Charon was beginning to think Sara would need a complete change of blood to be human again.
Most of the day had passed, and after force feeding her that first bottle of water, he'd hardly hear a thing from her. The occasions he glanced in would find Sara just like he left her - laid out on her bed in either the deepest sleep or the lightest coma imaginable. He'd check her breathing, but it'd only been a day, so he wouldn't consider contacting the doctor yet.
Charon was in the kitchen when he heard the sound. It was a gentle disturbance; a light creek and shudder he identified as her bed shifting slightly on the weak flooring that constituted a ceiling above his head.
Oh. So she was alive.
He decided it was as good a time as ever to ensure she hadn't drowned in her own vomit, and ascended the stairs. When he made his way into her room, he found her tangled in a mess of blankets rather than her previous laid-to-rest position. At some point she'd managed to lift her head long enough to dislodge her pillow and press it firmly to her face.
To confirm the pillow wasn't the cause – or going to be the cause - of accidental suffocation, he began, "Are you alright?"
There was no response at first, but then she muttered something. A sound that resembled a weak groan followed. He drew nearer so he could hear, and she shifted the pillow away. Her eyes were squinted tightly, still bloodshot and ringed with dark circles. She might have been glaring at him, or the light, or perhaps it was at life in general.
"The light." She mumbled, "Kill it." As though it were an attacker his contract detailed to protect her from.
The room was submerged in a dull darkness; the lights were off, there was no window, and the only natural light that peeked in were the thin, wispy streams between the cracks in the wall and ceiling.
"I can't." He answered, "I'm afraid it's as dark a-"
The groan she let out in response was low and pained, and sounded as though it were more harmful to her than whatever inspired it. Her pillowed retook is place over her head and her hands grasped at the edges, pressing it down over her ears. A thickly muffled voice strained through, "Fucking hell, Charon, not so damn loud."
He frowned; his tone had been perfectly mellow, quiet to match the silence that filled the house.
He rolled his eyes and fetched a Med-X; not that she deserved it, but he wasn't cruel.
-0-0-
When he returned sometime later, he found she had abandoned her efforts to fortify against the world via pillows. She was sitting up, back pressed to the headboard and her pillow-shield of choice resting in her lap. The Mutfruit was gone from the bedside table; perhaps a full blood transfusion would be avoided yet.
Though her shoulders were slumped, her skin still a pallid shade, and she looked at the pillow like she could drift back into sleep at a moment; beginning to resemble more of a human and less than a ghoul, but the jury was still out. He supposed this had something to do with why Quantums were banned before the war.
Sara glanced at him as he entered, but didn't speak until he reached her bedside, "Thanks." Her tone was still low, but no flicker of discomfort crossed her face at the sound. "For taking care of me and everything." A smile tugged at her lips softly, "You're pretty good at it, actually."
"Picked up things here and there." He answered, noncommittal. She was the first contract he'd treated for a near-fatal hangover, but she wasn't the first he'd tended to in general in his long life.
"No, really; you could totally make it as a nurse if you ever get bored of this bodyguard thing." She looked up at him, and at this proximity he could see her eyes had cleared considerably; the Med-X was having its affect. "Wadsworth is pretty good, but you have better bedside manners. And your jokes are better." She smiled, glancing down at her hands. "But really. You didn't have to do this. You could have just let me suffer all morning."
"All day." He corrected, mostly as a fact.
"Really?" She gave him a look, and apparently his expression gave her the answer. "Well, see, there you go. It's super nice of you, and I appreciate it. I know tending to the ill really wasn't in your contract."
"Keeping you alive is." He answered simply.
The look that flitted across her face was fond for a moment, soft in the way she regarded him. Why she was looking at him like he'd said something sweet didn't make sense, because that wasn't his intention when he said it. The state she was in before the Med-X certainly qualified as something at least as worrying as a Molerat sprinting in her direction.
