the sheen of the common room. Instead of seeing safe blackness when her eyes were closed she saw a growing intensity of red. Thoughts poured in, recent memories of what exactly happened; details that explained to her where she was, even before she opened her eyes. It was a room she was in, more probable in that it was the large black figure's room.
Cerberus...
Opening her eyes had been more tasking than she thought, the light and the weakness of her every muscle didn't help.
When that slit of first bright vision reflected off her iris immediately she shut it out...back to the red darkness behind her lids. Her head started to swim, so she evened out the feeling with the very real feel of her fingers curling around coarse fabric. Fabric...
She turned her head, the redness darkening and it was then she shot her eyes open.
It was a wall.
She stared at a cobalt metal wall. The border that sectioned around the mid level of the wall was only a foot above where she was staring. She was on something. Her fingers ran against the scratchy material under her. The fibers tickled the backs of her knees and rubbed along her arms. It had to have been a bed.
Water pooled against the creases of her eye lids, trying to dampen the eyes she had yet to shut ever since opening them. Still wide, and unblinking, she turned her gaze around, seeing a ceiling above her. The metal above her was low, not low enough to touch at her short reach but low enough for a larger person to. What had probably once been an untarnished surface was now littered with hundreds of tally marks; all picked into the metal with some blunt thin object. There were hundreds...maybe close to a thousand of them, trailing up from a ways back to past where her eyes could reach without craning her neck.
"Kills.."
When the word came out it sounded like nothing; a croak...a cough. Her throat retaliated from the air and vibration it took to attempt the syllable. The tight pain reminded her of how she ended up in this bed, and that lead to the understandable emotion of anger. It hadn't been the worst way she'd ever been treated in her life, many others stacked higher on that list, but it didn't mean she passed things like this off. She still had qualms over a ghoul putting her in a head lock.
She rolled her shoulder, trying to find the bruise she knew the butt of the ghoul's gun had caused, but she couldn't feel it with the pain building around her neck. One pain for another pain...
A swooping click; the sound of a gun reloading echoed in the room to her right. She turned sharply, just as the sound stopped ringing in her ears.
There was a desk, long even at this angle, and the large imposing back of a ghoul. Considering the state of every other person in this place, he was rather underdressed. The patchy skin and muscle showed its shape even under the thin black shirt. The ghoul was hunched, head hung low under his shoulders. Under the legs of his chair she could see the hilt of a weapon barely grazing the floor. His shoulders jarred up and down, an elbow coming into view when he started moving something in front of him.
The gesture was familiar, ominous even, and for the briefest of moments it felt like she was home. The feeling wasn't as pleasant as she'd expected it to be, but that didn't stop her from losing herself in it. Languidly she closed her eyes, remembering the hurt, but most of all the tormenting affection she shared with...
Cerberus was staring at her when she opened her eyes, and for the first few seconds Cerberus was still there. Then it was Charon.
She saw Charon, staring at her from his side, still hunched with the same shotgun resting between his legs. Out of all the things she knew she ought to be feeling; the first was to wonder why they were alone. Cards were set down, hands of un-played pairs scattered down the desk with a pile of goodies in between. Ashtrays overflew with cigarette butts and half smoked rolls. There had been a group of ghouls here at one point…and now it was just them.
Whatever she hoped to have felt when she found him, she wasn't feeling it now - in fact she had almost an absence of emotion as she looked at the withheld expression on his face. If anyone could make her feel worthless and small it would have been Charon, and kudos for him doing just that right now. It was as if he never left that day, and they were back at square one.
The staring continued, her eyes drying and itching the more she refused to blink, he had yet to...so she wouldn't either.
"How are you feeling?"
Honestly, it wasn't the last thing she expected him to say, but that didn't mean she was ready for him to say it.
Her throat felt full, as if she had something stuck right where she brought her voice from. Even if she could have answered him she wouldn't know exactly what to say. It had been almost eight years and after all this time she hadn't thought about what she wanted to say to him...just knew she wanted the chance to.
So she blinked a slow answering blink that he nodded at.
When she opened her eyes again he was pushing out of his chair. The large shotgun was set on the desk delicately, much like a lover. His back turned to her, walking away down the end of the desk. She took the opportunity to sit up, quick and accurately, pressing her back to the wall. Her legs crossed, hands clasped in her lap to keep her skirt down.
She fixated her gaze back to him as he turned with a bottle of dirty water in one massive hand.
For a moment she was daunted, as he stepped closer to her, water sloshing around in the half full bottle...then he paused at the edge of the desk. With eyes locked on hers, mouth straight and brow rutted.
He set the bottle on the edge of his desk.
The gesture was clear. If she wanted the hydration she needed to get up and get it herself.
So she did.
With a hard stare, eyes never breaking their contact with his, she rose. Slow and careful, she walked towards him, the man she'd spent the past eight years wanting and hating, and the last three trying to find. Each step, she waited for some emotion to cross his face, hoping the closer she got the more he'd be unable to keep the expression concealed.
No luck.
The water was in her hand, and she stood not a foot away from him...still nothing.
The only thing telling her he was even alive was the heat radiating off of him, besides that he could have been a statue for all she knew. The whole scenario made her lips curl, resentment threading out into the fingers grasping the bottle. The plastic crunched under the pressure of her fist, knuckles fading into a bloodless white.
Then she was being dragged; rough hands on her arms, water bottle falling and body being throw on the cluttered desk.
She screamed, shocked, but the sound only made it half way out before a hot almost-forgotten mouth covered hers. In half a second his lips were all over her face, plucking against her lips and running rough caresses against her chin and cheeks. Her eyes stared ahead, face almost paralyzed in the conflict of what to do. Pressed down on Charon's desk, in the ghoul city he lead, the water bottle still rolling on the floor as he attacked her just like Tumble Jack had.
Was this a test? - a lesson from all those years ago when he'd stopped looking at her as a lover and more as an outlet for his frustration?
A sloppy bite against the side of her mouth took her from her thoughts and put her back in the present. Regardless of what this was she wouldn't let him give it to her that easily. Even though she didn't know exactly what she had wanted when she finally found him, this certainly wasn't it.
His grip was loose on her shoulders, paying more attention to what he was doing to her mouth; trying his hardest to push his tongue between her lips. When one of his hands came up to grab her cheek, leaving her shoulder free, she slugged him right across the face. Thank god for Boxing Times.
His mouth flew from hers, head turning with a sick snap. He couldn't have forgotten how hard she hit, and if he did then that was his goddamn fault for acting on impulse.
"Fucking animal!"
She sat upright, as soon as he'd stumbled off to the side, bracing along the desk. She lifted a leg, thrusting him back with a foot in his chest. Her lips stung, wet and cracked from his abuse.
He stumbled back but hadn't moved since, just hunched over, blown back by her attack with his head hung low. The black shirt rippled against the divots along his chest and shoulders as he inhaled sharply. Finally his head turned, further away from her.
"What…are you doing here? – why come all this way west?" Despite the way he looked, he sounded as if he hadn't just been pushed off her for breaking the skin of her lips.
"What the hell!...what? - you gonna fucking ask me that after you just tipped the bucket?" She sneered, lapping off the blood from her upper lip with a cold demeanor.
Quickly she slid off the desk, back stepping to the fallen water bottle. Without taking her eyes off his avoiding gaze she plucked up the bottle and un-caped it with an unappealing fizz. Water shouldn't make that noise...ever.
"I should be asking you what you're doing here, or what that little welcome-mat downstairs was all about? Or what ever the fuck this was!" She yelled, pointing the water bottle to her face with an air of immature cruelty even she regretted. "Couldn't just approach me like a fucking adult? – and then I fucking wake up, and…what the…hell!"
He growled, even before she'd stopped talking, and leapt from the desk after her. He was always quick for his size, she couldn't forget that...but maybe she had after all these years. She shifted, expecting for him to slide past her as he went to grapple her.
He hit her dead on.
Never had Charon smacked her, or attacked her...so truthfully she didn't expect him to do any of those things either...but a seconds worth of anticipation didn't help her to brace against the hard slap. It didn't feel like he held back, not when her ass was banging down on the floor and her hearing was buzzing where his palm had pushed the air into her middle ear.
All of the things she'd been thinking about before she saw him went out her mind as soon as she hit the floor; nothing but resentment, bad memories, and most of all the pain burning up along the right side of her face. He'd never hit her before...never, and now she stood like some beaten worthless bitch on the fucking floor. He was close, looking down at her with one fist curled and the other poised.