The affectionate look held for one moment, two, and he was beginning to feel there was something downstairs he could better occupy himself with. Before he could shift out of place, she switched gears. Maybe she felt out of place, or maybe she'd somehow read something in his neutrality, but she cleared her throat.
"So," The word placed a firm barrier between that moment and this, and her following comment only reinforced it, "I still have pants, so I guess you didn't you take advantage of me?" The look she gave him was an attempt at suggestive, though it was hard to maintain with dark rings under her eyes.
He had to make a conscious effort not to roll his eyes. "I'm afraid the temptation was removed after you vomited on your collection of pre-war casual wear."
She'd just bought a few new articles from Moira, and ended up leaving them on the coffee table when the inspiration for a scavenging trip hit her.
"I…" The humor fell from her eyes, and he saw something that could have been shame take its place. "I what?"
"I have to congratulate you on your aim, though." He continued, leaning his shoulder against the wall, "You almost got the dog."
Charon had just gotten her through the door when Dogmeat rushed up to meet them, making a small sound in way of greeting. In response to her favorite companion, Sara struggled in Charon's arms, kicking her feet from under the loop of his arm – which had been there to keep her from falling, and were about to fail. She insisted on being let down, and rather than getting one of her boots to his teeth – which he suspected would happen by accident if he didn't comply – he slide her off his shoulder. She made a grand sway that may have resembled a dance if said dancer were vertically challenged, but when he reached out to catch her, she regained her balance, waving him off. "I got this, man; chill out." She confirmed her statement by turning around stiffly, greeting Dogmeat, and empting her guts directly onto the coffee table.
If only she'd aimed a little to the left; that could have made the evening at least somewhat enjoyable.
Sara's features strained like they were attempting a smirk, but apparently the effort lost out against whatever lingering sickness remained; instead she made a regretful moan, burying her face in her pillow. She remained there a second before daring a glance, the pillow still pressed to her mouth as she asked. "So… what'd you do with them?"
"The clothes?"
She hummed an affirmation.
"They were not salvageable, I assure you. I asked the robot to burn them."
Which is coincidently what he would have done with Dogmeat if her aim had been better. The mutt would have deserved it after leaving what resembled a foot on his chest the week before.
Missed opportunities.
Sara scoffed, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. "Dear mother of Dashworth; I'm never going to drink again. Really."
Sure. He'd give it a week; perhaps a few days if they encountered a particularly difficult firefight.
She stayed quiet for a long moment before dragging her palms down her face. The silence had lasted just long enough to transition into something else, and he could read what that something else was when she shifted her gaze to the corner of the room. She wouldn't quite meet his eyes, clearly making a decent effort at circumventing her trait of a perpetually open expression. The characteristic was helpful in a variety of ways, mainly when Charon couldn't find the justification or the interest to ask what she was thinking.
It didn't work even with her best of efforts. It translated with minimal effort; thinly decorated with uncertainty and a healthy dose of embarrassment - Did I say something stupid last night?
Charon realized the appropriate response was sooth her discomfort, but he didn't see how he could manage it since the answer was yes. The comments in question hadn't really bothered him, to be honest – he was mostly used to it by now. Though sometimes he wondered if she tried on purpose, there was little she could say to throw him.
Which made her sudden discomfort even more unusual; why would she be upset about saying something now? He couldn't guess what she'd be holding back. Though, then again, there were still a few things she did that had foggy translations, so perhaps it had something to do with that.
Charon let the silence carry on - something he was never adverse to. Clearly her discomfort only increased the longer her mental question hung. After a few moments he knew were harder for her than for him, she spoke. "I didn't say anything, like… inappropriate, did I?" She tried, struggle flitting across her expression. "As in… very inappropriate?"
Shoulder pressed to the wall where he leaned, Charon ran a brief catalogue of the night before, remembering a variety of things that could be considered such but not in her case. He landed on one in particular: He'd tried to cut her off, and her tactful and sophisticated response to his exhibiting some responsibility had been "get laid; you're too uptight."