He stood like that for awhile, ready to beat her, but he didn't move. So she scooted back, knees lifting to her chest as she gave herself a safe distance away. The pain wasn't as bad as the feeling of weakness; that just a slap from him could knock her down. All those time she thought she was equal to him, maybe not in strength but in evened out attributes, were X'ed out.
Now she sat, palms down by her and knees held up like some meek little squirrel. She felt sick with herself, him and all the nausea of the past. She wanted to run, bolt and never look back. Just forget about him and all the things he ever did to her; good and bad.
It was one wrong move after the next.
What would he end up doing next? - taking her on the floor, beating her skull till it went soft, or could he just mutter an apology and start over from the beginning? He'd made one mistake after the next; kissing her and then hitting her.
He'd given himself a run down after he'd moved her, after his hands itched from the feel of her skin.
Immediately he'd been flooded with all the pent up hormones he'd ignored all these years. Never once had he taken anyone, not a ghoul and not another smoothskin. So he just forgot he had a dick. It was something he'd done before he met her...and after the first year it hadn't been an issue. But he'd touched her, and it all came back. He felt the weight of her body against him and something just kept building, growing and threatening.
Maybe slapping her had been another convoluted way of touching her.
She'd pushed him away when he'd kissed her, and if she hadn't he would have fucked her right there on his desk, no thoughts or concerns. He would have just ripped off whatever was in his way and reminded himself of what it felt like to be with her. None of the reasons for why not that he'd given himself as she slept help him any. As soon as he'd found she was awake any formal thoughts of catching up had faded, replaced with a running plan to get her close to him. Close enough so he could grab her and do just what he shouldn't have.
But he'd hit her, struck her after being told off for jumping her like she was some Abyss whore. Why couldn't he have just said, "hello, it's good to see you again" followed by an extensive apology for all the fuck ups he'd made.
She was looking up at him, with a look he'd seen in the faces of women he'd killed, but never on her. Perhaps, walking out on her when she'd needed him most wasn't what broke her image of him. Maybe before he hit her, he'd had a chance to make it up to her, even after he busted her lips with his. Now though, as he stood over her, fist still in the air, any hope of that was gone.
Quickly he lowered his curled hand. She flinched seeing the action and it finally made his body churn like his mind had been.
He was going to be sick..
Bile rose in his throat, threatening to spill. He locked his jaw and swallowed the noxious liquid, burning back down his throat.
"You still think I wanted Jack...don't you. After all this fucking time Charon." She spat out his name and the bile rose back up, "...are you really that fucking insecure..." It hadn't been a question, and he understood.
"No." It was a lie, but he wasn't about to agree with her. She knew he wouldn't admit it anyways. Things may have changed with them, between them, and around them but in the end they were still the same as they'd always been. She was still optimistic and brutal while he was...still just brutal.
Commotion sounded meters away, through steel walls; reverberating under their feet and over their heads. It wasn't time yet, was it? He cocked his head up. The clock read eight forty nine. They were early and getting closer. A mild wave of panic settled down as Charon looked back at her; fallen but accusing.
"Get up."
She did, to his part surprise as multiple footfalls paused behind his door. They wouldn't come in without his approval, even if the door had been unlocked. They both exchanged sour glances, hers almost worse than his as she side-stepped around him to take a seat at the far end of the desk. There would be no doubt to anyone that she was purposefully avoiding him by sitting that far away, but he didn't have time for this right now. She'd managed to end up in Abyss at the worst time. She always knew how to cause a stir, but… so did he.
Charon felt her eyes follow him as he slammed a palm on the red button, turning the light above the door green.
"It's open.", he spoke over the constant dings and creaks of the Vault just as he was saddling up behind his desk. Out the corner of his eyes he could see Harriet staring at him, as if he wasn't Charon anymore to her but Cerberus. Malice hung in her own bright eyes as the crowd of ghouls stepped inside. For now, he would gladly be Cerberus, if anything but to escape his association with her for just the moment.
All eyes turned to her; with her elbows on the table, arms clasped in her hands with her head turned off to the wall, hiding the red welt along her face. She was the picture perfect example of calm boredom. It was as if she wasn't milking a growing black eye, or a hurt heart.
Suddenly he felt sick again, the unfamiliar nausea returning just as Gwyn stepped forward from behind two ghouls.
Gwyn only gave Harriet a two second glance before unrolling wrinkled floor plans and area maps along the desk. Two more ghouls dropped countless other much more ruined looking maps next to the others. One tumbled towards the ground before Cerberus grabbed it, shook it so it unrolled with one hand. It was a useless map, one of a repair store about two miles from where they assumed the hoods armory was.
"Put this one somewhere close by, it's not important for now..."
A ghoul, Apep, grabbed the map from his hand and rushed out the door; tasked and ready to finish it.
Gwyn stood across from Cerberus, expression serious as ever.
"One of those traders from last month, that one with the dead eye, sold this one to Aser. Old pre-war bunker from the fifties, not far, about twelve miles...south east from here." Gwyn unraveled a blue floor plan, running a skinny finger around a highlighted square as the rest of them took a seat at the desk, though they all avoided the chair by Harriet who was still looking off along the wall, counting every hairline fracture no doubt. Cerberus looked away from her the moment he realized he was staring. Gwyn had paused, finger still on the map. He looked at the girl as well before turning his glance back up to Cerberus.
"It may be the right place to harbor some more weapons, if it hasn't been looted already."
Harriet's head turned quickly, the motion catching most of the ghoul's attentions, including Cerberus'. Her eyes were wider, white haloing each iris. Something had procured her interest and he wondered for a second whether he should ask or just assume. The bunker, he thought...she knew something about it.
"Care to share?" Cerberus stared at her, and for a second her face betrayed everything they were to each other, but it faded into a cold facade. If he concentrated, he could just make out the purpling under her left eye.
Her nose twitched and he knew then she was about to lie. "No." Her voice seethed and he found the tone much more annoying than he thought he would. Gwyn was already eyeing the both of them, and her wavering facade was loosening the more she glared at him.
At that moment the door opened, screeching like it did on occasion. Cora came in, eyes bee-lining on Harriet. The half-ghoul woman's lips curled; an amused look before standing straight shouldered about five feet from his desk. She was right on time. The clock read nine o'clock, never was she one too come late or too early, not like the rest of them.
"Gwyn said you may want me for the meeting." Her eyes never left Cerberus', even as she gestured to the dark ghoul currently hunched over the desk with a hand on the floor plans. Where as the rest of them were casual around him, Cora always maintained a stiff formal air with him, it wasn't expected but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy it.
"The hounds?" Cerberus questioned.
She looked confused for a second, something rarely seen on her. She was about to speak but he clarified, "Gwyn's going to send out a patrol to an old bunker; weapons, ammo…workable metals. Need you to spare some of your time and your hounds."
"Of course, ready when you are….as always, Cerberus." Her fading green eyes were cast past Cerberus, to the whiteness on the wall where once a picture hung.
"Gwyn. Follow Cora down to the reactor, get...Samael and anyone else who isn't on outside guard duty."
Even though Gwyn looked pleased that his proposed idea had turned into a full plan, the glimmer in his eyes burnt out the moment he mentioned Samael. Cerberus knew how much Gwyn distrusted the other ghoul, but there was no doubt the man-child could handle his weaponry.
"Why Samael?"
Cerberus looked to Gwyn, mouth thinned down in a straight line.
"I said so, thats why."
The dark ghoul stared, only breaking that hollow eye contact too walk out the door following Cora, who Cerberus witnessed give a small smile to Harriet. The smoothskin returned the gesture along with a very small wave of two fingers from her arm. When had they met? For some reason the small gesture fitted a sense of betrayal in his chest. Who else had she befriended since she'd been here?
In a matter of minutes, Cerberus had finished with the rest of them, deciding on what to do with an old fortification built up in the mountains a few kilometers back from Abyss' entrance. It was surmised that in case of a head-on attack they could utilize the area to fend it off for enough time from there while they got their shit together. They still needed more weapons and he'd agreed, but that infiltrating the hoods armory could cost them too much ammo...not to mention the possibility of casualties.
When the last ghoul disappeared around the corner, and once again the door screeched he was left alone with her; with Harriet.
He decided to keep up his front; remain Cerberus for just a little longer as he turned to her. She wasn't looking at him - was in fact fishing around in an ashtray for a half smoked roll. He could tell she was avoiding his gaze, purposefully spending more time in the ashtray than necessary. Even when he left his perch, stepping closer to her, her eyes shifted a second before roaming over the scratched surface under her elbows. One of her hands reached to her back pocket, eyes widening.
"I believe it was Eugene who took your pornography."
Her lips fell into a frown, and her nose did that little twitch it always did when she was about to lie. "I was looking for my lighter."