He had dismissed it at the time. But then again… after having to physically carry her home – in the dark, with countless dangers and almost zero visibility – and having to clean up her biological assault on the coffee table, and spending an otherwise useful day feeding her water and checking her breathing… he supposed he'd earned himself the luxury of a little malice. "Are we referring to the sexual comment or something else?"
The look that flashed on her expression resembled actual horror.
The color of health that had come into her features receded back to pallid.
Really? That was a little much. It hadn't been that bad.
The reaction that followed was just as alarming. Her face began a slow decent that accelerated into an all-out crash into her pillow, and her arms assisted in pressing it in further. It followed with a muffled, "Oh. My. GOD."
Charon's confusion was showing clearly on his face now, breaking from his neutrality as he watched from her bedside.
"Oh my God." She groaned into the pillow, dulling the sound. Her voice became clearer as she pulled away, but her face was still hidden in the white fabric, pressed to her forehead like she would crawl inside it. "Fuck. Charon, I'm so sorry." Her hands clutched at the pillow, nails digging in as if it'd personally offended her. "I never meant to say anything; I never meant for it in the FIRST PLACE. It was one time, really, and I honestly blame the late night crispy squirrel bits. And really, the majority of it was about a pants festival - it was just one part, honest. I'm so sorry."
Not one ounce of that made any form of sense. At all.
Charon's perplexed expression stayed as he regarded her, not moving from his place against the wall. He tried to replay what she said in his mind, picking up words here and there and trying to match them together in different patterns to see if they would make sense then, but nothing coherent could be made of it.
His ruined brows only furrowed deeper, eyes squinting, "What?"
Sara's body was folded in half as she pinned her protective feather shield between her head and knees. "The pants festival - honestly, the whole thing was so weir-" Her words halted suddenly, and she straightened slightly, dragging the pillow down across her hair and to her mouth so she could peek over its edge. "What?"
Charon ran through a series of explanations but he felt as though he were piecing together a rifle with only ten of the components. There were great gaps that couldn't be bridged simply because he didn't have missing pieces. The silence beat out between them, and he relented to giving up and asking for more components, "I haven't the faintest understanding of anything you just said."
Sara's eyes flicked across his face, searching, and he could see her trying to piece together a rifle of her own. "But you said 'sexual comment?'"
He was still too many components short. He relented to giving her the necessary parts first, in hopes she'd return the favor. "Last night you were upset that I attempted to stop you from drinking. You said I was too tense, and recommended I 'get laid.'"
Her expression was that of someone who had stepped on a trip line and froze in fear; knowing that if they lifted their foot, they'd release the line and receive a face-full of buckshot.
Then something clicked in her face, and she looked like she'd just lifted her foot.
"Oh."
Charon waited, expected her to continue, but she didn't. She didn't offer him a single word to ease his confusion. So instead he moved first, "What were you referring to?"
Apparently, rather than accepting death, she decided to make a run for it. "Nothing. I don't know." She said quickly, her voice seemed not quite her own. "I'm still drunk. I have a headache."
Charon squinted further. "What do you mean, a 'pants festival'?"
Her voice was still tight, coming quick. The edges of her mouth turned up into a smirk with effort, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I'm incoherent, Charon; it was a really stupid joke I heard one time and I thought I'd told it to you last night." She shook her head, "It was so awful I never wanted to inflict that kind of pain on others. I'm really sorry." She waved her hand at him, shifting in the bed until she was laid on her side, her back to him. "Just leave me here to die in my well-deserved hangover."
Silence hung in the air. Charon looked at her.
It was probably credit to her open expression - the lack of guard on her features - but while she could make a most convincing argument to any person she met, she was a miserable liar.
Charon had the option, standing there feeling far more confused than when he entered, to say something more. Instead, he shifted his weight from the wall and back to his feet. He shook his head, and walk from the room.
He knew, in the most aggravating way, that the unanswered question would pester him in the back of his mind - coming up at random times, demanding that he pay attention to it, think about it - for days. But he still left it be.
Charon descended the stairs. Maybe he needed a drink.