He had his own out so quick she made a strangled noise just as she'd pressed the half smoked roll to her lips. The old zippo burst with fire as he scratched the thumbwheel, sparking the flint and lighting the wick all as he flipped the cap open.
He watched her, face lightly illuminated by the wiggling flame. For a moment he thought she may ignore the offer; go without a smoke, but as the seconds went by she made a soft grumble before leaning forward to puff up the flame into the roll. Smoke billowed out her nose and corners of her mouth, climbing up to him and the ceiling in a slow haze.
With another flick the lighter closed and he pressed into his back pocket before taking the chair directly in front of her. She had her arms crossed again, cigarette fuming against her elbow as she looked at him from the corner of her eye. Her face wasn't in front of his and he understood why.
"What's in that bunker?"
He didn't offer her a fresh smoke as he removed a pack of cigarettes from a drawer behind him, just lit up his own with that same snap of his wrist.
She took a long slow drag, watching him through squinted eyes. "Hell if I know."
With the smoke blanketing the air between them it was getting harder to notice the purple growing under that eye. The sight that had made him nauseous before wasn't having the same effect on him anymore, partly due to the fact that he wasn't reminded of it with such visual acuity.
He'd given her many bruises, but never had they been out of anger...so seeing that one on her, how it developed wasn't stirring the possessive affections it used to. He was glad it wasn't apparent right now.
"What. Is. In. That. Bunker." He knew if he hadn't attacked her; hadn't hit her she wouldn't be holding this intel from him. She was pissed, as she should be, but it didn't make him any less agitated or short tempered. He needed to know now before he sent anyone out there. For all he knew she knew it was wired, or hell she could have been the one to booby-trap the place.
He had expected her to keep playing her game, rile him up more for a small semblance of payback, but she surprised him.
"My weapons." He stopped short of a drag on his cigarette, turning his fallen gaze to her. She was smirking, blowing out more smoke in his face. He closed his eyes, exhaled the smoke away from him with a beastly noise. She just gave him the closest thing to a laugh someone could have made with just a grunt. Her eyes glimmered, as if she'd won some sort of jackpot.
Knowing her; there could have been heaps of ammo, weapons, metals and medicine just barricaded down in that bunker. A high drug like feeling came over him. Satisfaction. She saw it and frowned.
"What happened to your finger?" He was curious, but he also felt the slight change in air between them. By the look on her face, she realized it too, but maybe wasn't on the same page with him yet on where it needed to progress. It was still unpleasant, forced and awkward, but it was changing. All he wanted was to urge it on...maybe go back to being Charon until he had to be Cerberus again. If anyone could bring it out in him it would be her.
"None of your fucking business." She became hostile, teeth clenched as she rubbed the still burning roll right out on his desk, "Look if you want to pretend like nothing happened - fine by me, but don't make polite conversation while I've got a goddamn headache cause of you. They're yours it you want them, all except the loot in the locker. The rest can go to your lost cause."
She stood, chair scraping along the metal in an ear splitting whine. The only thing that betrayed her anger now was her eyes; angry frown gone and replaced with a fake smile. "I'm going for a drink."
Cerberus sat still, watching her with his cigarette ashing by the inches between his scarred fingers. He didn't have time to feel much at her words before she turned around, that fake grin still there as she slapped him across the face.
He expected it; needed it, and when his head didn't turn at her assault she gave him another one. They stung but it was her hate that stung the worst. He told himself he didn't feel it, but it was still there despite his denial.
"...I assume I won't be strangled again..."
"You assumed right." He pushed his voice out, even with every syllable. It was the hardest thing he'd had to do since he saw her.
She left seconds after that, leaving him with his face still stinging, but not with pain as much as the lingering trace of her skin on what he had left of his.
He was left alone in his office, one that had been someone else's, and someone else's...and so on.
He wondered for the first time what else had happened in this office before he set foot in it. Had other women slapped their ex-lovers, had men hit their girls or fucked them on this desk?
It was one of the worst feelings he'd felt in a long while; worse than blisters, broken bones, and gun shot wounds...worse than any torment anyone had ever caused him. She was back, and something good had been so close to him he could taste it, and yet he gave into the worst side of himself; the side that evolved the day he left her.
So now he sat, alone, head in his hands as he finally let it all crash down; the rape, the baby, his mistakes then and his mistakes now. The weight of it all sank in, and with it the plans to make it all better.
"Harriet..."
